Messiah: The Landmark Library : The Landmark Library

Jonathan Keates

ISBN 10: 1784974005 / ISBN 13: 9781784974008

Published by Head Of Zeus, 2016

About this Item

Neu neuware, importqualität, auf lager - The story of the composition, first performances and cultural afterlife of one of the best-loved and most widely performed works in the entire history of music.

Seller Inventory # INF1000450091

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Messiah: The Landmark Library : The Landmark Library
• Publisher: Head Of Zeus
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1784974005
• ISBN 13: 9781784974008
• Binding: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 194W x 192H x 22D millimeters 194 millimeters width by 192 millimeters height by 22 millimeters depth
• Weight: 524 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In 1741, in just 24 days, the German-born, British-naturalized composer George Frideric Handel wrote an oratorio rich in tuneful arias and choruses of robust grandeur. Coolly received in London at first, after Handel's death Messiah enjoyed an extraordinary surge in popularity: it was performed at festivals across England; other composers rushed to rearrange it; it would be commercially recorded on more than 100 occasions.

Jonathan Keates tells the story of the composition and musical afterlife of Handel's masterpiece: he considers the first performances and its place in Handel's output; he looks at the oratorio itself and its relationship with spirituality in the age of the Enlightenment; and he examines why Messiah became such an essential element in the national culture of Britain.

Illustrated with beautiful images, including the original score of the work, Messiah is a richly informative and affectionate celebration of a high-point of Britain's Georgian golden age.

About the Author

Jonathan Keates is a distinguished and prize-winning biographer, novelist and travel writer, and author of the biographies Handel and Purcell. He is chairman of the Venice in Peril fund and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Hawthornden Prize for his collection of short stories, Allegro Postillions (1983). Jonathan Keates is a regular contributor to the Observer (UK) and the Times Literary Supplement (UK) among a number of other publications.