The lives of the great composers
In the new edition of this highly successful book, Harold Schonberg has traced the consecutive line of composers from Claudio Monteverdi to the tonalists of the 1990s through a series of fascinating biographical chapters. Music, the author contends, is a continually evolving art, and there have been no geniuses, however, great, who have not been influenced by their predecessors. The great composers are here presented as human beings who lived and related to the real world around them. Schonberg brings the reader closer to an identification with the composers he discusses and thus closer to an understanding of their music. The book consequently places more emphasis on biographical details and less upon technical analysis of the music. For this newly designed edition, Schonberg has once again extended the book's coverage with informative and clearly written descriptions of the later serialists, minimalist composers, and the new tonalists of the 1990s. Scattered throughout are many changes and additions reflecting the wide range of musicological findings of the past fifteen years. An updated bibliography has been prepared and additional illustrations provided.
Stats for nerds
1recommend
2mentions
2people
2021–2023years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Lives of the Great Composers by Harold Schoenberg
The merry adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
The Magicians Book #1 by Lev Grossman
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
- I was raised on most of these, across the 60s in a socialist household and this was never mentioned. Amazing!
They were very "great men of history" in some ways, not covert "masses define the current of history" stuff.
The industrial and technical books on steel, coal, roadmaking could be seen as socialist realistic maybe? But the ethics of the sixties was "the white hot heat of science and industry" vibe both sides of politics. British heroes with bad teeth inventing colour TV and Bakelite stovetops for the masses.
Lives of the great composers were a hoot. It was "amadeus" in kid speak. Naughty composers being naughty.
The biblical one has a really sweet expository page on "girding your loins" literally as a picture of a man in robes tucking them up into his waistline to do stuff in the water...
The ladybird book of the computer was non ironically set as a book for CS degrees, well maybe ironically.
I enjoy the post modern hipster taken on them but they're very unfair. The line artist was good. Really good.
Related
The great pianists
2 recommend · 3
Theory of Harmony
3 recommend · 8
The great animal orchestra
2 recommend · 2
The Csound Book
4 recommend · 6
Structural functions of harmony
2 recommend · 4
Player Piano
64 recommend · 161
The music of the primes
recommend · 27
