After Beethoven
Subtitle: The Imperative of Originality in the Symphony
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: January 1, 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780674008557
Subjects: Classical music (c 1750 to c 1830); Composers & musicians; Music; Ethnology And Ethnography; Music/Songbooks; History: American; Symphony; Genres & Styles - Classical; History & Criticism - General; Music / Classical; General; 19th century; Originality
Description: Beethoven cast a looming shadow over the nineteenth century. For composers he was a model both to emulate and to overcome. "You have no idea how it feels," Brahms confided, "when one always hears such a giant marching behind one." Exploring the response of five composers - Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and Mahler - to what each clearly saw as the challenge of Beethoven's symphonies, Evan Bonds richly enhances our understanding of the evolution of the symphony and Beethoven's legacy.

Bonds lucidly argues that the great symphonists of the nineteenth century cleared creative space for themselves by both confronting and deviating from the practices of their potentially overpowering precursor. His analysis places familiar masterpieces in a new light.