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Shortly after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death, his widow Constanze sent a manuscript copy of one of his most beloved operas, Die Zauberflste, to the court of the Elector of Cologne. It was eventually published by Nicolaus Simrock in 1814 as the first full-score edition. However, the question still remains as to why this early copy in her possession diverges from Mozart's autograph in so many libretto details. The Authentic Magic Flute Libretto: Mozart's Autograph or the First Full-Score Edition? investigates the origin and claim to authenticity of the first full-score edition of Die Zauberflste, drawing attention to the close bond between words and music. Michael Freyhan brings the subtlety ...
German opera from its primitive origins up to Wagner is the subject of this wide-ranging history. It traces the growth of the humble Singspiel into a vehicle for the genius of Mozart and Beethoven, together with the persistent attempts at German Grand Opera. Seventeenth-century Hamburg opera, the role of the travelling companies and Viennese Singspiel are all explored. Discussions that from early days absorbed Germans concerned for the development of a national art are followed, together with the influence of new critical thought at the start of the nineteenth century. The many operas studied are placed in their historical, social and theatrical context, and attention is paid to the literary, artistic and philosophical ideas that made them part of the country's intellectual history. Warrack assesses the contributions of Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann, as well as Weber and Hoffmann, among others.
From My Life is the autobiography of Eduard Hanslick, one of the most noted and honored music critics in nineteenth-century Vienna who made his mark with his relatively brief disquisition On the Musically Beautiful first issued in 1854. His highly informative autobiography has never appeared in complete translation to English or any other language.
Gerald Abraham's reputation as an authority on Russian music has tended to obscure his deep interest in the music of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and of the nineteenth-century generally. From a lifetime's devoted scholarship in these fields Abrahams selected his best work to make up this volume (first published in 1968), one of exceptional breadth and fascination. The subjects range from the relationship of Slavonic music to the western world, to detailed essays on figures such as Chopin, Dvorák, Rubinstein and Mussorgsky. A study of realism in Janacek's operas contains a particularly fine analysis of From a House of the Dead and there is an account of the fantastic 'erotic diary' for piano in which Zdenek Fibich, one of the finest nineteenth-century Czech symphonists, recorded the secrets of his love affair with former student and librettist Anezka Schulzová. Gerald Abraham (1904-1988) was a distinguished musicologist, among his official posts those of Professor of Music at the University of Liverpool and Assistant Controller of Music at the BBC.