Mendelssohn

Master Musicians Series

by the late Philip Radcliffe, Peter Ward Jones (Primary Contributor)

Celebrating its 100th anniversary, this extraordinary series continues to amaze and captivate its readers with detailed insight into the lives and work of music's geniuses. Unlike other composer biographies that focus narrowly on the music, this series explores the personal history of each composer and the social context surrounding the music. In a precise, engaging, and authoritative manner, each volume combines a vivid portrait of the master musicians' inspirations, influences, life experiences, even their weaknesses, with an accessible discussion of their work-all in roughly 300 pages. Further, each volume offers superb reference material, including a detailed life and times chronology, a complete list of works, a personalia glossary highlighting the important people in the composer's life, and a select bibliography. Under the supervision of music expert and series general editor Stanley Sadie, Master Musicians will certainly proceed to delight music scholars, serious
musicians, and all music lovers for another hundred years.

Genres: Music, Biography

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

This straightforward biography of Felix Mendelssohn was informative but a little flawed. Radcliffe divides the book into two distinct sections, one for Mendelssohn's life and one for his works. I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with this style of organization, as it leads to an artificial separation between a composer's experiences and their music. Plus, it often renders the works section into a rather dry almost list like series of descriptions. Given that we have plenty of letters and other primary documents from Mendelssohn and his family, I found the biographical section curiously impersonal. Also, Radcliffe is curiously and frequently critical of Mendelssohn's music, often giving a lot of time to enumerating faults and declaring several works "without interest".

[ברוך קורל]

Very interesting