A Nervous Splendor

Author: Frederic Morton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014005667X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
A National Book Award Finalist A "riveting" (New York Times) look at one year of Viennese life during the twilight of an empire On January 30, 1889, at the champagne-splashed hight of the Viennese Carnival, the handsome and charming Crown Prince Rudolf fired a revolver at his teenaged mistress and then himself. The two shots that rang out at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods echo still. Frederic Morton, author of the bestselling Rothschilds, deftly tells the haunting story of the Prince and his city, where, in the span of only ten months, "the Western dream started to go wrong." In Rudolf's Vienna moved other young men with striking intellectual and artistic talents—and all as frustrated as the Prince. Among them were: young Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Theodor Herzl, Gustav Klimt, and the playwright Arthur Schnitzler, whose La Ronde was the great erotic drama of the fin de siecle. Morton studies these and other gifted young men, interweaving their fates with that of the doomed Prince and the entire city through to the eve of Easter, just after Rudolf's body is lowered into its permanent sarcophagus and a son named Adolf Hitler is born to Frau Klara Hitler.

A Nervous Splendor

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

The Diaries of Giacomo Meyerbeer: 1791-1839

Author: Giacomo Meyerbeer
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838637890
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 588

Book Description

Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938

Author: Steven Beller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521407274
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
This book studies the role played by Jews in the explosion of cultural innovation in Vienna at the turn of the century, which had its roots in the years following the Ausgleich of 1867 and its demise in the sweeping events of the 1930s. The author shows that, in terms of personnel, Jews were predominant throughout most of Viennese high culture, and so any attempts to dismiss the "Jewish aspect" of the intelligentsia are refuted. The book goes on to explain this "Jewish aspect," dismissing any unitary, static model and adopting a historical approach that sees the "Jewishness" of Viennese modern culture as a result of the specific Jewish backgrounds of most of the leading cultural figures and their reactions to being Jewish.

The Cambridge Companion to Bruckner

Author: John Williamson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521008785
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
This Companion provides an overview of the composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896). Sixteen chapters by leading scholars investigate aspects of his life and works and consider the manner in which critical appreciation has changed in the twentieth century. The first section deals with Bruckner's Austrian background, investigating the historical circumstances in which he worked, his upbringing in Upper Austria, and his career in Vienna. A number of misunderstandings are dealt with in the light of recent research. The remainder of the book covers Bruckner's career as church musician and symphonist, with a chapter on the neglected secular vocal music. Religious, aesthetic, formal, harmonic, and instrumental aspects are considered, while one chapter confronts the problem of the editions of the symphonies. Two concluding chapters discuss the symphonies in performance, and the history of Bruckner-reception with particular reference to German Nationalism, the Third Reich and the appropriation of Bruckner by the Nazis.

The Diaries of Giacomo Meyerbeer: The last years, 1857-1864

Author: Giacomo Meyerbeer
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838638453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 732

Book Description
Volume 4 is devoted to the last years (1857-64); while age and declining health saw a waning of the composer's personal optimism. It contains a series of glossaries listing his compositions and the musical and theatrical works he attended throughout his life, as well as a bibliography.

Vienna

Author: Nicholas Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199888485
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
From border garrison of the Roman Empire to magnificent Baroque seat of the Hapsburgs, Vienna's fortunes swung between survival and expansion. By the late nineteenth century it had become the western capital of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but the twentieth century saw it degraded to a 'hydrocephalus' cut off from its former economic hinterland. After the inglorious Nazi interlude, Vienna began the long climb back to the prosperous and cultivated city of 1.7 million inhabitants that it is today. Subjected to constant infusions of new, Vienna has both assimilated and resisted cultural influences from outside, creating its own sui generis culture.

Karl Kraus, Apocalyptic Satirist

Author: Edward Timms
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300044836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
This is a fascinating study of the life and work of Karl Kraus, brilliant Austrian writer, satirist and personality of fin de siecle Vienna. This encyclopaedic study of his life, his work and his generation will be of great interest to both the enthusiast and the general student of European culture. Drawing on unfamiliar sources, Edward Timms analyses Kraus's involvement in the fundamental ideological issues of his time, and shows that Kraus's political position - caught between traditional Habsburg loyalties and new democratic commitments - was far more complex than has previously been suspected. 'A major landmark in Kraus studies, and an important contribution to our understanding of the culture of the early twentieth century. It abounds in discoveries and insights.' Times Higher Education Supplement 'Timm's lucid prose, his masterly organization of the voluminous material he treats, his excellent translations of the documents he cites and his broad, readable portrayal of Viennese fin-de-siecle culture makes this study accessible to the average reader and a pleasure for the literary professional ... An example of German studies at its best.' European Studies Journal 'This study, which takes us to the end of the Great War, is unquestionably the most detailed and thoughtful book about him in amy language. Edward Timms' account skilfully interweaves his life, times and work.' The Listener 'Timms successfully weaves a colourful, and thoroughly researched and documented account of essential cultural currents in Habsburg Vienna around his central figure. Copious illustrations and photographs enhance a most enjoyable text, making this an ideal introduction to Kraus and his work.' Choice Edward Timms is lecturer in German at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College.

Why Mahler?

Author: Norman Lebrecht
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 140009657X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
Why Mahler? Why does his music affect us in the way it does? Norman Lebrecht, one of the world’s most widely read cultural commentators, has been wrestling obsessively with Mahler for half his life. Following Mahler’s every footstep from birthplace to grave, scrutinizing his manuscripts, talking to those who knew him, Lebrecht constructs a compelling new portrait of Mahler as a man who lived determinedly outside his own times. Mahler was—along with Picasso, Einstein, Freud, Kafka, and Joyce—a maker of our modern world. Why Mahler? is a book that shows how music can change our lives.

A Swankee Dandy Doodles

Author: David O'Leary
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1503513718
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 171

Book Description
From random phrases, ideas, and observations and some finished poems and lengthy monologues, I managed over a period of almost a year to mine and extract "through a type of fishing" the current collection of writings contained in this book. It coincides and walks hand in hand with my belief that poetry is a form of coaxing the heart of language out of hiding places and beating like a drum in public spaces so that we all may feel the full force and vigor of its romance. To transport them from the black and white world to the wonderful world of color as Walt Disney did on television, to challenge diamond miners to become jewelers, and mines to become treasure chests.