The Lives and Times of the Great Composers

Very pleased with a used book that looks brand new.

A big book filled with information. It was entertaining and very interesting. I first read Schubert’s life. After all, I like his inpromptus. It was a mistake: girls, parties, wine, night life, venereal disease…, but I discovered later that the whole book did not treat only of sex.Composers have always been good at finding the most beautiful, romantic, and lush places in Europe: Austrian forests, Russian villages, lake Como and Bellagio, islands in the Mediterranean Sea - the nicest in Italy, and even Vatican - all were frequented by composers.Politics: they did not have Internet, but they were well aware of the political movements: invasion by the French armies, fall of Napoleon, revolutions in France every 20 years, invasions of Poland and of France, iron hand of Bismark, fall of various dynasties, and later dictators of communist Russia, etc. In fact, they were often directly impacted by politics. They had their own opinions which sometimes did not match the newly established government, and at all times, they needed sponsors, publishers, money, and concert halls. Some of them had to hide in order not to be arrested.I wonder if contemporary composers are confronted to the same problems.

I am not a professional musicologist, just a passionate amateur. I read a lot of musical biography and such, so I was pleasantly surprised to see just how much I learned from this book. It is a real joy to read, the sort of book one doesn't want to end. In my view, it is generally balanced and fair (though the chapters on Wagner and R. Strauss come close to assassination at times). Rather like Edward Gibbon, Steen lives out his sex life in his footnotes, which are often hilarious. The book is elaborately, even tediously, documented; but the source notes are in the back, so as not to distract from the text notes. This is not a book on music; it is a book on composers: biography not musicology. (As Steen explains in a humorous introduction, music is about cellos, biography about fellows.)I really enjoyed this book and recommend it highly. At the risk of sounding petty, I wish that so distinguished publisher as Oxford could have employed an editor to rid this otherwise fine work of numerous grammatical errors. But put down your red pen for a while and just have a good time with Steen's exploration of Western music.

Great history and background included to give context to each composer’s life and times. I also like that the author was never biased.

I live in India and my music teachers expect me to play ancient music from the West. Though the music is wonderful, I always had the strange feeling of watching myself learn and play as though I was another person I was observing. I was never with the music because I lacked the cultural context.This book by Michael Steen has fixed that problem. It is not just a concise history of Western music of the previous few centuries but also a window into the everyday lives of the people to whom the music belongs.The book provides an essential cultural context for truly enjoying the musical heritage of places like Italy, Germany, France, England and other such parts of Europe.

I've grown up loving classical music and though I knew the biographies of some composers, the backgrounds of others were vague. This is a very short introduction of a collection of history's most celebrated composers. entertaining reading.

The book on the composer's lives is a good handy reference that I use on education on Music History in my piano studio.When adding composers to my student's repertoire it is vey important that students can read about the life of the composer they play. So by having Great Composers in Kindle format I have a more close approach on introducing them to new details of the composers lives.

It read like a novel- As most musically trained people know is that the evolution classical music spanned about 150 years. An also that these musician were isolated primarily from Italy to Western Russia to the Baltics. What this book also teaches is how many of these composers knew each other or their families or were their instructors or pupils or who's wife ran off with who's husband. Of course there is talk of their individual approaches to music but more from a listeners POV. Great read

I have the hardback version of this book and thought it would be nice to have it on my kindle fire. Unfortunately, none of the colour plates appear in the kindle version, even though they are listed at the front and meticulously credited at the back. These colour plates, which are numerous in the hardback version, are really essential for the proper appreciation of the book and their omission from the kindle version is a great disappointment. I can only hope that the publishers will read this review and update the kindle version so that the colour plates are sent to my kindle fire. I would then update my review to five star. In the meantime, their omission is so detrimental to the book it is worth no more than three stars.

I was quite surprised at the overall dimensions for a book of this size. My fault for not noticing this. The book itself is excellent! It was a gift for my partner who is stilling working his way through it now. Well worth buying but be aware that because of it's size the font size is quite small.

I bought this for my Father's 85th birthday, Unfortunately, he found the font too small to read comfortably, even with his reading spectacles and had to resort to a magnifying glass. I have not seen the book so cannot comment on this opinion. He liked the book, other than that.

Absorbing pen-picture life stories of myriad leading composers from the 18th-20th century. Focuses on their personal lives and the events of their era, rather than on the music. The book is a little light on detail for some of the early famous composers, but really hits its stride in the post-Beethoven era. Very enjoyable, not too high-brow and an excellent primer if you want to gain a broad overview of developments in classical music and European history over the last 300 years.

A wonderful insight into more than just names and dates. I love the crossover of the composers meeting each other, rivalry between them and the quotes. Bed time reading for years!