The Concerto: A Listener's Guide (Listener's Guide Series) - Softcover

Steinberg, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195139313 ISBN 13: 9780195139310

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Michael Steinberg's 1996 volume The Symphony: A Reader's Guide received glowing reviews across America. It was hailed as "wonderfully clear...recommended warmly to music lovers on all levels" (Washington Post), "informed and thoughtful" (Chicago Tribune), and "composed by a master stylist" (San Francisco Chronicle). Seiji Ozawa wrote that "his beautiful and effortless prose speaks from the heart." Michael Tilson Thomas called The Symphony "an essential book for any concertgoer."
Now comes the companion volume--The Concerto: A Listener's Guide. In this marvelous book, Steinberg discusses over 120 works, ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1720s to John Adams in 1994. Readers will find here the heart of the standard repertory, among them Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, eighteen of Mozart's piano concertos, all the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, and major works by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Bruch, Dvora'k, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Elgar, Sibelius, Strauss, and Rachmaninoff. The book also provides luminous introductions to the achievement of twentieth-century masters such as Arnold Schoenberg, Be'la Barto'k, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Sergei Prokofiev, Aaron Copland, and Elliott Carter. Steinberg examines the work of these musical giants with unflagging enthusiasm and bright style. He is a master of capturing the expressive, dramatic, and emotional values of the music and of conveying the historical and personal context in which these wondrous works were composed. His writing blends impeccable scholarship, deeply felt love of music, and entertaining whimsy.
Here then is a superb journey through one of music's richest and most diverse forms, with Michael Steinberg along as host, guide, and the best of companions.

About this title

Review

Veteran music critic and program-notes writer Michael Steinberg offers up a sequel to his well-received collection of articles, The Symphony: a Reader's Guide. Over the years, Steinberg has written program notes for the likes of the San Francisco Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra, so this new book might be subtitled, "Pieces of Music Orchestras Paid Me to Write About." Even though the selection of pieces is far from all-inclusive, the approach to the reader is friendly and non-snobby, and very little of the book is off-putting for those who have no musical training. Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart are plentifully described and with a certain feeling for how to mix biographical incidents with musical matters to heighten a reader's interest. However, a lot of rarer composers are absent, as are some works by familiar composers, so readers might want to complement this book with another Oxford Press title, A Guide to the Concerto edited by Robert Layton, which, instead of focusing on individual works, contains essay-length overviews by such expert critics as David Brown and Michael Kennedy--whetting the appetite for hearing rarities as well as informing the reader about familiar works. Reading Steinberg, one would never agree with Glenn Gould (among other musicians), who dismissed the concerto form as artistically unsatisfying. Instead, one feels a sense of gratitude for so many good works written in the medium. --Benjamin Ivry

From the Back Cover

In this book, Michael Steinberg discusses over 120 works, ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1720s to John Adams in 1994. Readers will find here the heart of the standard repertory, among them Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, eighteen of Mozart's piano concertos, all the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, and major works by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Bruch, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Elgar, Sibelius, Strauss, and Rachmaninoff. The book also provides luminous introductions to the achievement of twentieth-century masters such as Arnold Schoenberg, Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Sergei Prokofiev, Aaron Copland, and Elliott Carter.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0195139313
• ISBN 13: 9780195139310
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 528