The Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music covers the history of this period through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on the most important traditions, famous pieces, persons, places, technical terms, and institutions of Romantic music. This book is a vital reference tool for students and teachers of music history, students and teachers and above all for lovers of Romantic music.
Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night is a book about tolerance and acceptance in the face of cultural, political, and religious strife. Its point of departure is the Walpurgis Night. The Night, also known as Beltane or May Eve, was supposedly an annual witches' Sabbath that centered around the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains. After exploring how a notoriously pagan celebration came to be named after the Christian missionary St. Walpurgis (ca. 710-79), John Michael Cooper discusses the Night's treatments in several closely interwoven works by Goethe and Mendelssohn. His book situates those works in their immediate personal and professional contexts, as well as among treatments by a wide array of other artists, philosophers, and political thinkers, including Voltaire, Lessing, Shelley, Heine, Delacroix, and Berlioz. In an age of decisive political and religious conflict, Walpurgis Night became a heathen muse: a source of inspiration that was neither specifically Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. And Mendelssohn's and Goethe's engagements with it offer new insights into its role in European cultural history, as well as into issues of political, religious, and social identity -- and the relations between cultural groups -- in today's world. John Michael Cooper (Southwestern University) is the author of Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony (Oxford University Press).
The book offers an insightful analysis of Margaret Bonds's significant compositions, Montgomery Variations and Credo, highlighting their resurgence in contemporary music. It emphasizes the importance of these mid-twentieth-century works, which resonate with current societal themes, and aims to provide readers with a deeper understanding of their cultural relevance and artistic merit.
