Music, the author contends, is a continually evolving art, and all geniuses, unique as they are, were influenced by their predecessors. Schonberg discusses the lives and works of the foremost figures in classical music, among them Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, the Schumanns, Copland, and Stravinsky, weaving a fabric rich in detail and anecdote. He also includes the creators of light music, such as Gilbert and Sullivan and the Strausses.Schonberg has extended the volume's coverage to provide informative and clearly written descriptions of the later serialists such as Stockhausen and Carter, the iconoclastic John Cage, the individualistic Messiaen, minimalist composers, the new tonalists, and women composers of all eras, including Mendelssohn Hensel, Chaminade, Smyth, Beach, and Zwilich. Scattered throughout are many changes and additions reflecting musicological findings of the past fifteen years.

    The volume concludes with the Grosse Fuge, Opus 133.The music is photographically reprinted from the Breitkopf & Härtel printed score, still considered the standard, authoritative edition for the Beethoven quartets. Noteheads in this edition have been reproduced in a size large enough to be read easily from a music stand or the keyboard, and margins and spaces between staves are conveniently wide to permit written notes, harmonic analysis, fingerings, and running measure numbers. This edition is practical for study, reference, enjoyment — virtually any use.

    S. Bach, devoted fifty years to its monumental task. It succeeded so well in tracking down Bach's heritage, establishing authenticity, and transcribing accurate texts that it still remains the primary source for Bach's music., Unfortunately, it has always been a fantastically expensive publication, accessible only in the largest libraries.This volume reprints in full, directly from the Bach-Gesellschaft volumes, important keyboard music. It contains the full texts of the Six English Suites, the Six French Suites, Six Partitas from the Clavierübung, the Goldberg Variations, and the Two- and Three-Part Inventions and Sinfonias,The music has been reproduced in large, clear type, directly from the original editions, for maximum clarity. Designed as a playing edition, it will be a necessary book to every performer on the harpsichord or piano, every music student and musicologist, as well as to serious music listeners.

    The unfailing melody, the fresh modulations, and the emotional range — from blissful contentment to pensive melancholy — of these works place them firmly among the undisputed piano classics. This volume, reproduced directly from Series 10 of the definitive Breitkopf & Härtel Schubert-Gesammtausgabe, contains all fifteen of Schubert's piano sonatas: the charming early sonatas, the groundbreaking sonatas of the early 1820s, right up to the brilliant final sonatas.Noteheads in this edition have been reproduced in a size large enough to be read easily at the keyboard, and margins and spaces between staves are conveniently wide to permit written notes, harmonic analysis, fingerings, and running measure numbers. Essential to all classical pianists, this edition is also practical for study, reference, enjoyment — virtually any use.