The Cambridge Companion to Chopin [Paperback]

Twelve essays by leading Chopin scholars provide a uniquely comprehensive guide to the composer and his music.This collection of essays is designed to provide the enquiring music lover with helpful insights into a musical style that recognizes no contradictions between the accessible and the sophisticated, as well as the popular and the significant.This collection of essays is designed to provide the enquiring music lover with helpful insights into a musical style that recognizes no contradictions between the accessible and the sophisticated, as well as the popular and the significant.This Companion is designed to provide the enquiring music lover with helpful insights into a musical style that recognizes no contradictions between the accessible and the sophisticated, between the popular and the significant.Chronology; Myth and reality: a biographical introduction; Part I. The Growth of a Style: 1. Piano music and the public concert, 18001850 Janet Ritterman; 2. The nocturne: development of a new style David Rowland; 3. The twenty-seven etudes and their antecedents Simon Finlow; 4. Tonal architecture in the early music John Rink; Part II. Profiles of the Music: 5. Extended forms: the ballades, scherzos and fantasies Jim Samson; 6. Small 'forms': in defence of the prelude Jeffrey Kallberg; 7. Beyond the dance Adrian Thomas; 8. The sonatas Anatole Leikin; Part III. Reception: 9. Chopin in performance James Methuen-Campbell; 10. Chopin reception in nineteenth-century Poland Zofia Chechlinska; 11. Victorian attitudes to Chopin Derek Carew; 12. Chopin's influence on the fin de si?cle and beyond Roy Howat; Appendix: a historical survey of Chopin on disc James Methuen-Campbell; Notes; List of Chopin's works; Bibliographical note; Index. ...each article rewards careful reading, and the whole book forms a praiseworthy contribution to the analytical literature on Chopin. Notes Not just another series of collected essays about Chopin, these 12 pieces were obviously put tol£J