This is the story of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), who bridged the worlds of serious music, operetta and film scores. The son of Vienna's most powerful turn-of-the-century music critic, he achieved legendary status as a child-prodigy composer with the operas Violanta and Die Tote Stadt. Pressures of adult life steered him into arranging the operettas of Johann Strauss, his contemporaries and then Hollywood. Korngold became a highly regarded composer of incidental music for films such as Sea Hawk and The Adventures of Robin Hood. He ignored the changing tides of musical fashion, and...

This biography of the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke (born in 1934) presents a portrait of a man whose musical input has been inextricably linked to the strictures of life in the Soviet Union. His music, as a reflection of Russian cultural and social traditions, as well as mentality, enjoys tremendous popularity in his own country, and increasingly on an international level.

This text is part of the 20th-century composers series, examining composers in a biographical context, and offering a comprehensive study of key figures in the creation of 20th-century music. None of the books in the series presume a knowledge of specialized terms or musical notation. Each book in the series features a list of works, a bibliography, and a discography.

From the Pavane pour une Infante defunte to Bolero, much of the music of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) is among the most accessible of any written during the last 100 years. The man himself, on the other hand, was notoriously difficult to get to know, partly because of his natural modesty and inherent reserve, but partly also because there were aspects of his character which he preferred to conceal even from his closest friends. It is Gerlad Larner's aim in this biography to trace the development of the composer's personality not only through events in his life and in the society around him, but...

The consistent wit and charm of Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) has often led to an underestimation of its value, yet there is now a growing recognition of his stature to which this biography will add. Admired for his fine songs and relgious works, he is perhaps best known for his humorous, insouciant pieces. From the freshness of his ballet Les Biches, composed for Diaghilev in 1924, to his ambitious 1956 opera, Dialogues des Carmelites, the author discusses Poulenc's work in the context of his homosexuality and against the colourful background of Paris in the first half of the century. His...

The Danish composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) was a principal figure in 20th-century Scandinavian music - his work progressive in style and technique. In this biography he emerges as an energetic individual - more dynamic than the popular image of him as a dreamy country boy who rose fom poverty to become Denmark's most influential composer.

This is an illustrated biography of the American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Despite international fame and success, he was a man constantly struggling with inner conflicts. The best loved and most successful conductor of his generation, also a virtuoso pianist, he was adored by an international public, but suffered years of hostile criticism from the New York press. An inspiration to fellow American musicians, he was the first native American to direct a major American orchestra, and the first to conquer Europe (conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and at La Scala, Milan). His...

Richard Strauss remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of music. Though he is now accepted as one of the finest of all orchestral composers, his reputation remains dogged by charges of career opportunism, sensationalism, and Nazi collaboration. This book places Strauss's life in the context of German history, revealing the paradoxes that lay beneath his public persona, and discussing his work in the light of personal, artistic and literary influences.

This biography discusses Gyorgy Ligeti's work within the context of the political and cultural history of post-war Europe and places him at the forefront of musical change and innovation during this period.