Virtuosity and the Musical Work: The Transcendental Studies of Liszt
Author(s): Jim Samson (Author)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: April 23, 2007
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Print length: 252 pages
ISBN-10: 0521036046
ISBN-13: 9780521036047
Book Description
This book is about three sets of etudes by Liszt: the Etude en douze exercices (1826); its reworking as Douzes grandes etudes (1837); and their reworking as Douzes etudes d’execution transcendante (1851). It is also a book about nineteenth-century instrumental music in general because the three works invite the exploration of features characteristic of the early Romantic era in music. These include a composer-performer culture; the concept of virtuosity; the significance of recomposition; music and the poetic; and the consolidation of a musical work-concept.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“First and most obviously, this is a landmark study of an important group of works and the genre to which they belong, both of which continue to enjoy substantial popularity and a problematic reception. Second, Samson has offered a beautifully crafted model for a critical, contextual, cultural, and above all musical musicological study; as its subject is a body of Liszt etudes, so it is a study of nineteenth-century etuding. It is to be hoped that it is broadly influential in our discipline, because the balances it finds are rarely reached with this kind of elegance.” Notes
Book Description
Considers the nature of nineteenth-century instrumental music through three sets of etudes by Liszt.
About the Author
Jim Samson has been a Professor of Music at the Universities of Exeter and Bristol and is now Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published widely on the music of Chopin and on analytical and aesthetic topics in nineteenth- and twentieth-century music and has recently edited the Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and holds the Order of Merit of the Polish Ministry of Culture.
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