The Art of Music and Other Essays: (A Travers Chants) - Hardcover

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was equally prominent as composer and music critic. A Travers Chants is the collection of writings he himself selected form his 30-odd years of music journalism. This new translation, phrased in lively, idiomatic English and annotated for the modern reader, is illustrated with lithographs and drawings from Berlioz's lifetime.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was equally prominent as composer and author. According to Harold Schonberg, he was the ""foremost music critic of his time, possibly of all time"". A Travers Chants is the collection of writings he himself selected from his thirty-odd years of musical journalism. These essays cover a wide spectrum of intellectual inquiry: Beethoven's nine symphonies and his opera, Fidelio; Wagner and the partisans of the ""Music of the Future""; Berlioz's idols - Gluck, Weber, and Mozart. There is an eloquent plea to stop the constant rise in concert pitch (an issue still discussed today), a serious piece on the place of music in church, and a humorous and imaginative account of musical customs in China. But Berlioz's writings also contain biting satire and ridicule - of opera singers, of the Academy, of dilettantism. This new translation, phrased in lively, idiomatic English and annotated for the twentieth-century reader, is illustrated with lithographs and drawings from Berlioz's lifetime. Berlioz's writings are a treasure-house of information on nineteenth-century musical life, performance practice, and taste.