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Hugh Macdonald (1) (1940–)

Author of Berlioz orchestral music

For other authors named Hugh Macdonald, see the disambiguation page.

11+ Works 69 Members 2 Reviews

About the Author

Hugh Macdonald is Professor of Music at Washington University, St. Louis, and General Editor of the New Berlioz Edition. He was formerly Professor of Music at Glasgow University.

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Birthdate
1940
Gender
male

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A book of "horizontal" history, or parallel biography. The author focuses on the intersecting lives of several composers and other musicians in a ten-month period, most of it falling in 1853. Prominently featured are Brahms, the Schumanns, Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz and, across the Alps, Verdi. The year is not arbitrarily chosen, but is significant for two reasons. One is that is was a fateful year in the lives of many of these individuals. The Brahms we meet is not the fat, prematurely aged man we usually see in photographs. Here is the twenty-year-old, first setting out from home, on a trip that would lead to his encounter with the Schumanns. Long-haired, high-voiced, his androgynous beauty added to the impact of his precocious music. At the other end of his career is Schumann. This is the year of his last compositions. Meanwhile, Wagner conceives of a new kind of music drama, and of the subject matter appropriate to it, the story of the ring. Seemingly at the center of an intricate network is the indefatigable and extremely-gifted Liszt. the amount of interaction between these figures is staggering, and this is due to the second of the reasons that the year 1853 is well-chosen. The author attributes this unprecedented amount of contact among the premier composers of their time to two media: the postal service, at the height of its efficiency, and rail travel, now connecting most cities in Europe.
The parallel structure leads to a bit of repetition, which could have been edited, and the prose is not entirely free of cliché, but the author has done a stellar job of reimagining this time. He has apparently retraced the routes taken, and offers descriptions of what they would have seen, and notes of what is now standing at various key locations in the narrative. Recommended to anyone interested in classical music, or more generally in 19th century cultural and social history.
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HenrySt123 | 1 other review | Jul 19, 2021 |
This is a very interesting book to read. The author has chosen to make a snapshot in time of the major classical music scene in Europe. 1853 was chosen because the historical record is quite good, including a substantial amount of correspondence that the author was able to dig. Part of the thesis of this book is to show the situations when two or three composers have gotten together or crossed each other paths in the same city. Macdonald builds a great story of this interaction, plus that of the music and the places in which it was played. For a composer like Wagner whose output was in somewhat barren in 1853, he could take Wagner's experiences and project them into Wagner's big project, Das Nibelungen. Many pieces of work are discussed. I have put it on my wishlist for owning.… (more)
½
 
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vpfluke | 1 other review | Aug 27, 2015 |

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Works
11
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Rating
½ 3.5
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ISBNs
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