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Composers’ Letters
- Author
- Jan Fielden
- Narrator
- Jeremy Nicholas, Daniel Philpott, Edward de Souza, Anton Lesser, Benjamin Soames, Hugo Godwin
- Publisher
- Naxos AudioBooks
- Publish Date
- 1 January 2000
- Run Time
- 2 hours 28 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Critics Review
-
Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award In a perfect and perfectly delightful use of the audio format, this offering pairs accomplished and well-cast actors with letters written by famous composers. The letters are given chronologically, from J.S. Bach’s writing about career and money difficulties in the seventeenth century through the letters of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and others up to Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky in the twentieth. A brief and helpful historical note precedes each composer’s section and, best of all, the music he’s writing about accompanies and illuminates the words. Age-appropriate actors voice composers writing in old age while lighter, boyish voices bring us young Mozart, or Chopin as a determined and very broke youth writing home from Paris. This reviewer’s only possible complaint would be that the book isn’t twice as long.
B.G., AudioFile
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Jan Fielden
- Narrator
- Jeremy Nicholas, Daniel Philpott, Edward de Souza, Anton Lesser, Benjamin Soames, Hugo Godwin
- Duration
- 2 hours 28 minutes
- Release Date
- 1 January 2000
- ISBN
- 9781843795735
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Naxos AudioBooks
- Genre
- History of music, Music reviews and criticism
Synopsis
In Composers’ Letters, the voices of the great figures of classical music come alive through their correspondence. Set against the music we know and love, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and many more talk openly about their music, their hopes and fears, their love, their sadness and their struggles in realising their artistic hopes in a commercial world. Poignant, funny, revealing, informative and so often direct and honest, these letters offer a fascinating insight into the personalities that created our Western musical tradition.
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