Johann Sebastian Bach Volume I. This monumental study of Johann Sebastian Bach ranks among the great classics of musicology. Since its first publication in 1873-80, it has remained the basic work on Bach and the foundation of later research and study. The three-part treatment describes in chronological sequence practically everything that is known of the composer's life: his ancestry, his immediate family, his associations, his employers, and the countless occasions on which his musical genius emerged. Author Philipp Spitta accompanies this biographical material with quotations from primary sources: correspondence, family records, diaries, official documents, and more. In addition to biographical data, Spitta reviews Bach's musical production, with analyses of more than 500 pieces, covering all the important works. More than 450 musical excerpts are included in the main text, and a 43-page musical supplement illustrates longer passages. Despite the scholarly nature of this work, it also has the rare distinction of being a study that can be read with considerable enjoyment and great profit by every serious music lover, with or without a substantial background in the history of music or musical theory.

James Gibbon Huneker (1857-1921) was a distinguished American newspaper critic, an essayist, and a prolific author. His writing style is remarkable ? unrestrained, informal, full of brilliant insight ? and this style plus Huneker's wide knowledge of art and literature as well as music has kept his literacy work alive. Chopin: The Man and His Music reflects the intimate, thorough knowledge of Chopin's music that Huneker acquired while studying to be a concert pianist and his unusually keen insight into the character of the great Polish composer whose music he adored. The book is divided into two parts. The first treats Chopin's life ? his youth in Poland, his emigration to Paris, the famous George Sand episode, his sickness and death ? and comments on Chopin as a teacher and as a pianist and performer. The second part discusses the entire body of Chopin's music, piece by piece. Huneker notes his own overall impression of the individual compositions as well as the impressions of Schumann, George Sand, Chopin's biographer Frederick Niecks, many of the great pianists, and others. He directly compares differing editions of Chopin's Études, Preludes, Nocturnes, Mazurkas, Polonaises, Sonatas, and other works edited by von Bülow, Kullak, Riemann, Mikuli, and Godowsky in their detailed treatment of fingering, phrasing, pedaling, tempo indication, and so forth. Huneker's entire work is reprinted here unchanged, thoroughly edited in running footnotes by Herbert Weinstock to correct the exuberant Huneker's inaccuracies and to add information that modern musical scholarship has unearthed. Weinstock has also provided an engrossing introductory essay on Huneker, and has amplified the bibliography to include modern books and articles on Chopin. A classic in musical biography and commentary, this work is unsurpassed for sympathetic understanding and insight into Chopin's life and music. It will interest equally music students, pianists, and music lovers.

The definitive biography and critical study of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) this volume deals at length not only with with the composer's musical achievements but also with aspects of his life and workthat made him one of the most important cultural figures in eighteenth-century France. Fascinating incidents include his central position in a musical controversy that excited the enmity of Rousseau Diderot and theEncyclopedists; his friendship and collaboration with Voltaire; and his position as the author of a treatise on harmony that endured for two centuries. This critical evaluation focuses chiefly on Rameau's musical works devoting entire chapters to his operas and ballets as well as his chamber music cantatas and motets and minor works. Additional topics include his links to Lully his influence on Gluck and the nature and importance of hisacoustic and harmonic theories. Supplements include more than 300 musical examples numerous useful approaches indexes an extensive bibliography and a new introduction by the distinguished musicologist and historian PhilipGossett.

Ravel's musical achievements as well as his life and times are brilliantly recreated in this masterly biography originally published in 1975.The standard Ravel biography by the world's foremost authority â?? brilliantly detailed and documented filled with quotations from letters interviews with the composer's friends an illuminating analysis of each of his works a study of his musical esthetics and language a complete catalog of his works and a discography.Includes 48 illustrations.

Conductor composer and writer Bruno Walter (1876 1962) worked closely with Gustav Mahler as the composer's assistant and protégé. His revealing recollections of Mahler were written in 1936 marking the twenty-fifthanniversary of the composer's death. Walter first encountered Mahler more than 40 years earlier when he served as the composer's assistant conductor in Hamburg. He worked with Mahler again at the Vienna Opera and after thecomposer's death conducted the debut of the Ninth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde.A staunch supporter of Mahler's genius and defender of his dour personality Walter cites the pressures faced by a gifted artist striving forperfection. This edition of his tribute to his friend and mentor features supplemental materials that include a biographical sketch of Mahler as man and artist by Ernst Krenek the composer's son-in-law and musical heir and a newIntroduction by Erik Ryding author of Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere.Reprint of Greystone Press Inc. New York 1941 edition.