Callas | Carter | Chávez | Chopin | Clementi | Copland | Corelli | Couperin

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Maria Callas

The Autobiography of Maria Callas, a Novel. Alma H. Bond. Birch Brook Press. 1998. ISBN 0913559490 (hardcover), 0913559482 (paperback).

"The Autobiography of Maria Callas" is written in the first person, as if Callas herself were speaking. According to Kathryn Lance in the Arizona Daily Star, "Bond has truly seen to the heart of Callas.in the form of an autobiography that reads as if authentically written by her subject." Ed Ditterline in a syndicated column headed "Bond With Callas in a Brilliant New Masterpiece" writes, "For four years Dr. Bond has lived, breathed, studied, analyzed and absorbed the music an the life of Maria Callas. I believe that her resulting work may well give more reality to her life than the 40 or so byzantine biographies that have been written about the great singer and actress.Buy a first edition.and wait for the Wagnerian scream which will soon be emitting from the emotionally deaf opera world."

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Elliott Carter

The Music of Elliott Carter, David Schiff. Da Capo Press. 1983. ISBN 0903873060 (hardcover)

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Carlos Chávez

Carlos Chávez - A Guide to Research. Robert L. Parker. Routledge (formerly Garland Press). 1998. ISBN 0815320876 (hardcover)

The first extensive guide to the life, music, and writings of Carlos Chávez, Mexico's most influential musician of the 20^th century. Included is a characterization of his compositional styles as well as a comprehensive listing of Chávez's compositions and arrangements by genre and performance medium, and reviews the composer's own abundant writings on a broad range of musical subjects. The chapter on Research Aids includes annotations of pertinent general reference works, catalogs, and collections of letters, in addition to three indices covering compositions and arrangements, authors and titles, and subjects.

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Frédéric Chopin

Chopin: The Man and His Music. James Gibbons Huneker, with Herbert Weinstock (editor). Dover Publications (paperback), Scholarly Press (hardcover). 1966. ISBN 0403015871 (hardcover), 048621687X (paperback).

The Parisian Worlds of Frederic Chopin. William G. Atwood. Yale University Press. 1999. ISBN 0300077734 (hardcover).

This book may be of greater interest to the historian – political, social, and cultural – than to the musician. As its title indicates, it is about France, particularly Paris, more than about Chopin, and presupposes considerable knowledge of French history. Chopin wanders through its pages as a peripatetic presence; there are quotes from his letters commenting on whom he meets, where he plays, what he sees and hears, with references to his friends, pupils, and publishers.

Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre (Convergences, Inventories of the Present), Jeffrey Kallberg. Harvard University Press. 1996. ISBN 0674127900 (hardcover), 0674127919 (paperback)

The Music of Chopin. Jim Samson. Clarendon Press. 1994. ISBN 0198164025 (paperback).

The Cambridge Companion to Chopin. Jim Samson. Cambridge University Press. 1995. ISBN 0521477522 (paperback).

Chopin: Pianist and Teacher - As Seen by His Pupils. Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, with Roy Howat (editor), Krysia Osostowicz (translator). Cambridge University Press. 1989. ISBN 0521367093 (paperback).

Well-researched and richly-annotated accounts of Chopin's pupils, acquaintances, and contemporaries, as well as his own writings, reveal much about his pianistic and stylistic practice, teaching methods and aesthetic beliefs.

Chopin in Paris: The Life and Times of the Romantic Composer. Tad Szulc. Da Capo Press (paperback), Scribner (hardcover). 1998/2000. ISBN 0684824582 (hardcover), 0306809338 (paperback).

Biographer Tad Szulc has produced a dishy account of Chopin's most creative and tempestuous period, his 18-year sojourn in France. It's also a portrait of a unique time, when musical and artistic luminaries such as Chopin, Balzac, Hugo, Liszt, Berlioz, Delacroix, and Schumann ran in the same heady Parisian circles. What it's not is a detailed study of Chopin's music. Szulc sets out in search of Chopin the man, "the human dimension" he finds missing in other, more musically oriented biographies. What he finds is not always attractive; tortured through much of his life by physical and psychological illness, Chopin emerges as an often fussy, distant, manipulative man, as well as something of a snob. It's a tribute to his genius as a composer, Szulc writes, that he was befriended by some of the greatest minds of his age, including the larger-than-life figure of George Sand: "Fryderyk Chopin gave the world a treasure in music. The world gave Chopin a treasure in human beings." The author refrains from editorializing about the composer's life and habits, in particular Chopin's break with Sand.

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Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementis Leben, Max Unger. Da Capo Press. 1971. ISBN 0306701928 (hardcover)

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Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland - The Life And Work Of An Uncommon Man. >Howard Pollack. Holt. 1999. ISBN 0805049096 (hardcover), 0252069005 (paperback).

Read the Classical Net Review of this book.

Copland, by Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis. St. Martin's Press. 1987. ISBN Volume 1 "1900-1942" 0312011490 (paperback), Volume II "Since 1943" 0312050666 (paperback)

Vivid and entertaining memoir of the composer's boyhood in Brooklyn, studies with Boulanger in Paris and adventures in Mexico, Hollywood and Tanglewood.

The Music of Aaron Copland. Neil Butterworth, with preface by André Previn. Toccata Press. 1996. ISBN 0907689078 (hardcover), 0907689086 (paperback).

This is the first book in 30 years on the music of one of America's best-loved composers. Neil Butterworth surveys all of Copland's published output and examines his various writings on music. It includes a conversation on the piano music with Aaron Copland and Leo Smit, illustrated with sketches of Copland in rehearsal by Milein Cosman.

Read the Classical Net Review of this book by Steve Schwartz.
Read the Classical Net Review of this book by Karl Miller.

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Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli - New Orpheus of Our Times. Peter Allsop. Oxford University Press. 1999. ISBN 0198165625 (paperback).

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François Couperin

François Couperin, Phillippe Beaussant, Alexandra Land (Translator). Amadeus Press. 1991. ISBN 0931340276 (hardcover)

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