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Vivaldi's Virgins: A Novel
by Barbara Quick
In this enthralling new novel, Barbara Quick re-creates eighteenth-century Venice at the height of its splendor and decadence. A story of longing and intrigue, half-told truths and toxic lies, Vivaldi's Virgins unfolds through the eyes of Anna Maria dal Violin, one of the elite musicians cloistered in the foundling home where Antonio Vivaldi--known as the Red Priest of Venice--is maestro and composer. ... (more)
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Marrying Mozart
by Stephanie Cowell, Stéphanie Cowell
Amadeus meets Little Women in this irresistibly delightful historical novel by award- winning author Stephanie Cowell. The year is 1777 and the four Weber sisters, daughters of a musical family, share a crowded, artistic life in a ramshackle house. While their father scrapes by as a music copyist and their mother secretly draws up a list of prospective suitors in the kitchen, the sisters struggle with... (more)
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The Cello Suites
J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece
by Eric Siblin
“This is one of the most extraordinary, clever, beautiful, and impeccably researched books I have read in years. A fascinating story deftly told—and, for me at least, ideally read with Bach’s thirty-six moevements playing softly in the background; a recipe for literary rapture.”—Simon Winchester, author of the New York Times best-seller The Professor and the Madman “The quest was part Homer but also part George... (more)
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A History of Western Music
by Donald Jay Grout, Claude V. Palisca, J. Peter Burkholder
Renowned for its comprehensive coverage of genres and styles in Western music from antiquity to the present, A History or Western Music has secured its place—through six editions and for almost a half-century—as the definitive resource for every music student. Maintaining the authority and breadth of coverage that have always defined this classic text, J. Peter Burkholder has meticulously revised and... (more)
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The Stolen Child
by Keith Donohue
Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his double. On a summer night, Henry Day runs away from home and hides in a hollow tree. There he is taken by the changelings—an unaging tribe of wild children who live in darkness and in secret. They spirit him away, name him Aniday, and make... (more)
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Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould
by Kevin Bazzana
When Mikhail Baryshnikov defected in Toronto in 1974, he admitted that he knew only three things about Canada: It had great hockey teams, a lot of wheatfields, and Glenn Gould. In Wondrous Strange, Kevin Bazzana vividly recaptures the life of Glenn Gould, one of the most celebrated pianists of our time. Drawing on twenty years of intensive research, including unrestricted access to Gould's private papers and... (more)
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The Oxford Companion to Music
by Alison Latham
First published in 1938, The Oxford Companion to Music has been the first choice for authoritative information on all aspects of music. Now, 17 years since the last edition, the Companion is here to serve a new generation of students, teachers, performers, concert goers, record collectors, and music lovers. Completely revised and updated by a distinguished team of contributors, the Oxford Companion to Music... (more)
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Last Master, The: Passion and Anger - Volume 1 (Last Master)
by John Suchet
Triumphantly rendered, this fictionalized biography of Ludwig van Beethoven is a story as immortal as the composer's music. John Suchet journeys through Beethoven's early years as child prodigy to his later life as a musical master, haunted by personal tragedies. Based firmly on fact, this novel is sure to capture an audience of classical music devotees as well as history buffs.
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Last Master: Passion and Pain - Volume 2 (Last Master)
by John Suchet
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The Last Master, Vol 3 - Passion & Glory
by John Suchet
The concluding volume of John Suchet’s fascinating fictional biography of Ludwig van Beethoven features the great dramas of the composer’s final years, as his growing deafness becomes the source for unrelenting misery and ever more sublime music. This is the era of the Battle Symphony, the Seventh, the Diabelli Variations, the Missa Solemnis, the Ninth, and the Ode To Joy, of monumental pieces composed in solitude... (more)
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Beethoven
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Mozart
by Wolfgang Hildesheimer
Text: English, German (translation)
Franz Schubert (Composer's World)Wendy Thompson
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Franz Schubert (Composer's World)
by Wendy Thompson
Among the torch-bearers in the funeral pocession of Ludwig van Beethoven was a small, stocky young man of thirty, with curly dark hair and spectacles. For Franz Schubert, carrying the torch was simply an act of private and public homage; but we can now see that it had a far deeper significance. The torch of Beethoven's genius had been passed on to Schubert - the last great Viennese composer of the late 18th... (more)
Joseph Haydn (Composer's World) (Composer's World)Wendy Thompson
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Joseph Haydn (Composer's World) (Composer's World)
by Wendy Thompson
Part of a series of picture books for readers aged twelve and upwards illustrating the lives and times of the world's greatest composers. This book looks at the life and work of Haydn, a life that spanned a period of great political and social, as well as musical change: born when both Bach and Handel were at the height of their fame, he outlived his friend Mozart by 18 years, having seen his greatest pupil... (more)
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Claude Debussy (Composer's World Series)
by Wendy Thompson
This biography looks at the life and work of Claude Debussy. Illustrated with impressioninst and "art nouveau", the book portrays Debussy's life against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century Paris. Simple keyboard arrangements of some of Debussy's work are also included.
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Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Composer's World Series)
by Wendy Thompson
This biography looks at the life and work of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, with illustrations from his life and the Russia in which he lived. Simple keyboard arrangements of some of his work, including "Romeo and Juliet", the "1812 Overture" and the "Pathetique" symphony are included.
Ludwig Van Beethoven (Composer's World)Wendy Thompson
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Ludwig Van Beethoven (Composer's World)
by Wendy Thompson
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770. Just over two decades later, the whole of Europe watched, horrifed, as first the King, then the Queen of France went to the guillotine. The Age of Revolution had arrived. Beethoven's music reflects the violence, passion, struggle and upheaval, as well as the quest for personal and spiritual fulfilment, of those times. By placing Beethoven within his historical and social... (more)
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The Life of Schumann
by Michael Musgrave
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... (more)
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Story-lives of great composers,
by Katherine Little Bakeless
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A popular history of music (Laurel edition)
by Carter Harman
Carter Harman, a composer, music critic, author and record producer, died on January 23 at age 88, reports The New York Times. Harman wrote an opera, a ballet and several symphonic works; produced avant-garde music and was the author of a children's book about skyscrapers. He also worked as a music critic, for the Times from 1947 to 1952, for Time magazine from 1952 to 1957, and in Puerto Rico through... (more)