The Lives and Times of the Great Composers

A glorious plum-pudding of a book to be consulted with pleasure and profit over and over again Sir Jeremy Isaacs Michael Steens Great Composers was originally published in 2003. A lifetimes work and almost 1000 pages long it has since become the reference point and key read on the biographical backgrounds to classical musics biggest names. Authoritative and hugely detailed - but nonetheless a joy to read - this new edition will expand its readership further and capitalise on a newfound popular interest in classical music. Steens book helps you explore the story of Bach the respectable burgher much of whose vast output was composed amidst petty turf disputes in Lutheran Leipzig; or the ugly argumentative Beethoven in French-occupied Vienna obsessed by his laundry; or Mozart the over-exploited infant prodigy whose untimely death was shrouded in rumour. Read about Verdi who composed against the background of the Italian Risorgimento; or about the family life of the Wagners; and Brahms who rose from the slums of Hamburg to become a devotee of beer and coffee in fin-de-siecle Vienna a cultural capital bent on destroying Mahler...and much much more.