Böcker av Peter Branscombe

This collection of articles, written by European, American and British scholars, clarifies problems of style and chronology in the music Schubert composed during the last decade of his life. The articles touch on all areas of Schubert's output, with the emphasis on his songs, theatre music, and orchestral and chamber works.

'One of the first men of this century' is how Heine described himself when he claimed to have been born in the early hours of 1800. It was typical of Heine to create this humorous doubt - he was in fact born in 1797. He was a restless and homeless poet, a Jew among Germans, a German in Paris, a rebel among the bourgeoisie and always, as his famous doppelg nger poems show, a man divided against himself. This selection, with the German originals accompanied by English prose translations, provides the perfect introduction to Heine. He can be magnificent as an acute, irreverent commentator on politics and current events, though his genius most often strikes home in the poems filled with despair, or sensuality, or sweetness, or self-mockery, in which he draws out the whole gamut of emotions provoked by love and immanent death.

This book is a detailed study of Mozart's last opera. The sources for the opera are discussed, and there are chapters devoted to the composition of the work, the authorship and qualities of the libretto, the music, early productions and performance history, and the practical problems of directing a production.