Product Description

This is an advanced arrangement with a pull-out solo part. Great for a Class A solo or standard repertoire piece for college performance.

... Read more

Product Description
The most useful collection of Schubert songs available! Unlike international editions, these new songbooks contain only a few favorite songs from Die Schone Mullerin and Die Wintereisse, rather than the rarely-used entire song cycles; this leaves room for many more wonderful individual songs not normally found in Schubert collections. As in the other volumes in The Vocal Library, each song features introductory notes including information about the composition, the song's biographical context in Schubert's life, early performances and comments about poets. The contents for the High Voice and Low Voice editions are almost the same: the High Voice volume uniquely includes "Der Hirt auf dem Felsen" (with removable clarinet part) and "Auf dem Strom" (with removable horn part); the Low Voice volume uniquely includes "Das Abendrot" and "Romanze." The cover is adorned with a charming 1821 watercolor depicting Schubert and friends at a summer gathering in Atzenbrugg. All songs have been newly edited and researched based on the most current historical material available. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

excellent product
This vocal library collection features popular songs from the cycles, but doesn't include the rarely performed.It's a great collection to introduce Schubert--it has standard songs and a good mix without purchasing the entire Kagen series.

Wonderfully Produced Book...
This is a beautiful edition and well worth buying even without the CD.

Some key points:

English translations for the German poetry are provided *before* each piece. English lyrics are *not* provided under the music.

Each song includes a brief description including original key, where/when/why the song was written/published/performed, and information on the poem.

Music engraving is clean and crisp.Two selections have parts for obligatto instruments. These are included below the vocal line *and* on a separate page.

Paper weight and binding appear to be quite good.This is a large book (1.5 inch spine), so it will be interesting to see how it lasts through the years. ... Read more

Product Description
Edited by Johannes Brahms. Complete unabridged scores of Schubert’s four most popular symphonies: No. 4 in C Minor ("Tragic"); No. 5 in B-flat Major; No. 8 in B Minor ("Unfinished"); and No. 9 in C Major ("Great"). Breitkopf & Härtel edition. Study score.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Traditional scores with caveats
No bar numbers, and letters only in the Great. If you like the "traditional" editions - those prepared by Brahms - it will do the job. However, recent performances are based on new editions with some corrections (like that by Brian Newbould, which is my favourite). Unlike other editions, the few bars Schubert left for the scherzo of the Unfinished are not included.

Orchestral Masterpieces
These Four Symphonies by Schubert are perhaps his best, with the 8th 'The Unfinished', and #9 'The Great' perhaps being the best known.But the Mozartean #5 and the 'Tragic' #4 are little gems that showcase Schubert's genius as well.

Dover's edition is taken from the complete works of Schubert as printed by Breitkopf and Hartel.The editor of this edition of the symphonies was no less a musician than Johannes Brahms!A fine edition, excellent for study and following along while the music plays.Recommended! ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Good Scores of Schubert's Short Piano Music

Schubert composed three types of music for solo piano: sonatas, waltzes and dances, and short piano pieces.This budget-priced book by Dover includes scores for the third category of pieces.Thus it includes some of Schubert's best-known works for keyboard. The volume includes the Wanderer Fantasy, the four Impromptus of Opus 90, the four Impromptus of Opus 142, and the six short Moments Musicaux.Broadly speaking, in these short pieces, Schubert moved closer towards the romantic style in music rather than attempting to pour his lyrical gifts into classical forms.

The Wanderer Fantasy is a four-movement virtuoso piano piece based upon the theme of Schubert's song "The Wanderer." It is written in a highly flamboyant style not at all typical of the composer. Schubert composed this great score immediately after he stopped his efforts on what became his "Unfinished" Symphony. The story is that when Schubert tried to demonstrate this work for his friends at the piano, he quickly threw up his hands and exclaimed: "The Devil with it! I can't play it!" The Wanderer Fantasy remains one of the most difficult works in the solo piano repertoire.For all but the best of pianists, this is a score to be studied or used in following professional performances rather than to be attempted.

The two sets of Impromptus are among the great lyrical and meditative music that Schubert composed near the end of his life. They were of great influence on subsequent romantic composers, while for many years Schubert's sonatas remained virtually unplayed. Many of the Impromptus may be played with careful effort by dedicated amateur pianists. The six short Moments Musicaux are also within the range of careful study by amateurs.

The book is inexpensive, compact, well-bound, easy to read, and sits comfortably on the rack of most pianos. It is not an urtext edition, but it should prove to be accurate for all users up to the professional level.The measures are unnumbered and suggested fingerings or pedalings are not provided.I have used this book for many years in attempting to play the Impromptus, Moments Musicaux, and some of the other pieces and in listening to live and recorded performances of Schubert. For amateur pianists or lovers of Schubert's piano music, this book is an excellent choice. The volume offers the opportunity to live for many years with this great music.

Robin Friedman

Gorgeous edition, easy to read and fun to play
Well, Dover editions are always good, but the Schubert Short Piano Pieces book is especially fine.If you love to play the piano, you will love this fine compilation of all the Schubert impromptus, Moments Musicaux, etc.

The staves are well-spaced and the engraving is good, making the music easy to read.Page turns are pretty intelligent -- you rarely have to turn while playing.There's plenty of space between the lines for your notes, teacher's ideas, etc.

I am delighted with this usable, well-produced edition.Hope other amateur pianists will enjoy this book as much as I do.

Schubert at his most intimate
This is an excellent book for those pianists who want to discover the marvelous Schubert's work. Photographically reprinted from the authoritative Breitkopf & Härtel edition, this Dover book containsalmost every piece for piano solo Schubert wrote(except piano sonatas,dances and other unfinished works). The pages are finely printed, the spacebetween staves is wide to allow notations and the size of the notes makeseasy to read it at the piano.The technical skills required for playingthis pieces is variable; from the magnificent "Wanderer" fantasyto the most intimate Impromptus. Certainly, this is a book that classicalpianists, students or classical-music-lovers would enjoy. ... Read more

Product Description
This concise edition contains four expressive and lively impromptus that will challenge advanced pianists. To clarify the composer's original notations on tempo, dynamics, fingering, pedaling and ornamentation, Dr. Baylor has included notes on performing each piece and provided footnotes for difficult passages. These editorial suggestions make preparing for a performance both enjoyable and educational. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

not good
I was quite disappointed in this product. I'm not sure if it's just the copy I got, but the printing/stapling went awry and one side of the music did not print on page 20. I would ask for a refund of this product if I hadn't gotten it online. Save yourself the trouble and get a copy of this music that doesn't look like the printer was having an off day.

Best edition I've found
Good footnotes, good fingering. Spread out well on the page (not squished like other editions). Would recommend for students. Great collection to own, as well. Print of high-quality. ... Read more

Product Description
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is the most comprehensive and up-to-date body of musical knowledge ever gathered together.

The New Grove composer biographies have been selected from the dictionary to bring the finest of the biographies to a wider audience. Each has been expanded and updated for book publication and contains a comprehensive work-list, index, and fully revised bibliography, in addition to the definitive view of the subject's life and works.

Maurice J. E. Brown, one of the world's leading authorities on Schubert, completed this fine biography of the composer shortly before his death. He covers every aspect of Schubert's short and tragic life, clearly relating it to the works. He discusses the influence of Schubert's friends and explores the background to the composition of many of his best-known pieces, such as Winterreise. The biography has been brought up to date by Eric Sams, who also contributed the outstanding work-list.

Customer Reviews (2)

Nice intro.Very valuable list of all Schubert's works in the back.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is now best available online (at a hefty subscription fee).A version was published in 1980 in more than two dozen volumes.It was a magnificent achievement, but almost immediately errors were found, disputes were had, and at least one article was guilty of a hidden insult that was discovered too late.Some of the biographical articles were so good that they were excerpted into a series of short books, this being one of them.

If you are interested in the life of Schubert, one of our greatest composers, and one of the very greatest song writers of all time, this book provides a nice introduction to his life and work.Especially valuable is the list of all his known works (and a list of the spurious compositions as well), and an index of his songs by name.This genius died at 31 having written more than 600 songs and at least 200 other works including large symphonies, quartets, and even a couple of for the stage.

The bibliography is especially useful because it discusses important articles on Schubert by genre, that is important articles and books on his symphonies, or quartets, or what have you.This book can only be an introduction, you will have to go further to really appreciate the greatness of this composer who died so ridiculously young.

It was written by Maurice J.E. Brown who died before it was completed and finished by his friend, the wonderful Eric Sams (who died at 78 in September 2004, to our loss).

Splendid Guide
In his late years, John Reed accomplished a magnificent task: writing and revising this book. Though a smallish book, he successfully compiled critical evaluation, date (latest estimate), circumstance, and future effect of an great numbers of important (often unduly underrated) works of Schubert. His view is in general quite well-balanced and persuasive. I think this book is the most reliable guide book for Schubert's supreme music. Strongly recommended.
... Read more

Product Description
In addition to the composer's original musical notations, the editor has made tempo, metronome, fingering and pedaling indications as well as providing footnotes for playing turns and trills. Dr. Baylor has included a brief biography on Schubert, and each of the four pieces has an informative discussion on proper performance techniques. ... Read more

Product Description
Definitive Breitkopf & Härtel edition of the Quintet in C Major for 2 Violins, Viola and 2 Violoncellos; the 15 Quartets for 2 Violins, Viola and Violoncello; and two Trios for Violin, Viola and Violoncello. Music edited by Eusebius Mandyczewski and Joseph Hellmesberger.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Indispensible for any chamber music lover
All of Schubert's great chamber works are here except for the Trout Quintet. Of particular note are the Cello Quintet, the "Death and the Maiden" quartet and the "Rosamunde" a minor quartet. As with all of Dover's scores, a great price. At Amazon it's a better price even than buying it at the local music store with a teacher discount. ... Read more

Product Description
During six decades since Leo Black, a former BBC Chief Producer for radio music, first experienced Schubert, historians and analysts have replaced old stereotypes of the Bohemian artist and unselfconscious creator with a picture of a difficult man in difficult times. That undervalues Schubert's sense of wonder and of some greater Being; the author aims to redress the balance, concentrating firstly on works where Schubert's inborn, undogmatic beliefs are clearly expressed (masses, other religious music, songs amounting to 'Geistliche Lieder'). This basic strain also prompts an examination of instrumental masterpieces (Unfinished and Great C Major Symphonies, Wanderer Fantasy). Schubert's religious side encompasses awe and terror as well as wonder and love of nature; given the pressures of his final years, joy gives way to 'pride of performance', a transition made clear by detailed comparison of his last two masses. The author hopes that Schubert's 'complete voice' may come to be heard rather than his predominantly sombre one, currently over-emphasised in both literature and concert. Aleading expert in the field has already called Franz Schubert: Music and Belief 'important in the study of him, and likely to change the way we listen to certain works'. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Essential Insights
Anyone who knows enough about Schubert to look at this review knows the composer was not a conventionally religious person -- which is hardly the same as saying Schubert's struggles with the human spirit had nothing to do with his artistic creations. Leo Black, the longtime BBC chief producer for music, draws on a lifetime of intimacy with Schubert's compositions to deliver a point of view probably only he could provide. Offering neither a narrow, dusty study of Schubert's "sacred" music nor a bland, comprehensive summary of Schubert's entire musical output, Black instead shows how the genuinely spiritual elements in Schubert's music appear and reappear and inform even many of his "secular" masterpieces. Black's individual insights are far too many to mention, but among them, I must thank him for encouraging me to hear and learn Schubert's marvelous "Gesang der Geister uber den Wassern" (D. 714) and for recommending the lieder recordings of German baritone Siegfried Lorenz. I can't imagine anyone who already appreciates Schubert not appreciating this book and, thus, appreciating Schubert even more. ... Read more

Product Description
This edition, combining some of the most beautiful piano works by Schubert, contains 14 pieces that will challenge intermediate to moderately advanced pianists. Individual performance notes are included for each piece along with other editorial markings and suggestions. To assist in the development of an informed performance, Dr. Baylor has also included a list of recommended reading and listening examples. ... Read more

Product Description
Franz Schubert's tragically short life was lived in one of Europe's most richly musical cities: a Vienna that worshipped Beethoven and where Rossini and Paganini drew crowds. Christopher Gibbs considers how and what Schubert composed, taking a fresh look at this misunderstood composer, particularly the unfolding of his professional career, his relationship to Beethoven, the growth of his reputation and public image and his darker side of drinking, depression and sexual ambiguity. This searching and sympathetic biography questions the customary sentimental clichés and the recent revisionist views concerning this elusive genius.Amazon.com Review
Franz Schubert is a singularly undocumented composer. Direct accounts of his life are scarce, incomplete, and contradictory; even the memoirs of his closest friends, mostly written long after his death, reflect the writers more than the subject. His own surviving letters and diaries are often poignant, but sparse; it is in his music that he truly revealed himself. No wonder he has been the victim of endless speculation and rumor, leaving his image encrusted in fantasy, sentimentality, and condescension. Numerous serious, conscientious biographies have attempted to rectify this. Christopher Gibbs's excellent, informative, generously illustrated new study is a welcome addition. Gibbs has written and lectured widely on Schubert; his style is lucid, scholarly but not pedantic, and except for a stiff, ponderous beginning, flows with natural ease.

Gibbs focuses on some relatively unexplored areas, notably Beethoven's profound influence on Schubert, both personal and musical, though they never met. He also demolishes several popularly held misconceptions, showing, for example, that Schubert took an active part in promoting his own career, enjoyed frequent successes, and lived to see his fame begin to grow. Gibbs demonstrates that Schubert was by no means a "natural," untutored composer who simply shook melodies out of his sleeve, and that it was not his untimely death that caused so many works to remain "unfinished." Some of these refutations have already been offered by previous writers, but are well worth repeating. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, in his splendid book On the Trail of the Schubert Songs, points out that Schubert's self-criticism often drove him to compose the same text several times, though unlike Beethoven he left no "sketchbooks that resemble battlefields." Hans Gál, in his Franz Schubert and the Essence of Melody (a beautiful book despite the clumsy title), suggests with a composer's empathetic insight that Schubert may have abandoned a work, like the C-major Piano Sonata, because he had modulated himself into a corner or hit a snag in the development, going on to something else while hoping for future inspiration.

Gibbs deserves special gratitude for attacking the credibility of the most recent Schubert scholarship, which claims to have uncovered evidence of heavy drinking, debauchery, and unbridled sensuality, both hetero- and homosexual, born and bred from Vienna's depraved climate, Schubert's hedonistic circle of friends, and his own allegedly immoral nature. These assertions reveal more about our own times and attitudes than about Schubert and his world. --Edith Eisler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Who Was That Unmasked Man?
"Poor Schubert!" Unfinished. Unrecognized during his brief lifetime. Ergo, the most 'posthumous' of composers. Pathologically bashful, agoraphobic, sexually repressed, possibly a virgin whose one libidinal adventure resulted in syphilis, of which he died. Beethoven's Heir. Or so one has heard, until recently, when biographers have asserted a 'darker' image of Schubert as ... well, you'll have to speculate.

I seldom read biographies of composers or writers. I tend to think the music or words tell me everything I want to know. But the 'accepted' image of Franz Schubert is so incongruent with what I hear in his music that I finally became curious about his life. The irony of that, it turns out, is that Schubert's life is extremely poorly documented; he wrote no memoirs, few of his letters have survived, few accounts of him from his friends or from public observers were written during his lifetime, and the accounts written years later, sometimes decades later, are about as reliable (ha!) as the Four Gospels.

Christopher Gibbs's "Life of Schubert" is eminently level-headed, properly modest in any claims to certitude, concisely and pleasantly written, neither a hagiography nor an agenda-driven expose. Of course, it will be of interest ONLY to people who are thoroughly enamored of Schubert's music. Don't think that this little book will "introduce' you to Schubert the composer, or will somehow convince you of his musical glory. Start with the music! When you've heard enough to care - the string quartets and quintet, the Lieder, the symphonies, the piano sonatas - then you may find this book interesting. Whatever I have to say about Schubert's life and career, for now, is totally informed by what Gibbs presents in this bio. Let's go point by point:

* Unfinished. The two movements of the "Unfinished Symphony" were not discovered by musicologists until decades after his death; the work was indeed unfinished, abandoned after some 40 measures of a third movement, for unknown reasons. Yet it's one of Schubert's best-known and most performed works. In fact, Schubert's manuscripts have been found to include an extraordinary number of unfinished compositions, including some that were 'half way' to being innovative masterworks. Another major example is his dramatic cantata "Lazarus", which has also become part of the active repertoire despite its unfinished condition. Neither Gibbs nor yours truly has any convincing explanation for Schubert's tendency to abandon great compositions short of completion. He wrote a lot of music, a vast amount of finished music, and he seems to have been unable to set a piece aside and return to it later, something that many composers do regularly. The "unfinished Symphony", by the way, was not a work in progress when Schubert died; it had been composed and abandoned years earlier.

* Unrecognized, unappreciated. Gibbs present quite a different picture. Schubert was adulated by a close circle of friends and fans. His published Lieder were numerous and sold well. He was not a performing virtuoso, and in his era that certainly hindered the spread of his reputation, but Gibbs makes a good case that Schubert's career was on the rise, that he was on the verge of quite ample renown and reward at the time of his death.

* Posthumous. This is certainly so. A goodly number Schubert's Lieder and some of his smaller compositions intended for domestic music-making had been published, but even his strongest admirers were unaware of his greatest, most ambitious music. Many compositions went undiscovered for decades; when they appeared, as if by archaeological magic, they again and again forced musicains and music lovers to re-evaluate Schubert's stature.

* Bashful, socially misfit? An inadequate myth fueled by 'romantic' idolatry. Schubert was extremely social, spending most evenings with friends, centering a world of social music-making, usually sharing his living quarters with friends. If anything, Schubert was a bit of a "party animal", certainly a bohemian in the style of his time and place, and he may have been a heavy drinker, a carouser. Gibbs speculates that he suffered from some degree of clinical manic depression - bipolarity - and that his drinking was a kind of self-medication. What little evidence exists is consistent with such a 'diagnosis', but Gibbs is appropriately open about the fact that he's merely guessing.

* Syphilis? In his early twenties, Schubert suffered a long period of serious illness, after which his few writings suggest a deep-set fear for his health. The symptoms recorded for that bout of illness are consistent with syphilis but hardly proof presumptive. Schubert's skeleton was exhumed in the 19th C; his skull did NOT show any of the characteristic degenerations associated with tertiary syphilis. There's no real medical evidence that syphilis was the immediate cause of his sudden death; in fact, there was mention of fever as a cause. Schubert had just taken a 35-mile hiking expedition weeks before his final sickness.

* Beethoven's Heir? I confess that I've supposed as much, metaphorically. But it makes little sense, given that a large number of Beethoven's greatest compositions and all of Schubert's were in fact written in the very same thirteen years, roughly from 1814 to 1827. Beethoven died a mere 14 months before Schubert. In a sense, Schubert (1797-1828) and Beethoven (1770-1827) were musical contemporaries, though Beethoven's established fame overshadowed Schubert's during the years when they were both living and working in Vienna. Schubert was not a child prodigy in the manner of Mozart, but he was astonishingly precocious, once he started composing. His first now-recognized masterwork, the piano-song Gretchen am Spinnrade, was composed in 1814, at age 16. And Schubert died at age 31, almost five years younger than Mozart! Mozart was thirty when he wrote "Nozze di Figaro", thirty-three when he wrote the sublime Clarinet Quintet, thirty-two when he wrote his last and best symphonies. And Beethoven was an oldster of thirty-three when he composed his Third Symphony and of thirty-six when he wrote the Rasoumovsky Quartets 7, 8, & 9. One could argue that, as a composer, Schubert was the most precocious of all, and he was just hitting his stride, approaching his own mature expectations of himself, when he died.

But let me say it once again: listen to the music. That's what there is. That's what astonishes.

Excellent introduction
Balanced, concise, well-written. It's just about his life (the title!) but it does provide the historical context to enrich the listening of his works.

An Excellent Introductory Biography of the Composer
This is an excellent and concise introductory biography of Schubert for the general reader. Gibbs debunks many of the Schubert myths that have arisen since his tragic early death, and explores Schubert's social mileu. Of primary importance in Schubert's life is his circle of male friends. In addition he tackles some of the recent research concerning the composer's possible homosexuality, and explores some of the rudimentary evidence that exists about Schubert's relationships with women. What is lacking in this book is more analysis of Schubert's oeuvre.

equivocal, halting, and awkward
I'd cut this more slack if it were the only biography of Schubert ever written. Obviously it is not, so how does it distinguish itself from the others? It was more recently published, and that, I'm afraid, is it. It is always hedging, it wants desparately to offend nobody, and manages in this way to offend at least me.

Bringing clarity to a misunderstood composer
Poor Schubert!The Viennese-born composer was little appreciated in his day, even by the circle of close friends who periodically sponsored programs of his songs and chamber music.Despite the fact that several of his friends were writers, none seem to have thought to record their memories of the composer until decades later.After his death at age 31, the composer was turned into a Romantic symbol, a sentimentalized ideal of the tragic genius who's life was cut short, etc. In more recent times, Schubert has been the subject of intense scholarly debates about issues like gender, which also want to idealize the composer (as gay icon).Christopher Gibbs acknowledges all these issues and provides a clearly written and frequently insightful study of the composer's life, without taking sides in any of the academic debates that have consistently misinterpreted his significance.For example, Gibbs notes that 19th century writers often said (selfishly) "Alas, we have been denied more glorious examples of Schubert's work."Instead, Gibbs suggests that the real loss was that Schubert died just before he gained the popularity his music deserved, and before he had the chance to clearly distinguish between mature works and juvenalia.You will gain a sense of Schubert as a real flesh-and-blood artist with desires and problems (he sometimes drank too much, it seems), rather than as a romanticized image of "doomed youth."A very welcome addition to the literature! ... Read more

Product Description
Of all the great composers, none, not even Mozart, has been so dogged by myth and misunderstanding as Schubert. Since the 1920s, when the musical Blossom Time hit the stage, the notion of Schubert as a pudgy, love-lorn Bohemian schwammerl (mushroom) scribbling gemlich tunes on the back of menus in idle moments has never been quite eradicated. But in this major new biography (the first comprehensive work on Schubert in over fifty years) Brian Newbould lays to rest the stereotype of the composer plucking melodies out of the air, relying on instinct more than well-honed craft. Instead he paints a vivid and compelling portrait of a man who was compulsively dedicated to his art, a composer so prolific that he produced roughly one thousand works in an eighteen year period.Gifted with an intuitive know-how, coupled with a Mozartian facility for composition, Schubert combined the relish and wonder of an amateur with the discipline and technical rigor of a professional.He moved quickly and comfortably among genres, and sometimes composed directly into score; but many pieces required painstaking revision before they satisfied his growing self-criticism. Examining afresh the enigmas surrounding Schubert's religious outlook, his loves, his sexuality, his illness and death, Newbould offers above all a celebration of a unique genius, an idiosyncratic composer of an astonishing body of powerful, enduring music.Amazon.com Review
Brian Newbould brings together the biographical data ofSchubert's life with the music that he composed. The book is bothreadable and informative, the work of a professor of music at theUniversity of Hull in Britain whose biographical data describes him asa composer, conductor, pianist, and lecturer. Newbould has been sobold as to finish the Unfinished Symphony and other ofSchubert's uncompleted works, and he has a deep understanding of theman and his music. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The music, not the man
While this is an interesting book about Schubert, it discusses the music much more than the man. You get little feeling for Schubert as a person, and little understanding of his everyday life from this book. On the other hand, Newbould spends a lot of time talking about the music. But his discussions are little more than what you get in liner notes of a CD, and require that you be familiar with the music in question (or have the time to take out all your Schubert CDs and listen to everything he discusses).

I'm a big fan of Schubert's works, and hoped, in this book, to get a better understanding of who he was, why he wrote his music, what he wanted to "say" through his music, but all of that is lacking. The biographical chapters - about half the book - are short, say little more than what music Schubert composed and when, and are fully of "maybes" and "possiblys". It's almost as though this were a bio of Shakespeare (about whom little is known). I don't know if there's a dearth of information about Schubert - Newbould doesn't say so - but reading this book one can get that feeling.

Since there are no other books about Schubert that say much more, this is probably worthwhile, if you can read scores (to grasp the musical examples). But I'd say there's a need for a _real_ bio of Schubert.

Good Schubert...
.
Newbould's reading of Schubert's life and art is about the best book currently available.Combine with John Reed's out of print Schubert.
. ... Read more

Product Description
Build your own personal library of orchestral repertoire at an incredibly low price. The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library(TM) is a compilation of printed parts, by instrument, of orchestral masterworks by the music world's most celebrated composers. This volume includes 90 orchestral works by Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Weber, Rossini, Donizetti, Auber and Cherubini. CDs are available for Violin I and II, Viola, Cello, Bass, Flute and Piccolo, Clarinet, Oboe and English Horn, Horn, Bassoon, Contrabassoon, Trumpet and Cornet, Low Brass (which includes Trombone and Tuba), and Timpani/Percussion. It's simple. Use the CD-ROM drive in your PC or Mac to view or print clear letter-sized copies. The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library(TM) installs easily and quickly. Adobe Acrobat Reader technology is utilized (free download included on each CD), so no special access codes or software are required. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first book to examine Schubert's songs as active shaping forces in the culture of their era rather than as mere reflections of it. Responding to rising new forms of social organisation, Schubert discovered that songs could serve as a medium for shuffling and reshuffling the basic building blocks of identity and desire, especially sexual desire. His songs project a kaleidoscopic array of unexpected human types, all of whom are eligible for a sympathetic response, even the strangest and most disconcerting. Schubert sought to validate these subjective types without subordinating them to a central social or sexual norm. The book describes and contextualises this process and tracks it concretely in a wide variety of songs. Combining close attention to both music and poetry, the book addresses both specialists and non-specialists in a lively, accessible style unburdened by excessive jargon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Yet another obscure intellectual romp with Lawrence Kramer
Lawrence Kramer's latest book suffers the same disease as his other books and articles on classical music suffer.Much of the points he tries to make are lost in the highfalutin language he enjoys using.The topics of his book are complex already, and he doesn't make it any easier on the reader to understand by writing in such a distanced manner.While this is a text aimed for scholars in the field, Kramer could have broadened his audience by making it more accesible for the apprentices, not just the masters.Kramer's writing seems almost exclusive, as if he is holding his knowledge just above the reach of most people, and enjoying himself as he does this as well.

Getting past the language, many of Kramer's points are not supported by a wealth of evidence.He makes points that lack credibility without enough support.Kramer seems to expect the readers to take him at his word, which is a dangerous thing to do, considering that he is far from the final word on Schubert.Kramer's opinions are NOT enough to make opinion fact, though he seems to think this is the case.

If you buy this book for leisure or for class, be sure to read carefully, or else you'll get tricked into believeing Kramer's assertions.

Using big words to describe a complex topic does not magically transform his opinions into fact, nor does it make a scholar more scholarly.It compromises what possibly could have been an interesting book, dooming it before it even started. ... Read more