What does a good novel have in common with an orchestral score? More than you might think, says Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor Fawzi Haimor.
Lewis Lockwood, Beethoven: The Music and the Life
This brilliant portrayal weaves Beethoven's musical and biographical stories into their historical and artistic contexts. Lewis Lockwood sketches the turbulent personal, historical, political, and cultural frameworks in which Beethoven worked and examines their effects on his music. "The result is that rarest of achievements, a profoundly humane work of scholarship that will—or at least should—appeal to specialists and generalists in equal measure" (Terry Teachout, Commentary). Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. "Lewis Lockwood has written a biography of Beethoven in which the hours that Beethoven spent writing music—that is, his methods of working, his interest in contemporary and past composers, the development of his musical intentions and ideals, his inner musical life, in short—have been properly integrated with the external events of his career. The book is invaluable." —Charles Rosen
Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man
One of America's most beloved and accomplished composers, Aaron Copland played a crucial role in the coming of age of American music. This substantial biography is the first full-length scholarly study of Copland's life and work.
A conductor, music critic, and teacher who wrote clearly and accessibly about music, Copland composed some of the twentieth century's most familiar works--Billy the Kid, Rodeo, Appalachian Spring, Fanfare for the Common Man--in addition to a wealth of music for opera, ballet, chorus, orchestra, chamber ensemble, band, radio, and film. Howard Pollack's expansive and detailed biography examines Copland's musical development, his political sympathies, his personal life, and his tireless encouragement of younger composers, presenting a balanced and skillfully wrought portrait of an American original.
