A grand and panoramic biograhical history of the giants of classical
music, The Lives and Times of Great Composers is a new, unique, and
lovingly constructed modern reference--and a beguiling read which you
will return to again and again. Interlinked yet self-contained, each chapter distills the life of one or
more composers, set against the social, political, musical, and
cultural background of the time. Read the story of Bach, the respectable
burgher, much of whose vast output was composed amidst petty turf
disputes in Luteran Leipzig; or the ugly, argumentative Beethoven,
obsessed by his laundry; or Mozart, the over-exploited infant prodigy
whose untimely death was shrouded in rumor; or the ghastly death of
Donizetti and Smetana. Read about Verdi, who composed against the
background of the Italian Risorgimento, or about the family life of the
Wagners; and Brahms, who rose from the slums of Hamburg to become a
devotee of beer and coffee in fin-de-siecle Vienna, a cultural capital
bent on destroying Mahler.
