The chatty and highly informative memoirs of the musician and composer Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari (1763-1842) have remained inaccessible to the English-reading public since their original appearance in Italian in 1830, although there were two republications in Italy in the 20th century. This is the first translation into any other language. Ferrari was the son of a silk merchant in northern Italy, and went south to Naples to study composition with Paisiello and Latilla. From there he headed northwards, arriving first in Paris, where he met Dussek and Steibelt, and played for the unfortunate...

Wenzel Johann Tomaschek (1774-1850) was born into a provincial merchant family in Bohemia, and through his musical skill and determination became one of the leading figures in Czech music in the first half of the 19th century. Tomaschek rose to recognition with his many connections to contemporary musicians both in Prague and Vienna, his keen critical eye and ear, and his sometimes cutting opinions of such figures as Steibelt and Wolfl. He developed a close personal relationship with Goethe, for whose poems he composed dozens of settings for solo voice with piano. He also reported in detail...

Although Marx is not often acknowledged as such, he remains Western music's single most influential theorist, as the person who gave Sonata Form its name and codified its elements. Above a certain level of proficiency, there is not a single musician in the Western Classical tradition who does not know Sonata Form: they know Marx's legacy, if not his name. Further awareness of Marx as a man is especially important. The naming of Sonata form, and the discussion of its elements, was invested with convictions about music that Marx was among the very first to hold, and which we continue to value:...