Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the great icons of Western music. An amazing prodigy--he toured the capitals of Europe while still a child, astonishing royalty and professional musicians with his precocious skills--he wrote as an adult some of the finest music in the entire European tradition. Julian Rushton offers a concise and up-to-date biography of this musical genius, combining a well-researched life of the composer with an introduction to the works--symphonic, chamber, sacred, and theatrical--of one of the few musicians in history to have written undisputed masterpieces across every genre of his time. Rushton offers a vivid portrait of the composer, ranging from Mozart the Wunderkind--travelling with his family from Salzburg to Vienna, Paris, London, Rome, and Milan--to the mature author of such classic works as "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni", and "The Magic Flute". During the past half-century, scholars have thoroughly explored Mozart's life and music, offering new interpretations of his compositions based on their historical context and providing a factual basis for confirming or, more often, debunking fanciful accounts of the man and his work. Rushton takes full advantage of these biographical and musical studies as well as the definitive New Mozart Edition to provide an accurate account of Mozart's life and, equally important, an insightful look at the music itself, complete with musical examples. An engaging biography for general readers that will also be an informative resource for scholars, this new addition to the prestigious Master Musicians series offers an authoritative portrait of one of the defining figures of European culture.
Opera, that most extravagant of the performing arts, is infused with the contexts of power-brokering and cultural display in which it was conceived and experienced. For individual operas such contexts have shifted over time and new meanings emerged, often quite remote from those intended by the original collaborators; but tracing this ideological dimension in a work's creation and reception enables us to understand its cultural and political role more clearly - sometimes conflicting with its status as art and sometimes enhancing it. This collection is a Festschrift in honour of Julian Rushton, one of the most distinguished opera scholars of his generation and highly regarded for his innovative studies of Gluck, Mozart and Berlioz, among many others. Colleagues, associates and former students pay tribute to his work with essays highlighting the interplay between opera, art and ideology across three centuries. Three broad themes are opened up from a variety of approaches: nationalism, cosmopolitanism and national opera; opera, class and the politics of enlightenment; and opera and otherness. British opera is represented by studies of Grabu, Purcell, Dibdin, Holst, Stanford and Britten, but the collection sustains a truly European perspective rounded out with essays on French opera funding, Bizet, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Puccini, Janacek, Nielsen, Rimsky-Korsakov and Schreker. Several works receive some of their first extended discussion in English. RACHEL COWGILL is Professor of Musicology at Liverpool Hope University. DAVID COOPER is Professor of Music and Technology at the University of Leeds. CLIVE BROWN is Professor of Applied Musicology at the University of Leeds. Contributors: MARY K. HUNTER, CLIVE BROWN, PETER FRANKLIN, RALPH LOCKE, DOMINGOS DE MASCARENHAS, DAVID CHARLTON, KATHARINE ELLIS, BRYAN WHITE, PETER HOLMAN, RACHEL COWGILL, ROBERTA MONTEMORRA MARVIN, DAVID COOPER, RICHARD GREENE, J.P.E. HARPER-SCOTT, DANIEL GRIMLEY, STEPHEN MUIR, JOHN TYRRELL.
Imagine: Mozart, near death, positioned at just the point when he can reflect on the entirety of his relatively short, but amazingly productive life. Julian Rushton, an Emeritus Professor of Music and author of the New Grove Guide to Mozart and His Music, takes us to him at just that time. The former child genius discusses his upbringing as a wunderkind, his contacts with patrons and fellow musicians, his views on his own works, his method of composing, his teaching and performing, and his life, loves, and the world outside music as well.
The three Mozart/Da Ponte operas offer a inexhaustible wellspring for critical reflection, possessing a complexity and equivocation common to all great humane works. They have the potential to reflect and refract whatever locus of contemporaneity may be the starting point for enquiry. Thus, even postmodern and postmillennial concerns, far from seeming irrelevant to these operas, are instead given new perspectives by them, while the music and the dramatic situations have the multivalency to accept each refreshed palette of interpretation without loss of their essential character. These operas seem perennially new. In exploring the evergreen qualities of Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro, the authors of this book do not shun approaches that have foundations in established theory, but refract them through such problems as the tension between operatic tradition and psychological realism, the coexistence of multiple yet equal plots, and the antagonism between the tenets of tradition and the need for self-actualization. In exploring such themes, the authors not only illuminate new aspects of Mozart's operatic compositions but also probe the nature of musical analysis itself.
Berlioz's 'dramatic symphony' Roméo et Juliette is regarded by many as his finest work; it is certainly among the most original. It is played less often than his earlier symphonies, because it requires solo voices and chorus; yet at its heart is some of the most inspired orchestral music of the nineteenth century. This book summarises the complex genesis of the work before examining the music closely and always with a view to understanding its dramatic implications. The early and later critical reception is quoted and discussed and Julian Rushton concludes by suggesting a way of hearing the work which recognises the value of its mixed genre. The complete libretto is provided in both English and French.
This book is an analytical and critical study of Berlioz's unique musical style. It does not undertake to analyse all his works, but rather to separate characteristic elements and observe them in action. Berlioz's writings and those of his critics are called upon to help focus the discussion. Part I includes material on the sources of Berlioz's idiosyncrasy and a discussion of fundamental pitch elements. Part II pursues this discussion into textural, contrapuntal and orchestral features, and considers melody and rhythm. Part III deals with whole musical forms, vocal and instrumental. The book includes copious musical illustration, much of it analytical reduction, and the expressive purpose of the features analysed is fully considered. The conclusion is that Berlioz's musical language is inescapably peculiar, though not necessarily inept; features which seem inexplicable in the light of compositional theory nearly always contribute to the musical and expressive exactness of communication.
Building upon the developing picture of the importance of British music, musicians and institutions during the eighteenth century, this book investigates the themes of composition, performance (amateur and professional) and music-printing, within the wider context of social, religious and secular institutions. British music in the era from the death of Henry Purcell to the so-called 'Musical Renaissance' of the late nineteenth century was once considered barren. This view has been overturned in recent years through a better-informed historical perspective, able to recognise that all kinds of British musical institutions continued to flourish, and not only in London. The publication, performance and recording of music by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British composers, supplemented by critical source-studies and scholarly editions, shows forms of music that developed in parallel with those of Britain's near neighbours. Indigenous musicians mingled with migrant musicians from elsewhere, yet there remained strands of British musical culture that had no continental equivalent. Music, vocal and instrumental, sacred and secular, flourished continuously throughout the Stuart and Hanoverian monarchies. Composers such as Eccles, Boyce, Greene, Croft, Arne and Hayes were not wholly overshadowed by European imports such as Handel and J. C. Bach. The present volume builds on this developing picture of the importance of British music, musicians and institutions during the period. Leading musicologists investigate themes such as composition, performance (amateur and professional), and music-printing, within the wider context of social, religious and secular institutions.
Elgar's Variations for Orchestra, commonly known as the 'Enigma' Variations, marked an epoch both in his career, and in the renaissance of English music at the turn of the century. First performed in 1899 under Hans Richter, the work became his passport to national fame and international success. From the first it intrigued listeners to know why it was called 'enigma', and who were the 'friends pictured within', to whom the work is dedicated. Appearing in the centenary year of the work's composition, this book elucidates what is known, and what has been said about the work and the enigma, and directs future listeners to what matters most: the inspired qualities of the music.
This volume illuminates musical connections between Britain and the continent of Europe, and Britain and its Empire. The seldom-recognized vitality of musical theatre and other kinds of spectacle in Britain itself, and also the flourishing concert life of the period, indicates a means of defining tradition and identity within nineteenth-century British musical culture. The objective of the volume has been to add significantly to the growing literature on these topics. It benefits not only from new archival research, but also from fresh musicological approaches and interdisciplinary methods that recognize the integral role of music within a wider culture, including religious, political and social life. The essays are by scholars from the USA, Britain, and Europe, covering a wide range of experience. Topics range from the reception of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt in England, a musical response to Shakespeare, Italian opera in Dublin, exoticism, gender, black musical identities, British musicians in Canada, and uses of music in various theatrical genres and state ceremony, and in articulating the politics of the Union and Empire.
Synthesizes existing research into a chronologically based narrative. This volume on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) takes the work and the life in parallel; for the vents of Mozart's life cannot be separated from his existence as a musical creator and performer.
This volume illuminates musical connections between Britain and the continent of Europe, and Britain and its Empire. The seldom-recognized vitality of musical theatre and other kinds of spectacle in Britain itself, and also the flourishing concert life of the period, indicates a means of defining tradition and identity within nineteenth-century British musical culture. The objective of the volume has been to add significantly to the growing literature on these topics. It benefits not only from new archival research, but also from fresh musicological approaches and interdisciplinary methods that recognize the integral role of music within a wider culture, including religious, political and social life. The essays are by scholars from the USA, Britain, and Europe, covering a wide range of experience. Topics range from the reception of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt in England, a musical response to Shakespeare, Italian opera in Dublin, exoticism, gender, black musical identities, British musicians in Canada, and uses of music in various theatrical genres and state ceremony, and in articulating the politics of the Union and Empire.
The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Eighteenth-Century Writers and Writing1660-1789 features coverage of the lives and works of almost 500 notable writers based in the British Isles from the return of the British monarchy in 1660 until the French Revolution of 1789. Broad coverage of writers and texts presents a new picture of 18th-century British authorship Takes advantage of newly expanded eighteenth-century canon to include significantly more women writers and labouring-class writers than have traditionally been studied Draws on the latest scholarship to more accurately reflect the literary achievements of the long eighteenth century
Civil Rights in My Bones: More Colorful Stories from a Lawyer's Life and Work, 2005-2015 is a memoir by Julian L. McPhillips Jr. In a career stretching over forty-plus years, the Montgomery, Alabama, attorney has earned a reputation as a determined advocate for the rights of consumers, victims of police abuse, falsely accused criminal defendants, the unborn, immigrants, and the environment. A previous book, The People’s Lawyer, covered his life and career up to 2005. Civil Rights in My Bones provides additional background about his family roots in Alabama, his parents’ political activism, his education and athletic competition as a champion amateur wrestler, his religious convictions, and his wife, children, and grandchildren. But it also details many of the major cases he has handled in the past decade. These include defenses of consumers victimized by unfair compulsory arbitration clauses, victims of employment discrimination, fellow lawyers and even judges who were unfairly targeted for sanctions for reasons of race or gender, and church congregations at war within themselves over various issues. One fascinating section of the book discusses his and his wife Leslie’s leadership in establishing a new evangelical, healing-spirit Episcopal church and its struggles with the larger church hierarchy. While focused on the author’s life and work, the memoir is also a window into Alabama and Southern life, culture, and politics.
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