There are some things to recommend Stephen Johnson's introduction to Der Ring des Nibelungen, but the same critique that's often leveled against Der Ring itself applies to this commentary: it's awfully long. In fact, it's longer than Das Rheingold. But for the listener who's willing to devote more than two and a half hours to getting acclimated to ...
Luigi Cherubini's Missa Solemnis in E major may not be as important as his later coronation masses, and it is certainly not on a par with Ludwig van Beethoven's great Missa Solemnis in D major, completed a few years later. But this work has enough drama and power to mark it as one of the more significant sacred works of the early Romantic period ...
Although the "golden age" of operetta has come and gone, composer Franz Lehár isn't in any real danger of being neglected so long as The Merry Widow continues to tread the boards of the world's stages. But as his first major "hit," and as an operetta stylistically limited by the constraints of contemporary fashion and tradition, The Merry Widow ...
During the trend of composers writing operas about composers (witness, for example, Alfred Schnittke's 1994 Gesualdo, Franz Hummel's 1996 Gesualdo, and Bo Holten's 2004 Gesualdo) it was not, in fact, an entirely new phenomenon. Pfitzner's 1915 Palestrina is the earliest composer-opera to have come anywhere close to entering the repertoire, but ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.