Wagner | Walton | Weber | Webern | Weill | Widor | Wolf

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Richard Wagner

The New Grove Wagner, John Deathridge, Carl Dahlhaus. W.W. Norton & Company. 1997. ISBN 0393315908 (paperback)

Aspects of Wagner, Bryan Magee. Oxford University Press. 1988. ISBN 0192840126 (paperback)

Richard Wagner the Man, His Mind and His Music, Robert W. Gutman. Harcourt Brace. 1990. ISBN 0156776154 (paperback)

From the great to the gross, all is revealed in this frank biography.

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William Walton

William Walton - A Bio-Bibliography. Carolyn J. Smith. Greenwood Publishing. 1988. ISBN 0313253919 (hardcover).

This bio-bibliography of one the most important contemporary British composers begins with a brief biographical sketch. Works and first performances are listed alphabetically by title, and each entry is followed by the relevant bibliographic citation numbers. The discography includes sound recordings in all formats. The major portion of the work, the bibliography, is divided into articles and reviews; books, theses, and dissertations; articles by Walton; and films. The archival section lists collections of Walton's music manuscripts, letters, and miscellanea. Two appendices contain a chronological listing of works and first performances, and a works lists arranged by classification.

Portrait of Walton, Michael Kennedy. Oxford University Press. 2000. ISBN 0198167059 (paperback)

In this biography by one of England's foremost writers on music, William Walton's personality emerges in all its complexity and self-contradiction. Michael Kennedy portrays a creative artist completely committed to his art yet plagued by misgiving and doubts, prey to insecurity and frustration, vulnerable to criticism, and jealous of the achievement of others. At the same time he was witty and generous, bore no grudges, and enjoyed the loyalty of a host of friends. Appointed his biographer by the composer himself, Kennedy has had access to correspondence with many of the friends and colleagues who were important in Walton's life, among them Siegfried Sassoon, Benjamin Britten, Malcolm Arnold, and Andre Previn.

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Carl Maria Von Weber

The New Grove Early Romantic Masters, II, John Warrack, Hugh MacDonald, Karl-Heinz Kohler. W.W. Norton & Company. 1985. ISBN 039330096X (paperback)

Comprehensive biographical articles taken from the New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians. Included are: Carl Maria von Weber, Hector Berlioz, and Felix Mendelssohn.

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Anton Webern

Anton Von Webern, Malcolm Hayes. Phaidon Press. 1995. ISBN 0714831573 (paperback)

New Grove Second Viennesse School, Oliver Neighbour, et al. W.W. Norton & Company. 1998. ISBN 0393315878 (paperback)

Comprehensive biographical articles taken from the New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians. Included are: Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern.

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Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill: A Handbook, David Drew. University of California Press. 1987. ISBN 0520058399 (hardcover)

Kurt Weill: An Illustrated Biography, Douglas Harman. Indiana University Press. 1982. ISBN (paperback)

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Charles-Marie Widor

Widor: The Life and Times of Charles-Marie Widor, 1844-1937, Andrew Thomson. Oxford University Press. 1989. ISBN 0198161867 (paperback)

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Hugo Wolf

Hugo Wolf. Frank Walker. Princeton University Press. 1992. ISBN 069102720X (paperback).

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903), who was among the greatest Romantic song composers. Frank Walker spent nearly fifteen years researching and writing this authoritative work, drawing on inter views with dozens of Wolf's friends, relatives, and fellow musicians and on the letters, diaries, and documents he uncovered to create a portrait of this head strong and fascinating man. Composer of over two hundred masterful settings of poetry by Goethe, Mrike, and others, Wolf's songs were composed during periods of intense inspiration that were followed by lengthy fallow periods. The author vividly portrays the extremes to which the composer was prone and interweaves an account of Wolf's creative triumphs with the tale of his life.

Hugo Wolf and the Wagnerian Inheritance. Amanda Glauert. Cambridge University Press. 1999. ISBN 0521496373 (hardcover).

This book offers an in-depth study of his music, including detailed analyses of selected songs. Perspectives from musical analysis and history are brought together to show how this composer and late nineteenth-century song have a far more significant role in helping us to understand Wagner's musical and aesthetic influence than has yet been realised.

Hugo Wolf. Susan Youens. Princeton University Press. 1992. ISBN 0691091455 (hardcover).

In the realm of song, Wolf is among the greatest inheritors of Schubert and Schumann, a composer 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. The author 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. 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 – in her investigation of these subjects, Youens discusses the poetic texts as closely 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 from other sources of the period. For lieder enthusiasts, this book has much that is new or little known to offer.

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