Mozart and His Operas - Softcover

Cairns, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140296743 ISBN 13: 9780140296747

Publisher: Penguin, 2007

Synopsis

David Cairns weaves a brilliantly engaging narrative which puts Mozart’s operas in the context of his life, showing how they illuminate his creativity as a whole. Mozart’s unusual childhood as a musical prodigy touring Europe as a performer from an early age is well known. But even more remarkable is that the genius grew up, surviving his unnatural early years and producing works of increasing maturity and originality. Using the operas as his guide, Cairns traces the steady deepening of Mozart’s musical style from his beginnings as a child prodigy, through his coming of age with what Cairns sees as the most Romantic and forward-looking of all Mozart’s operas, Idomeneo, the later genius displayed in the three comic operas, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, and in The Magic Flute, the final and greatest triumph of his career.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Acclaim for "Berlioz: The Making of an Artist
'Berlioz stands as one of the great biographies of our day, and also one o f the great feats of literary sympathy with an artistic genius, filled with a love, knowledge and understanding of is subject that flame up on every page' Max Loppert, "Financial Times
'In David Cairns, Berlioz has found a biographer who shares his sense of scale. There is not a dull or redundant page in the whole book' Noel Malcolm, "Sunday Telegraph
'David Cairns has a wonderful story to tell and he tells it superbly well . . . rich in detail and imbued with imaginative insights that stem from love. It is also written with an enviable blend of grace and energy' Peter Heyworth, "Observer
"Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness
'Epic . . . will stand as a major monument of the history of classical music and will surely, on its subject, never be surpassed' Alexander Waugh, "Literary Review
'One of the masterpieces of modern biography . . . a magnificent piece of synthesizing scholarship, fluently readable yet maturely balanced' Rupert Christiansen, "Daily Telegraph
'How fortunate Berlioz has been in his latest, perhaps definitive biographer' George Steiner," Observer
'A life brilliantly described as an extended adolescence of unceasing emotional turbulence and creative struggle. . . a generous view of a man who was always exceptionally generous to others' Robin Blake, "The Independent on Sunday

About the Author:

David Cairns has been chief music critic of the Sunday Times and music critic and arts editor of the Spectator. He has also written for the Evening Standard, the Financial Times and the New Statesman. He has been Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, a visiting scholar at the Getty Center in Santa Monica, and a visiting fellow of Merton College, Oxford. His two-volume biography of Berlioz won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year and the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0140296743
• ISBN 13: 9780140296747
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304