Richard strauss biography book

  • Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer and conductor best known for his tone poems and operas.
  • It is an excellent biography of Richard Strauss, well written and employing up-to-date scholarship on the great composer.
  • The Life of Richard Strauss by Bryan Gilliam is a short biography and part of the Cambridge Musical Lives series.

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    The Life of Richard Strauss

    April 5, 2010
    This book was the only assigned reading for the graduate history seminar on Strauss I took in the fall of 2002. Dr. Bell taught the class, and it was great. But I was in the thick of writing my master's thesis (a four-movement piece for orchestra) at the time. And time was something I utterly lacked. so I made the conscious decision to skip the reading, because I realized I would do as well and get as much out of the class whether I did it or not. But I did promise myself that I would read the book later when I had more time. And I finally did get around to it, nearly two years later.
    The book isn't very long or analytical. It's a straightforward biography of Strauss' life and work. Since I'd taken the seminar, I already knew most of the material Gilliam presents, so it was more of a review than anything else. Still, I did find this book well worth the reading. It's the perfect length, depth, and tone for learning more about a composer, and it's not at all technical. If anyone wants to learn more about the guy who wrote the music made famous by "2001: A Space Odyssey", I'd be more than happy to lend this book out.

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    Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma - Hardcover

    Review

    There are few composers whose critical stock has roller-coastered as dramatically as that of Richard Strauss, both during his lifetime and in the five decades since his death in 1949. Once considered a dangerous firebrand of the avant-garde--his early masterpiece Salome was given the equivalent of an X rating--Strauss remained an exceedingly prolific composer throughout his long career, yet lived to be "written off as an extinct volcano." The painful story of his involvement with the Third Reich further cast a pall over his final years. But in the past two decades, a gradual reassessment has been underway--along with a recuperation of his neglected later works--and the field is ripe for a critically insightful overview of Strauss's achievement.

    Such is the goal of Michael Kennedy, a longtime advocate of Strauss, in his new biography, Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma. Kennedy, the Sunday Telegraph's music critic and author of several other musical biographies--including an earlier study of the composer as well as illuminating articles and CD booklets on his music--here undertakes to penetrate the contradictions and see the man whole. Through his impressive access to diaries, letters, and living relatives,

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