Monteverdi

by Arnold, Denis

• ISBN13: 9780198164654
• ISBN10: 0198164653
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-11-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Celebrating its 100th anniversary, this extraordinary series continues to amaze and captivate its readers with detailed insight into the lives and work of music's geniuses. Unlike other composer biographies that focus narrowly on the music, this series explores the personal history of each composer and the social context surrounding the music. In a precise, engaging, and authoritative manner, each volume combines a vivid portrait of the master musicians' inspirations, influences, life experiences, even their weaknesses, with an accessible discussion of their work-all in roughly 300 pages. Further, each volume offers superb reference material, including a detailed life and times chronology, a complete list of works, a personalia glossary highlighting the important people in the composer's life, and a select bibliography. Under the supervision of music expert and series general editor Stanley Sadie, Master Musicians will certainly proceed to delight music scholars, serious musicians, and all music lovers for another hundred years. In this volume, Donald Burrows's relates Handel's life and his music, devoting particular attention to two crucial junctures in Handel's development: his transition from a church-trained musician in Germany to a successful opera composer in London, and the gradual transformation of his theater career from opera to oratorio, some thirty years later. In the oratorio form, as Burrows demonstrates, Handel was able to combine the techniques of large-scale construction and of aria writing that he had developed in his operas with an experience of choral music that went back to his earliest training as a church organist. The result was music that succeeds to this day in capturing the imagination of a vast audience.

Author Biography

Denis Arnold was Professor of Music at Oxford University from 1975 until his death in 1986.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
Note to the 1975 edition	vi
Note to the 1990 edition	vii
Illustrations	x
Cremona	1	(6)
Mantua	7	(19)
Venice	26	(20)
The earlier madrigals	46	(23)
Madrigals with basso continuo	69	(26)
The dramatic music	95	(25)
The church music	120	(23)
Reputation and influence	143	(12)
Afterword	155	(80)
Appendices
A Calendar	166	(22)
B Catalogue of works	188	(29)
C Personalia	217	(10)
D Select bibliography	227	(8)
Index	235