The Complete Songs of Hugo Wolf gathers together for the first time every poem Wolf set to music. Alongside the original German texts are translations by leading Lieder expert Richard Stokes, who also provides illuminating commentary. The 36 poets set by Wolf are each given their own chapter: a brief essay on the poet is followed by a note on Wolf's connection with the writer, extracts from letters that throw light on the Songs and convey his mood at the time of composition, and the texts and translations. Short biographies of all Wolf's correspondents flesh out the extraordinary life of this genius. This will be an indispensable volume for all lovers of Lieder.

With a foreword by the legendary accompanist, Gerald Moore, Eric Sams' study (Faber 1961, revised 1983) is a notable landmark in the establishment of Wolf as one of the supreme masters of German song. Comprehensively revised and enlarged in 1983, the main subject matter remains the 242 published songs that Wolf wrote for voice and piano, though the Ibsen songs for voice and orchestra are also discussed. English translations are provided and the backgrounds to the original poems by Morike, Eichendorff and Goethe, as well as the Italian and Spanish sources from which the songbooks were drawn, are fully explored. Each song is dated, its keys identified and vocal range determined. 'This is the most important book in the English language on the songs of Hugo Wolf since Ernest Newman proclaimed the composer's genius in 1907 . . . To the English-speaking student this work is a treasure to which he will find himself returning again and again: it is indispensable to those of us anxious to gain a deeper knowledge of Wolf.' Gerald Moore

Carol Kimball's comprehensive survey of art song literature has been the principal one-volume American source on the topic. Now back in print after an absence of several years this newly revised edition includes biographies and discussions of the work of

Viennese composer Hugo Wolf produced one of the most important song collections of the nineteenth century when he set to music fifty-three poems by the great German poet Eduard Mörike. Susan Youens reappraises this singular collaboration to shed new light on the sophisticated interplay between poetry and music in the songs. Wolf is customarily described as 'the Poet's Composer', someone who revered poetry and served it faithfully in his music. Yet, as Youens reveals, this cliché overlooks the rich terrain in which his songs are often at cross purposes with his chosen poetry. Although Wolf did much to draw the world's attention to the neglected Swabian poet, his musical interpretation of the poetry was also influenced by his own life, psychology and experiences. This book examines selected Mörike songs in detail, demonstrating that the poems and music each have their own distinctive stories which at times intersect but also diverge.

A groundbreaking look at one of the great song composers of the late Romantic period In the virtual cottage industry of works on fin de siècle Vienna, Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) has been somewhat neglected, perhaps because he was the master of a small genre—the late Romantic lied—and never truly made his mark in the larger forms that command greater public attention. But in the realm of song, he is among the greatest inheritors of Schubert and Schumann, one who was both a traditionalist and a modernist. When the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick disapprovingly dubbed Wolf “the Richard Wagner of the lied,” he was paying oblique homage to Wolf’s genius as a song composer in the most modern manner. In this book, Susan Youens examines five aspects of Wolf’s compositional art, each exemplifying a different synthesis of traditionalism and modernity and spanning his entire, tragically brief creative life, from his first efforts to his lapse into insanity in 1897. She discusses Wolf’s youthful imitations of Schumann, his genius for comic songs of a kind unlike any of his predecessors, his part in the ballad revival of the late nineteenth century, Wolf in relation to his contemporaries, and his pursuit of operatic fame. Youens looks as closely at the poetic texts as she does the music and includes numerous previously unpublished sketches and fragments, examples from songs now long out of print and difficult to obtain, and citations from Wolf’s vivid letters and other sources of the period.

'Anyone with the smallest interest in composition - not just concertos but novels, buildings, lives, you name it, should read this absorbing, spiky, dazzling book.' Adam Thirwell, TLS Books of the Year Harrison Birtwistle is recognised worldwide as one of the greatest of living composers, behind such works of trail-blazingly modern classical music as The Shadow of Night and The Mask of Orpheus, famously staged at the English National Opera in 1986, and winner of the Grawemeyer Award. His music is both deeply original and highly personal, yet he has always been notoriously reticent about explaining either his music or himself. In this 'conversation diary', spanning six months, he talks openly to the distinguished writer and critic Fiona Maddocks (author of the acclaimed Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of her Age), offering rare insights into the challenges, uncertainties and rewards which have shaped his life and work since childhood, and which remain with him today as he enters his ninth decade. We see the composer in the privacy of his Wiltshire studio and garden, and in the public glare of the elite Salzburg and Aldeburgh Festivals. But mostly he is at his kitchen table, talking about the essential aspects of his life - family, cooking, cricket, landscape, pruning trees - and reflecting on the never easy-process of composition. What distinguishes him and his remarkable music is an ability to see the extraordinary in the everyday, giving rise to work that is both elemental and profound. For anyone concerned with the future of music this book is essential reading.

'They are not for you but for a later age!' Ludwig van Beethoven, on the Opus 59 quartets. Tackling the Beethoven quartets is a rite of passage that has shaped the Takács Quartet's work together for over forty years. Using the history of the composition and first performances of the quartets as the backbone to his story, Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the Takács since 1993 - recounts the life of the Quartet from its inception in Hungary, through emigration to the US and its present-day life as one of the world's renowned string quartets. He also describes what it was like for him, as a young man fresh out of the Juilliard School, to join the Quartet as its first non-Hungarian member - an exhilarating challenge. Beethoven for a Later Age takes the reader inside the life of a quartet, vividly showing how four people enjoy making music together over a long period of time. The key, the author argues, is in balancing continuity with change and experimentation - a theme that also lies at the heart of Beethoven's remarkable compositions.

Why is Mozart the best known and most popular of all the great Western classical composers? As the 250th anniversary of his birth approaches, his reputation stands higher than ever before. This lively new Pocket Guide assesses what Mozart means to us today, and explores why his music is so enduringly valued by listeners. The Guide aims to tell the general reader and listener in concise form all they need to know in order to listen to and enjoy Mozart's music - it will introduce a new generation of concert-goers and record-listeners to all his key works in forms from opera to symphony, concerto to song. In a crisp, sharp style, with extensive recommendations of good performances and recordings, Nicholas Kenyon shows how Mozart has turned a different face to every age that has performed his music and has communicated with unique. Separating the Mozart myth and the Mozart industry from the realities of his superb music, the book also asks key questions: How did Mozart compose? What did he look like? What did he think? How should we perform his music today? There will also be a brief calendar of Mozart's life, a musical glossary and a who's who of key figures in his life.

The tragic story of an erratic genius's life and a survey of some of his works, including his art songs and operas. "Very interesting and very stimulating." — The New York Times.