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Mendelssohn, the Hebrides and other overtures : A midsummer night's dream, Calm sea and prosperous voyage, The Hebrides (Fingal's cave) / R. Larry Todd.

By: Todd, R. Larry.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookSeries: Cambridge music handbooks.Publisher: New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 1993Description: vii, 121 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. + pbk.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 0521407648 .Subject(s): Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, 1809-1847 | OverturesDDC classification: 784.218926092 MEN
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Barcode
General lending MTU Cork School of Music Library Lending 784.218926092 MEN (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00204363
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The concert overtures A Midsummer Night's Dream, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, and The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave), conceived by Mendelssohn before the age of twenty, have ranked amongst the most enduring of the nineteenth-century orchestral repertoire. R. Larry Todd offers a historical, stylistic, and analytical guide to these three remarkable works which secured for Mendelssohn no small measure of his fame. After placing the overtures in the context of Mendelssohn's astonishing compositional development during the 1820s, the volume disentangles the complex history of their creation and considers in turn their style and formal structure, their contents as programme music, aspects of their orchestration and their reception and influence. All this is supported by a wealth of primary documents, including Mendelssohn's correspondence, memoirs of his friends, and nineteenth-century critical reviews.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 114-116) and index.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • 1 Background
  • 2 Genesis
  • 3 Musical influences
  • 4 Formal considerations: a synoptic overview
  • 5 The Overture as programmatic music
  • 6 Some thoughts on Mendelssohn's orchestration
  • 7 Influence and reception of the overtures

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Todd's newest book is devoted to three overtures--A Midsummer Night's Dream, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, and The Hebrides. According to the author (Duke Univ.), the work "is intended to explore the relationships among the three works by considering, in turn, their rather complex geneses, their stylistic sources, formal structure, programmatic conception, ... orchestration, and, finally, their influence and reception in the nineteenth century." Todd has achieved his goal admirably and again demonstrates his authority regarding Mendelssohn. He has relied heavily on his previous publications--Mendelssohn and His World (CH, Jan'92), Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, (CH, May'91), and several earlier studies. The lay reader will find the book rather complex, but the musician--student, theorist, conductor, musicologist--will find it very worthwhile. There are many examples and voluminous notes, but the reader would be advised to have scores handy when reading this work. Index and bibliography are more than adequate. Recommended for graduate and undergraduate libraries. D. G. Engelhardt; formerly, University of Hawaii at Manoa