Great Instrumental Works [With CD]

By Mark Owen Lee

From Mozart to Debussy to Olivier Messiaen, the works of 50 composers are closely examined in The Great Instrumental Works. It is a book for anyone who enjoys the lively arts of opera, drama, film, literature, and popular song and who wants to find out what is really going on in the symphonies of Mozart, the string quartets of Beethoven, the orchestral works of Debussy and Ravel, and the contemporary pieces of Olivier Messiaen and Arvo P rt. The author, Father Owen Lee, is an internationally known commentator on music and the arts, and writes with a style that has been called "rich, dense, and profound" (Citizen's Weekly), "highly readable" (Choice), and "often irreverently amusing" (Opera News). With Father Lee as a guide, the intricacies of classical forms and key relationships are rendered not only intelligible but meaningful, the music itself becomes life-enhancing, and its great composers come vividly to life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1574671170
• ISBN13: 9781574671179
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
• Length: 282 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

bravissimo!

Father Owen Lee, famous to so many grateful listeners over the decades of Metropolitan Opera broadcasts for his pitch-perfect reflections on opera composers and their works, now does the same for orchestral music. In this handy, invitating volume, complete with illustrative CDs, he offers us a lifetime of rewarding listening. It might well have been titled "An Opera Lover's Guide to Orchestral Music"---Bravissimo!