Lawrence F. Bernstein

This guide introduces concertgoers, serious listeners, and music students to Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony, one of the composer's most popular and most powerful works. It examines the symphony from several perspectives: Mahler's struggle to create what he called the New Symphony; his innovative approaches to traditional musical form; how he addressed the daunting challenges of writing music on a monumental scale; and how he dealt with the ineluctable force of Beethoven's symphonic precedent, especially that of the Ninth Symphony. The central focus of Inside Mahler's Second Symphony is on the music itself: how it works, how it works its magic on the listener, how it translates the earnest existential concerns that motivate the symphony into powerful and highly expressive music. Beyond this, the book ushers the Listener's Guide into the digital age with 185 dedicated audio examples. They are brief, accessible, and arranged to flow from one to another to simulate how the symphony might be presented in a classroom discussion. Each movement is also presented uninterrupted, accompanied by light annotations to remind the reader of what they learned about the movement. Each musical event in the uninterrupted presentation is keyed to its location in the orchestral score to accommodate readers who may wish to refer to one. An innovative combination of in-depth analysis and multimedia exploration, Inside Mahler's Second Symphony is a remarkable introduction to a masterpiece of the symphonic repertoire.

A Listener's Guide

Inside Mahler's Second Symphony

David Fallows

Ludwig Finscher

Bonnie J. Blackburn

John Milsom

Rob C. Wegman

Alejandro Enrique Planchart

Louise Litterick

Patrick Paul Macey

Willem Elders

This Companion presents the most complete discussion ever published in English on the music of the greatest composer of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A collaborative effort by a team of distinguished scholars, the volume provides a basic survey of Josquin's music and the many problems that attend it. Taking account of the most recent research, the book also includes a sampler CD of Josquin's works specially recorded by The Clerk's Group.

The Josquin Companion

Lawrence F. Bernstein

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