George Whitefield Chadwick : the life and music of the pride of New England
By: Bill F. Faucett
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Northeastern University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 416
ISBN-13: 9781555537722; 9781555537739; 9781555537746
Subjects: Composers; Biography
Description: In many ways, this is the story of the birth of the American style in classical music. George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931) was one of the most significant and influential American composers at the turn of the twentieth century and a leading light of the Boston cultural scene. Bill F. Faucett offers a detailed exploration of Chadwick's life and art utilizing archival material only recently made available. These crucial primary sources, including letters, diaries, and memoirs, enable a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Chadwick's music and aesthetic perspective, and provide a clearer lens through which to view his life, career, and times. The book traces Chadwick's story from his earliest musical education to his surging career in Boston's nascent musical culture of the 1880s, to his fruitful middle years, and finally to his later life and towering legacy. In addition to bringing newfound appreciation of Chadwick's life, Faucett's book offers penetrating examinations of his major compositions and a vivid re-creation of Boston's rich and influential musical and cultural scene [Publisher description].
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The purest American stock : Chadwick's New England roots; title: Musical atmospheres : early life in Lowell, Lawrence, Boston, and Michigan, 1854-1876; title: Chadwick's European education, 1877-1880; title: Getting started in Boston, 1880-1882; title: That fatal facility : Chadwick's Boston, 1880s; title: Songs and choruses, fairs and festivals : Chadwick and America's vocal traditions, 1890s; title: A hell of a job for a composer : taking charge at New England Conservatory, 1897; title: Sketches in Americanism : Chadwick's instrumental music, 1890s; title: Chadwick, modernism, and the end of an era : Adonais to Cleopatra, 1899-1905; title: Our great pilgrimage : Chadwick's grand tour, 1905-1906; title: Thursday evenings and the sea, 1906-1912; title: A beautiful but costly exotic : opera in Boston, the Met, and the padrone, 1913; title: We live on hope : Chadwick's response to the Great War, 1914-1919; title: Altschuler, 1919-1930.