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Cambridge Music Handbooks provide accessible introductions to major musical works, written by the most informed commentators in the field. With the concert-goer, performer and student in mind, the books present essential information on the historical and musical context, the composition, and the performance and reception history of each work, or group of works, as well as critical discussion of the music.

  • General Editors: Julian Rushton

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38 results in Cambridge Music Handbooks

Page 1 of 2

Brahms: Clarinet Quintet
  • Colin Lawson
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    08 January 1998
  • On its first appearance in 1891, Brahms' Clarinet Quintet was immediately recognised as a remarkable achievement, and a century later it still has the power to claim the hearts and minds of players and audiences alike. Widely regarded as Brahms' supreme achievement in the field of chamber music, the Clarinet Quintet is here placed in the context of the history of the clarinet and its repertory, and of Brahms' own compositions before 1891. The influence of the Meiningen clarinet virtuoso Richard Mühlfeld unleashed a new vein of creativity in Brahms, and this forms a basis for discussion, together with questions of performance practice (in relation to both clarinet and string quartet) and the legacy of Brahms' clarinet music. These chapters are complemented by a comprehensive analysis of the music.

Bach: Mass in B Minor
  • John Butt
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 June 1991
  • The Mass in B Minor is arguably Bach's greatest single work. In this short guide John Butt considers the work from many angles offering the reader basic information in a concise and accessible form. The Mass in B Minor is fraught with difficulties regarding its origin, and ambiguities concerning its function. John Butt looks again at the historical sources and provides an up-to-date summary of existing research and opinions together with new insights of his own. He gives a vivid account of the work's genesis, its historical context, and its reception by later generations. One chapter considers the work movement by movement providing the text in both Latin and English. The final group of chapters on the music itself suggests some new approaches to the work - its forms, style and overall structure - which are both critically and historically based. This is an informative and lucid guide, valuable for student and music lover alike.

Tippett: A Child of our Time
  • Kenneth Gloag
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    28 October 1999
  • Michael Tippett's oratorio A Child of our Time was written at the beginning of the second world war as an expression of 'man's inhumanity to man'. It has become one of his most widely known works and one which is seen to symbolise the composer's extra-musical concerns, both political and psychological. This study places these concerns within a wider historical and cultural context while also focusing on specific aspects of Tippett's musical language. Central to this enquiry is Tippett's relationship to the work of T. S. Eliot, a relationship which is seen to condition both the text and its musical representation through Tippett's allusions to specific poetic images within the text and references to historical genres, forms and gestures within the musical dimension. Also of importance is the initial critical reception of the work, a reception which determined responses that still surround the work.

Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
  • Colin Lawson
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    02 May 1996
  • Mozart's Clarinet Concerto is of supreme importance as his last instrumental work. Yet there are a number of special problems surrounding the piece, since the autograph is lost and the unique instrument for which it was written has not survived. This book provides evidence of the development of the clarinet, Mozart's encounter with it, and the composition and subsequent reception of the Clarinet Concerto. An analysis of the work is complemented by discussion of performance practice and of surviving relevant instruments. Expertise from the author's colleagues contributes to some valuable appendices.

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis
  • William Drabkin
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    29 November 1991
  • The Missa Solemnis is a document of extraordinary richness from the last decades of Beethoven's creative life. In this compendious and accessible guide, William Drabkin considers the work as a musical expression of the most celebrated text of the Roman Catholic faith and as an example from a tradition of Mass settings in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Austria. The opening chapters present various critical perspectives on the Missa Solemnis and chart the history of its composition, first performances and publication. But, above all, the work itself is considered in detail, including the overall design, connections between the movements, the orchestration, word painting and programmatic elements.

Nielsen: Symphony No. 5
  • David Fanning
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    05 June 1997
  • After the death of Mahler in 1911 the great Austro-German symphonic line was carried on mainly in England, America, Scandinavia and Russia. The Fifth Symphony of Carl Nielsen, Denmark's greatest composer, was composed in 1921–2. David Fanning discusses its place within the symphonic tradition since Beethoven, revealing the personal background to the work and taking full account of the extensive Danish commentaries, including the composer's own, which are given in English for the first time. In an absorbing analysis of the music he lays bare the origins of its images of inertia, anxiety and collapse in Nielsen's tone poems and incidental music for the theatre. Insights are offered into the symphony's 'progressive tonality' and its relationship to traditional structural models.

Handel: Messiah
  • Donald Burrows
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 June 1991
  • This new guide to Handel's most celebrated work traces the course of Messiah from Handel's initial musical response to the libretto, through the oratorio's turbulent first years to its eventual popularity with the Foundling Hospital performances. Different chapters consider the varying reception the work received in Dublin and London, the uneasy relationship between the composer and his librettist Charles Jennens and the many changes Messiah underwent through the varying needs and capacities of Handel's performers. As well as tracing the history of the work's development, the book addresses musical and technical issues such as Messiah's place in the oratorio genre, Handel's treatment of structural design, tonal relationships and English word-setting. An edited libretto elucidates the variants between the text that Handel set and the texts of the early printed word-books. Donald Burrows brings many new insights to this fascinating account of one of the favourite works of the concert hall.

Berg: Violin Concerto
  • Anthony Pople
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 June 1991
  • Described by Aaron Copland as 'among the finest creations in the modern repertoire', Alban Berg's Violin Concerto has become a twentieth-century classic. In this authoritative and highly readable guide to the work the reader is introduced not only to the concerto itself but to all that surrounded and determined its composition. This is a book about musical culture in the 1930s, about the Second Viennese School, about tonality, atonality and serialism, about Berg's own musical development, compositional method and the private significance the Violin Concerto held for him. The book describes the genesis of the work, its performance history and critical reception and, in two detailed musical chapters, provides a section-by-section account of the book and a closer analysis of the musical language and structure. Anthony Pople's ability to combine musical anecdote with scholarly discussion makes this guide compelling reading for the amateur and the specialist alike.

Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps
  • Anthony Pople
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    02 July 1998
  • The Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) is among the best-known compositions by Olivier Messiaen (1908–92). Like virtually all of his works, it combines the striking technical achievement of Messiaen's rich and attractive musical style with a deeply felt theological inspiration - in this case from the apocalyptic events described in the Book of Revelation, leading to the end of Time itself. Composed while Messiaen was a prisoner-of-war and premiered under extraordinary conditions in Stalag VIIIA in 1941, the work retains a powerful immediacy that has made it a favourite of performers and audiences alike. Anthony Pople's book provides an introduction to Messiaen's style through an examination of this great work, showing how it came to be composed and giving an in-depth assessment of each of its eight movements.

Haydn: The Creation
  • Nicholas Temperley
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    31 May 1991
  • Haydn's Creation is one of the great masterpieces of the classical period. In this absorbing and original account the author places the work within the oratorio tradition, contrasting the theological and literary character of the English libretto with the Viennese milieu of the first performances. The complete text is provided in both English and German versions as a reference point for discussion of the design of the work and the musical treatment of the words. A more detailed musical chapter examines the work through the movement types it employs - arias and ensembles, recitative and choruses - distinguishing the Handelian model from Haydn's own classical idiom. Nicholas Temperley also discusses the changing performance traditions of this work, surveys the critical reception throughout its history and quotes from the most signifcant critical literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
  • John Williamson
  • Published online:
    04 August 2010
    Print publication:
    01 April 1993
  • Richard Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra is one of his most controversial works. Its greatest popularity has been achieved when its connection with Nietzsche's book of the same name has seemed less relevant than its associations with Kubrick's film 2001 - A Space Odyssey. Although its early critical reception was mixed, it is nowadays one of the staples of the virtuoso orchestra, and a standard demonstration piece for innovations in recording technique. Its opening bars have become a kind of icon independent of the rest of the work. This guide examines the intellectual background of the work and considers ways in which it has been received by composers and writers, notably Romain Rolland and Bartok. It also discusses the musical background of Liszt and Wagner which gave rise to the genre, 'tone poem', and provides an analysis of several aspects of Strauss's musical language.

Verdi: Requiem
  • David Rosen
  • Published online:
    04 February 2010
    Print publication:
    14 September 1995
  • Verdi's Messa da Requiem is one of the most frequently performed works of the choral repertoire, and one of Verdi's most important non-operatic works. This new handbook offers an up-to-date account of the work's genesis, its performance history, and issues regarding performing practice. The central chapters provide a descriptive analysis of the work, while exploring some of the critical issues raised by individual sections, such as Verdi's interpretation of the text, his reactions to previous Requiems by Mozart and Berlioz, as well as the reception of his Requiem by critics. Subsequent chapters discuss some of the most important changes and revisions Verdi made in fashioning the Requiem. The author's final discussions investigate two critical issues: the work's unità musicale, and the central issue in its reception history, its generic status and the extent to which the Requiem is operatic.

Schumann: Fantasie, Op. 17
  • Nicholas Marston
  • Published online:
    26 January 2010
    Print publication:
    30 October 1992
  • Schumann's Fantasie, Op. 17 is one of the finest examples of Romantic piano music. In a rounded picture of this major keyboard work, Nicholas Marston traces the fascinating history of its composition, drawing on many of Schumann's letters to Clara Wieck and to his publisher. Examining the few surviving sketches: to whom was the work really dedicated? Was the celebrated opening movement perhaps intended as an independent composition? Schumann's own critical writings provide vital insights into his ideas on genre and the relationship between the Fantasie and the many generic and descriptive titles which the composer gave the work before publication. Dr Marston also considers the role of allusion and quotation in the work, preparing the way for an analytical study of each of the movements. The book concludes with an overview of the reception and performance of the Fantasie from 1839 onwards. Every aspect of the work is covered, providing the performer, the listener or the student with an understanding not only of the Fantasie, but of Schumann himself as a composer.

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
  • David Schiff
  • Published online:
    18 January 2010
    Print publication:
    25 September 1997
  • The Rhapsody in Blue (1924) established Gershwin's reputation as a serious composer and has since become one of the most popular of all American concert works. In this richly informative guide David Schiff considers the piece as musical work, historical event and cultural document. He traces the history of the Rhapsody's composition, performance and reception, placing it within the context of American popular song and jazz and the development of modernism. He also provides a full account of the different published and recorded versions of the work and explores the many stylistic sources of Gershwin's music. The book also contains an extended discussion of Paul Whitman's Experiment in Modern Music, considers the influence of the Rhapsody on other works (e.g. the music of Duke Ellington) and examines the traditions and institutions of Jewish cultural populism.

Monteverdi: Vespers (1610)
  • John Whenham
  • Published online:
    12 January 2010
    Print publication:
    25 September 1997
  • Monteverdi's Vespers is an exceptional collection of sacred music, both in the inventiveness of the compositions that it contains and in the debate that it has provoked over its use in the seventeenth century and over Monteverdi's intentions in publishing it. This Handbook provides a guide to the music in all its aspects – from an introduction to the service of Vespers itself, through the practice of chanting psalms in plainsong to analysis of Monteverdi's settings, ranging from the rhetoric of the motet 'Nigra sum' to the sub-text of the psalm 'Laetatus sum'. It also examines the issues involved in performing the Vespers and evaluates various scholarly debates on the music, challenging the long-held ideas that the sacred concertos are antiphon substitutes and that the music could not have been performed at Santa Barbara, Mantua. The book includes the texts and plainsongs used by Monteverdi, and a discography.

Sibelius: Symphony No. 5
  • James Hepokoski
  • Published online:
    11 January 2010
    Print publication:
    01 April 1993
  • Sibelius's Fifth is one of the great late-Romantic symphonies. In this searching account, based on a wealth of new information, James Hepokoski takes a fresh look at the work and its composer. His findings have implications beyond Sibelius himself into the entire repertory of Post-Wagnerian symphonic composition. The early chapters place the Fifth Symphony squarely within the general culture of European musical 'modernism' and focus in particular on the problem of the clash of that culture with the more radical 'New-Music' experiments of an emerging younger generation of composers. Subsequent chapters include a probing consideration of Sibelius's style and meditative aesthetic; an account of how the symphony was composed; and a descriptive analysis of the final, familiar version. The book concludes with a discussion of the composer's own prescribed tempos for the Fifth Symphony, along with a comparison of several different recordings.

Beethoven
  • Symphony No. 9
  • Nicholas Cook
  • Published online:
    08 January 2010
    Print publication:
    24 June 1993
  • Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is acknowledged as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Western tradition. More than any other musical work it has become an international symbol of unity and affirmation. Yet early critics rejected it as cryptic and eccentric, the product of a deaf and ageing composer. Nicholas Cook's guide charts the dramatic transformation in the reception of this work. The story begins in Vienna, with the responses of listeners at the first performance, and ends in contemporary China and Japan, where the symphony has acquired diametrically opposed interpretations. The account embraces many of the major figures of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, among them Wagner and Schenker. Including an account of the sketches, an examination of the performance tradition, and a suggested new interpretation, this book opens up new dimensions in our understanding of Beethoven's last symphony.

Bach: The Goldberg Variations
  • Peter Williams
  • Published online:
    06 January 2010
    Print publication:
    27 September 2001
  • Many listeners and players are fascinated by Bach's Goldberg Variations. In this wideranging and searching study, Professor Williams, one of the leading Bach scholars of our time, helps them probe its depths and understand its uniqueness. He considers the work's historical origins, especially in relation to all Bach's Clavierübung volumes and late keyboard works, its musical agenda and its formal shape, and discusses significant performance issues. In the course of the book he poses a number of key questions. Why should such a work be written? Does the work have both a conceptual and a perceptual shape? What other music is likely to have influenced the Goldberg and to what extent is it trying to be encyclopedic? What is the canonic vocabulary? How have contemporaries or musicians from Beethoven to the present day seen this work and, above all, how has its mysterious beauty been created?

Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex
  • Stephen Walsh
  • Published online:
    18 December 2009
    Print publication:
    24 June 1993
  • Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex is widely acknowledged as one of the most original music-theatre works of the twentieth century. This clear and concise guide is the first ever to be written on this work and it describes the music and its staging in close detail. It offers the first proper explanation of the plot and its relation to its literary sources and provides a fully documented discussion of the origins of Oedipus rex in Stravinsky's own work and thinking. By placing the work in its social context Stephen Walsh paints a vivid picture of Parisian artistic politics in the twenties from which emerges one of the richest and most suggestive works of art of modern times.

Chopin: The Piano Concertos
  • John Rink
  • General editor Julian Rushton
  • Published online:
    18 December 2009
    Print publication:
    27 November 1997
  • Chopin's E minor and F minor Piano Concertos played a vital role in his career as a composer-pianist. Praised for their originality and genius when he performed them, the concertos later attracted censure for ostensible weaknesses in form, development and orchestration. They also suffered at the hands of editors and performers, all the while remaining enormously popular. This handbook re-evaluates the concertos against the traditions that shaped them so that their many outstanding qualities can be fully appreciated. It describes their genesis, Chopin's own performances and his use of them as a teacher. A survey of their critical, editorial and performance histories follows, in preparation for an analytical 're-enactment' of the music - that is, a narrative account of the concertos as embodied in sound, rather than in the score. The final chapter investigates Chopin's enigmatic 'third concerto', the Allegro de concert.Chopin: The Piano Concertos has won the Wilk Book Prize for Research in Polish Music.

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