A rarity in piano literature, Opera Favorites for Piano Four Hands gives piano duos of intermediate and advanced skills the opportunity to recapture some of opera's best moments. Carmen, Lohengrin, and Don Giovanni are among the operas featured in these expert transcriptions. Selections include Aïda's "Triumphal March"; the Carmen "Overture"; Don Giovanni's "Serenade"; from Faust, "Love Song," "Soldiers' March," and "Waltz"; "Sailors' Chorus" and "Spinning Song" from The Flying Dutchman; Jocelyn's "Berceuse"; "Introduction to Act III" of Lohengrin; and "Sextet" from Lucia di Lammermoor. Other pieces include Nibelungen's "March"; Rigoletto's "Quartet"; from Tannhäuser, "March," "Evening Star," "Pilgrims' Chorus," and "Sketches"; "Anvil Chorus" and "Miserere" from Il Trovatore; "Magic Fire Music" from Die Walküre; Xerxes' "Largo"; and "Hunters' Chorus" from Der Freischütz.

Domestic musical arrangements of opera provide a unique window on the world of nineteenth-century amateur music-making. These arrangements flourished in especially rich variety in early nineteenth-century Vienna. This study reveals ways in which the Viennese culture of musical arrangements opened up opportunities, especially for women, for connoisseurship, education, and sociability in the home, and extended the meanings and reach of public concert life. It takes a novel stance for musicology, prioritising musical arrangements over original compositions, and female amateurs' perspectives over those of composers, and asks: what cultural, musical, and social functions did opera arrangements serve in Vienna c.1790–1830? Multivalent musical analyses explore ways Viennese arrangers tailored large-scale operatic works to the demands and values of domestic consumers. Documentary analysis, using little-studied evidence of private and semi-private music-making, investigates the agency of musical amateurs and reinstates the central importance of women's roles.

Four fantasies, each with separate violin part: Carmen Fantasy, Fantasia on Themes from Gounod's Faust, Fantasie from Mozart's The Magic Flute, and Fantasie Brillante on the March and the Romance from Rossini's Otello.

In 1700, most composers were employees of noble courts or the church. But by the nineteenth century, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Verdi, and many others functioned as freelance artists teaching, performing, and selling their compositions in the private marketplace. While some believe that Mozart's career marks a clean break between these two periods, this book tells the story of a more complex and interesting transition. F. M. Scherer first examines the political, intellectual, and economic roots of the shift from patronage to a freelance market. He describes the eighteenth-century cultural "arms race" among noble courts, the spread of private concert halls and opera houses, the increasing attendance of middle-class music lovers, and the founding of conservatories. He analyzes changing trends in how composers acquired their skills and earned their living, examining such impacts as demographic developments and new modes of transportation. The book offers insight into the diversity of composers' economic aspirations, the strategies through which they pursued success, the burgeoning music publishing industry, and the emergence of copyright protection. Scherer concludes by drawing some parallels to the economic state of music composition in our own times. Written by a leading economist with an unusually broad knowledge of music, this fascinating account is directed toward individuals intrigued by the world of classical composers as well as those interested in economic history or the role of money in art.

A classic reference--to share with a friend.