Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) began his career at the end of the Romantic period and his death signaled the end of the last major age of Italian opera. During his lifetime and in posterity, the composer's popularity surpassed that of his peers, and three of his works - La bohéme, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly - rank among the twenty-first century's ten most-performed operas. With their enchanting melodies, exotic subjects, and realistic plots, Puccini's...

Beethoven's works for solo piano – the sonatas, variations, and bagatelles – and the five concertos for piano and orchestra stand at the heart of the repertory. Beethoven's Piano Music: A Listener's Guide, by Victor Lederer, will help the motivated reader understand this popular but often knotty music. The bulk of the text consists of a movement-by-movement analysis of the 32 sonatas, fascinating for their individuality and for the way they trace...

"David Hurwitz invites the reader to explore Dvorak's creative personality as a whole through encounters with 90 of his well-known, and barely known but undeservedly neglected, works. Measure by measure, Hurwitz probes the genius behind Dvorak's extraordinary achievement. He also tells the amazing tale of how a kid from the Bohemian countryside created a musical language of universal appeal and in the process gave an entire nation its musical identity."--Jacket....

This book introduces the general listener to a genre of music that is mistakenly supposed to be "difficult." A vivid biographical sketch of Bach's life and times provides the necessary background. The book then takes on the question "What is a cantata?" and guides the listener systematically through fugue, recitative, and aria. The author chooses 30 of Bach's 200 church cantatas that are especially likely to be performed live, and explores them in...