Michael Musgrave - Böcker

Michael Musgrave presents a contemporary view of Brahms 150 years after his birth, seeing him not simply as the `conservative' figure so often stressed in the past, but as one who creatively reinterpreted a wider range of historical elements than any composer of his time. Brahms absorbed his studies directly into his music-making and composition and in so doing helped to evolve not merely a personal language which was regarded as progressive and sometimes difficult by a range of contemporaries and successors, but also helped to establish an ethos of historical reference which anticipates the twentieth century.The book concentrates on the music, with Brahms's life discussed briefly in the introduction. The works are considered in four phases according to genre, with an emphasis on connection and on the development and elaboration of a unified language. The list of works includes a recent discoveries and a calendar outlines the pattern of his musical life, including relevant information concerning performances.

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) was prominent not only as a composer but as a pianist, conductor, editor, scholar, collector, and friend of many notables. He was also, in private, an articulate critic, connoisseur of other arts, and traveler. In this enlightening book, the eminent Brahms scholar Michael Musgrave presents a comprehensive and original account of the composer’s private and professional lives. Drawing on an array of documentary materials, Musgrave weaves together diverse strands to illuminate Brahms’s character and personality; his outlook as a composer; his attitudes toward other composers; his activities as pianist and conductor; his scholarly and cultural interests; his friendships with Robert and Clara Schumann and others; his social life and travel; and critical attitudes toward his music from his own time to the present.The book quotes extensively from Brahms’s own words and those of his circle. Musgrave mines the composer’s letters, reminiscences of his contemporaries, early biographies, reviews, and commentary by friends, critics, and scholars to create an unparalleled source of information about Brahms. The author sets the materials in context, identifies sources in detail, includes a glossary of information on principal individuals, and notes recent research on the composer. This engaging biographical work, with a gallery of illustrations, will appeal to general music lovers as well as to scholars with a special interest in Brahms.

Though George Grove 1820 1900 was never a professional musician, his is one of the most familiar names in music: as founder of the "Dictionary of Music and Musicians" that bears his name and first director of the Royal College of Music. This work surveys his varied activities as engineer, biblical scholar, administrator, educationalist and writer on music, and assesses the qualities that led him to play a major role in the cultural life of London in the period 1850 1900.

This second volume of Brahms studies contains twelve contributions by leading international authorities on various music. Like the preceding volume of the same title (edited by Robert Pascall), Michael Musgrave's volume aims to provide original scholarly material on different facets of a major composer still inadequately discussed in book form and employs more precise methods of analysis and more critical approaches to materials then generally available in writings on Brahms in English. Half of the volume takes the music itself as focus, though from very different vantage points. There are two studies of a single opus (the two String Quartets Op. 51 Nos, 1 and 2), discussions of the Fourth Symphony and the motet 'Warum', and a view of Brahms's harmony. The underlying historical theme emerges more openly in an account of Brahms's interest in German Renaissance music. The remaining essays give details of the state of Brahms's unpublished compositions and arrangements at his death and the problematic disposal of his possessions (including musical ones), explore his own attitude to his historical position, and outline the reception of his music in Germany and, to begin with, in England.

This second volume of Brahms studies contains twelve contributions by leading international authorities on various music. Like the preceding volume of the same title (edited by Robert Pascall), Michael Musgrave's volume aims to provide original scholarly material on different facets of a major composer still inadequately discussed in book form and employs more precise methods of analysis and more critical approaches to materials then generally available in writings on Brahms in English. Half of the volume takes the music itself as focus, though from very different vantage points. There are two studies of a single opus (the two String Quartets Op. 51 Nos, 1 and 2), discussions of the Fourth Symphony and the motet 'Warum', and a view of Brahms's harmony. The underlying historical theme emerges more openly in an account of Brahms's interest in German Renaissance music. The remaining essays give details of the state of Brahms's unpublished compositions and arrangements at his death and the problematic disposal of his possessions (including musical ones), explore his own attitude to his historical position, and outline the reception of his music in Germany and, to begin with, in England.

The German Requiem is Brahms's largest work, written for orchestra, chorus and two soloists. It made Brahms an international name, and the scope and technique of the composition brought him not only a new audience but also comparison with Bach and Beethoven. Although it fell out of favour for much of the earlier part of the twentieth century, it has found new critical support as an original and progressive work and there are many current recordings. This detailed study examines its history (especially its deep links to the past) and controversial reception, analyses its textual and musical structure, and discusses performing traditions from Brahms's time to the present, including nine recorded performances made over the last fifty years.

This Companion gives a comprehensive view of the German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-97). Twelve specially-commissioned chapters by leading scholars and musicians provide systematic coverage of the composer's life and works. Their essays represent recent research and reflect changing attitudes towards a composer whose public image has long been out-of-date. The first part of the book contains three chapters on Brahms's early life in Hamburg and on the middle and later years in Vienna. The central section considers the musical works in all genres, while the last part of the book offers personal accounts and responses from a conductor (Roger Norrington), a composer (Hugh Wood), and an editor of Brahms's original manuscripts (Robert Pascall). The volume as a whole is an important addition to Brahms scholarship and provides indispensable information for all students and enthusiasts of Brahms's music.

Though it was never designed to accommodate musical performance, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, opened in 1854, quickly established itself as the most important single location for public music-making in the United Kingdom. For almost fifty years the orchestral concerts and choral festivals provided weekly performances which set new standards and introduced new repertory unparalleled anywhere in its time. Since its spectacular destruction by fire in 1936, the once familiar patterns of music-making have been long forgotten. This is the first book to reconstruct the musical history of the Crystal Palace. In so doing, Michael Musgrave also offers a unique survey of British musical life stretching from the Victorian period to the eve of the Second World War. Fully illustrated and with valuable catalogues of performers and repertoire, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, British social history, and architecture, as well as to the general music enthusiast.

A great deal of evidence survives about how Brahms and his contemporaries performed his music. But much of this evidence - found in letters, autograph scores, treatises, publications, recordings, and more - has been hard to access, both for musicians and for scholars. This book brings the most important evidence together into one volume. It also includes discussions by leading Brahms scholars of the many issues raised by the evidence. The period spanned by the life of Brahms and the following generation saw a crucial transition in performance style. As a result, modern performance practices differ significantly from those of Brahms's time. By exploring the musical styles and habits of Brahms's era, this book will help musicians and scholars understand Brahms's music better and bring fresh ideas to present-day performance. The value of the book is greatly enhanced by the accompanying CD of historic recordings - including a performance by Brahms himself.

Robert Schumann had a difficult start as a composer. Denied any significant musical upbringing, he took a long time through indirect routes to establish himself as a major composer. Persistent illness also dogged his work. His final catastrophic mental collapse has combined with the autobiographical and secretive aspects of his music to cast for posterity a veil of ominous mystery over his entire life. Yet this is only one view. Schumann battled his personal demons and was acutely self-aware and organized. He transformed himself from a brilliant youthful fantasist in small forms into a composer of extended works in every genre. This book provides a new focus on Schumann as a practical working musician interacting with the professional world to develop his creative gifts to the full, and examines the central role of Clara Wieck Schumann in helping to bring this about.