The Romantic Generation: 46 (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) - Softcover

Rosen, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674779347 ISBN 13: 9780674779341

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1998

Synopsis

What Charles Rosen's celebrated book The Classical Style did for music of the Classical period, this new, much-awaited volume brilliantly does for the Romantic era. An exhilarating exploration of the musical language, forms, and styles of the Romantic period, it captures the spirit that enlivened a generation of composers and musicians, and in doing so it conveys the very sense of Romantic music. In readings uniquely informed by his performing experience, Rosen offers consistently acute and thoroughly engaging analyses of works by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Bellini, Liszt, and Berlioz, and he presents a new view of Chopin as a master of polyphony and large-scale form. He adeptly integrates his observations on the music with reflections on the art, literature, drama, and philosophy of the time, and thus shows us the major figures of Romantic music within their intellectual and cultural context.Rosen covers a remarkably broad range of music history and considers the importance to nineteenth-century music of other cultural developments: the art of landscape, a changed approach to the sacred, the literary fragment as a Romantic art form. He sheds new light on the musical sensibilities of each composer, studies the important genres from nocturnes and songs to symphonies and operas, explains musical principles such as the relation between a musical idea and its realization in sound and the interplay between music and text, and traces the origins of musical ideas prevalent in the Romantic period. Rich with striking descriptions and telling analogies, Rosen's overview of Romantic music is an accomplishment without parallel in the literature, a consummate performance by a master pianist and music historian.

About this title

Review:

psychology into the discussion of music.

of masterpieces by Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt.

occurred as "Classical" gave way to "Romantic.,."A valuable and important book.

Style" a masterpiece. But, first and foremost, he is a pianist of penetrating originality...A magnum opus.

is a book of ideas and opinions that shows off Mr. Rosen's awesome command of the musical repertory and of much else besides.

fresh, challenging, and stimulating view of the society in which Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, and Schumann flourished. Highly recommended.

composers elevated, as did Romantic poets, once trivial genres to the level of the sublime and, in so doing, defined a revolutionary approach to culture.

Rosen's own performance of 16 excerpts from works he discusses. The scholarship is not on show; the sensitive music making flows ebulliently, in a natural way.

examples (728 accompany the text) and short on summary comments on the nature of romantic music, this is a worthy fellow to Rosen's prizewinning "The Classical Style" (1980).

containing piano music by the author to illustrate the discussion. University presses are not known for bargains, but this is an unusual buy from Harvard...[An] important book.

From the Back Cover:

'The Romantic Generation' brilliantly captures the spirit of the generation of musicians who came to maturity between the death of Beethoven in 1827 and that of Chopin in 1849 – Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, Mendelssohn and Schumann, with shorter discussions of Bellini and Meyerbeer, and a prolonged glance back to Schubert, and in so doing conveys the very essence of Romantic music. Rosen vividly evokes the cultural and historical background and the particular influences of each composer. Through detailed musical analysis, he shows how they changed the musical language of their era and how their music achieved and achieves the effects it does. Rich with striking descriptions and new insights, Rosen's overview of Romantic music is an accomplishment without parallel in the literature of music.

"Certain to be recognised as one of the decade's most important music books – a giant undertaking that combines profound scholarship with artistic intuition... Rosen is giving what amounts to a free master-class."
David Gutman, 'New Statesman'

"Nobody else writes with such knowledge, authority and insight... this is writing that makes familiar music relive in the memory, enlarged and deepened... a finely produced and powerful book."
David Cairns, 'Sunday Times'

"Impressive, refreshing, precise and illuminating... The single chapter on Liszt strikes me as one of the finest explications ever written of his genius...Rosen's breadth of learning in so many disciplines is awesome and he creates powerful synthesis out of diverse threads...dazzling insights illuminate the text like lightning. There are paragraphs in this book that I would gladly pay £30 for."
Graham Johnson, 'Independent'

"The fact that this is a book about music has done nothing to deter its author from examining literature and the arts, and these are brought to bear on Schumann, Schubert and Chopin to brilliant effect...miraculous. (Chopin's complexity) unfurls like a flower...A majestic book."
Michael Church, 'TES'

"A brilliant performance. Rosen is doubly a virtuoso."
Peter Conrad, 'Observer'

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0674779347
• ISBN 13: 9780674779341
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 742