The Lives of the Great Composers

If you are starting out reading about classical music, you can purchase many individual biographies of the great composers - or start with ONE superb book ... Schonberg's "Lives of the Great Composers." Schonberg's book has essentially achieved classic status for its authoritive tone, depth of information and engaging writing style that does not put one to sleep. I have many different books on the lives and music of the great composers but wish I found this book sooner (and saved a lot of money) as its biographies are amongst the most clear and compelling of those available - and well suited to the classical newcomer. After reading several books prior on these same composers, I was surprised to read new and brilliant insights in Schonberg's accounts that kept me in wrapt attention. His writing style flows easily - a mark of a talented communicator/author. While his accounts are not long, they do give an excellent first look at each composer. Not much more can be expected from a compilation book as this. But, for composers that really peak your interest, other specific books focused on only one composer will be the what is needed to satisfy the musicologist or historian within. One thing not present in this book is much discussion of the MUSIC or analysis of it (no room in one volume already quite sizable). I guess this is why the book is titled, "The LIVES of the Great Composers." Also, not in this book are pictures or drawing of historical places, people or instruments. Some of the newer full-color, glossy books on the composers (like DK press) offer this and are most attractive - but definately at the expense of depth of treatment. So, if you don't need pictures to draw you into these historical periods and places, Schonberg's book is perhaps the finest overall book on the main composers, giving many inticing and fascinating details about their lives. Is not dry, overly academic or needlessly prosaic like some other books but rather is a pure pleasure to read ... kind of like a good novel that keeps your attention. Also recommended for a basic study of the great composers is "The Gift of Music" which has more of a spiritual slant to it and some high quality biographies.

This is an excellent resource for learning and reading about the lives and works of the world's greatest composers. I literally read this book so much that it fell apart. As a composition student I am sometimes asked by people "where I should go to learn what composers and what compositions I should read". I recommend this book first.

Schonberg's third edition of this perennial favourite includes a few subtle changes to the first edition (which I'd read numerous times), as well as new accounts of the serialists, tonalists, minimalists (and other -ists) who have bored and bewildered audiences during the last 45 years or so. And while Schonberg doesn't say so explicitly, in many ways this book poses the ultimate riddle of our supposedly advanced culture and times - how on earth did we go from the heights of Mozart in the 18th century, and then Beethoven in the 19th, only to fall in the last century to a level of such mindless mediocrity? Reading the latter pages of this book, I was reminded of Thomas Beecham's immortal riposte to the question of whether he had ever conducted the music of Stockhausen. "No, but I've trodden in some," was his sardonic reply.Beecham would surely have applauded the author's straightforward style. Not for Schonberg is the stuffy, academic approach to the great composers so favoured by classical poseurs, but rather a witty series of vignettes designed to make the subjects come alive. Schonberg shows the composers warts and all, and our appreciation of their strengths and flaws (both musically and characterwise) is all the keener for his lack of pretentiousness. For some readers, he will undoubtedly have his blindspots when it comes to assessing certain composers' musical worth (his section on Elgar, for example, is not as glowing as the subject deserves), but he makes no apologies for possessing strong opinions - and nor should he.If you're looking for a politically correct account of the great composers, then look elsewhere. Meanwhile, the intelligent lay-person (rather than the musical expert) will find many rewarding hours in this witty feast of a book.

In this substantial and attractive tome, Schonberg describes the lives of the great composers in moderate detail, the treatment going beyond mere thumbnail sketches. He starts with Monteverdi, proceeds through Bach, Mozart, Wagner, Stravinsky, Bartok, Messiaen, and ends with the post-1945 era (Cage, Carter, Stockhausen, ...) and the fragmentation and exhaustion of the great classical tradition. Clearly, for definitive treatments of individual composers one must look elsewhere -- to Maynard for Mozart and Beethoven, Newman and Gutman for Wagner, Barzun and Cairns for Berlioz, de la Grange for Mahler, and so on. But even in the short space allotted to each composer Schonberg has things of interest to say and insights to share, and he manages to plumb to a moderate depth. I have only two reservations about this book. First, the treatment of Mahler is infuriating. Schonberg hates Mahler, and here he has a deaf spot the size of a continent. To me Mahler is among the very greatest, but to a large extent the music is the man and Schonberg can't stand him -- he finds Mahler weak, hysterical, exhibitionistic, and trite. But he is unable to do justice to his position because out of sheer spite, he makes this influential and controversial composer share a chapter with Bruckner (okay, but misguided) and Reger (!!). This is a real pity, because his arguments are fascinating and cry out for expansion and development. He does manage to quote a sentence by Bruno Walter describing Mahler's cruel insensitivity to a hapless composer during an audition, thus illustrating Mahler's deficiencies in ordinary social intercourse and basic human sympathy. But does this have any real bearing on the music? If only Schonberg were still alive -- I'd collar him, put him under house arrest, and make him write the book on Mahler that he had in him!The other place I might quibble about is Schonberg's chapter on Stravinsky. No love was ever lost between the two men, and the relationship soured over the years. In the book "Themes and Conclusions" (which I like to think of as a Kraft fabrication by Stravinsky), Schonberg is pretty well skewered. Stravinsky had to endure some early hardships that marked him for life and left him insecure and vulnerable (as the twig is bent, so grows the tree). His mother openly preferred her elder son, and after he died prematurely did not transfer her affection to Igor. Also, and pointedly, he was not Rimsky-Korsakov's favorite pupil, that distinction fell to Maximilian Stein. In view of this vulnerability and the composer's undeniable greatness, it seems ungracious of Schonberg to devote two pages in this short chapter to belittling the significance of Stravinsky's music -- in particular saying that after the Sacre he enjoyed only a succes d'estime, that his works lacked a wide following. What has this got to do with the quality of the music? Surely he knows that in music as elsewhere, high achievement is not going to please everyon

Let's get this straight right up front: I have no musical ability whatsoever. But I fell in love with classical music in one of those hoary Introduction to Classical Music classes hundreds of people at a time take in college, and it's been a self-taught, self-driven exploration ever since. There are a few books that have been constant guides, and Schonberg's "The Lives of the Great Composers" has been one of them. Over the last fifteen years, I've read it from cover-to-cover half-a-dozen times, and each time I've enjoyed it with deepening understanding as the pieces of music he discusses have become dear old friends, rather than intimidating strangers. I have long believed that an artist's life and his art have a conflicting relationship: how else does one explain the monsters that so often create works of immortal beauty? Schonberg has provided the non-musician with a musically aware text, and all I can hope for is that some of it has rubbed off on me over the years. Charming, humorous, and just the right length for each composer, you can't go wrong with this book.