Lives and Times of the Great Composers [Hardcover]

Michael Steen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 2003 | ISBN-10: 1840464852 | ISBN-13: 978-1840464856 | Edition: 1St Edition

Comprehensive and meticulously researched, Great Composers is a lovingly constructed biographical history of the giants of classical music. Each self-contained chapter narrates the life and background of one or more composers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A glorious plum-pudding of a book, to be consulted, with pleasure and profit, over and over again' Sir Jeremy Isaacs 'Michael Steen's beautifully illustrated book packs an astonishing amount of biographical and cultural detail into nearly forty subjects.' Independent on Sunday 'Hugely informative and deliciously gossipy' Spectator --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Michael Steen was born in Dublin, studied at the Royal College of Music, was organ scholar at Oriel College, Oxford and is currently chairman of the Royal College of Music Society. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 996 pages
• Publisher: Icon Books; 1St Edition edition (October 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840464852
• ISBN-13: 978-1840464856
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,734,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is a great book on great composers!, September 12, 2005

By 

C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lives and Times of the Great Composers (Hardcover)

the Lives and Times of the Great Composers is a great book for what it sets out to accomplish!
It is a big book, wittily and well written which has given me and all who peruse its many pages hours of delight!
Steen begins his musical survey of Western music by beginning with Handel and Bach and ends with a chapter on English composers. In between he tells the biographies (too often tragic)
of such luminaries of the musical heaven as Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Mahler, Richard Strauss,
Berlioz, Dvorak, Janacek, Sibelieus and several others.
What the book does not do is to analyze individual pieces composed by the composers discussed.
The book can be enjoyed by a general reader as well as classical music fan who wants to know:
1. Details of the biographies of the composeers
2. A knowledge of what the political and social mileu was in
which the artist worked. (For instance you will learn about what the London and Paris, Vienna and Berlin, Milan and Naples of Europe were like. You will learn European politics and go to several wars. You will know the daily schedules of the great
composrs. You will learn all about their love lives (often
sordid) in earthy prose. You will add to your cultural delight
in the immortal works of our Western civilization!
As one who reads several books on classical music each year this is one book I heartily recommend. It would be wonderful reading for students in a musical appreciation class or someone who wants to curl up with a wonderful book as the CD is playing
one of the works by the masters discussed in these many pages.
Money well spent for an outstanding book!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chock Full of Facts, Insights and Wit, January 2, 2006

By 

J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lives and Times of the Great Composers (Hardcover)

"[Mad King] Ludwig had been given Wagner's 100,000-word essay 'Opera and Drama' when he was thirteen years old. It was thus no wonder that the boy suffered from hallucinations.' - The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, pg. 474

There are startling, or new, or witty observations like this on practically every page of this meticulously researched 984-page book that chronicles the lives of the great composers and the times in which they lived. I have been reading such books for nigh on fifty years and yet I found something new and instructive frequently in this marvelously written book. Michael Steen studied at London's Royal College of Music but later made a career in the City. He writes in a graceful style that urges the reader on.

There are chapters devoted to individual composers (or groups such as 'Glinka and The Five') from Handel to Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten. Lesser composers are remarked upon in the many interesting digressions contained within the main chapters. One certainly gets a sense of the social and political ambiance of the times under discussion, and Steen makes an effort to draw connections between those events and the works written in their midst. There are many illustrations including maps, pictures of the composers and other musicians and other cultural figures of the times. There is something here for the neophyte as well as for the grizzled music history buff like me. Clearly great thought was given by the author and by Oxford University Press to the arrangement and presentation of the book and it could hardly be bettered.

An enthusiastic recommendation. (Even in spite of the few howlers like this one: When talking about Dvorák's sojourn in the US, Britisher Steen says the composer spent time in Spillville in 'Iowa, Massachusetts').

Scott Morrison

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Any lover of classical music might want to buy this book., June 15, 2005

By 

Stanley Hauer (Hattiesburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lives and Times of the Great Composers (Hardcover)

I am not a professional musicologist, just a passionate amateur. I read a lot of musical biography and such, so I was pleasantly surprised to see just how much I learned from this book. It is a real joy to read, the sort of book one doesn't want to end. In my view, it is generally balanced and fair (though the chapters on Wagner and R. Strauss come close to assassination at times). Rather like Edward Gibbon, Steen lives out his sex life in his footnotes, which are often hilarious. The book is elaborately, even tediously, documented; but the source notes are in the back, so as not to distract from the text notes. This is not a book on music; it is a book on composers: biography not musicology. (As Steen explains in a humorous introduction, music is about cellos, biography about fellows.)

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it highly. At the risk of sounding petty, I wish that so distinguished publisher as Oxford could have employed an editor to rid this otherwise fine work of numerous grammatical errors. But put down your red pen for a while and just have a good time with Steen's exploration of Western music.