Michael Kennedy
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 glossary highlighting the important people in the composer’s life, and a select bibliography.
Under the supervision of music experts 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.
In this revised edition, Michael Kennedy has drawn on new documentary evidence which has enabled him to give a much fuller account of Mahler’s childhood and youth, and of his years as an opera conductor in Cassel, Prague, Leipzig, Budapest, Hamburg, and Vienna. All Mahler’s works are discussed, and the latest research on the Eighth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde has been incorporated.