Norman Lebrecht

Si Beethoven nunca hubiese existido, habitaríamos un universo musical radicalmente distinto. Pero ¿quien era realmente este titán de la cultura mundial?A traves de un centenar de breves capítulos, cada uno dedicado a alguna de sus obras clave, Norman Lebrecht traza un retrato poliedrico que nos muestra al compositor como nunca lo habiamos visto. Ingobernable, ofensivo y desesperado durante la mayor parte de su vida, si; pero tambien sensible y completamente entregado a su arte, capaz de sobreponerse a la sordera para componer algunas de las obras cumbre de nuestra cultura. Por el camino, nos encontramos con los grandes musicos que a lo largo de la historia han asumido el reto que Beethoven lego a la posteridad, en todas sus glorias y debilidades. En el centro del mosaico que dibuja esta biografia reveladora y unica, Beethoven emerge como piedra angular del mundo moderno.

A century after his death, Gustav Mahler is the most important composer of modern times. Displacing Beethoven as a box-office draw, his music offers more than the usual listening satisfactions. Many believe it has the power to heal emotional wounds and ease the pain of death. Others struggle with the intellectual fascination of its contradictory meanings. Long, loud and seldom easy, his symphonies are used to accompany acts of mourning and Hollywood melodramas. Sometimes dismissed as death-obsessed, Mahler is more alive in the 21st century than ever before.Why Mahler? Why does a Jewish musician from a land without a name capture the yearnings and anxieties of post-industrial society? Is it the music, it is the man, or is it the affinity we feel with his productive peak - a decade when Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Joyce and Mahler reconfigured the ways we understand life on earth? In this highly original account of Mahlers life and work, Norman Lebrecht - renowned writer, critic and cultural commentator - explores the Mahler Effect, a phenomenon that reaches deep into unsuspecting lives, altering the self-perceptions of world leaders, finance chiefs and working musicians. Why Mahler? is a multi-layered exploration of the role that music plays as a soundtrack to our lives.

Gustav Mahler is the most influential symphonist of the twentieth century. In this pioneering study, Norman Lebrecht reveals the man and musician through the words of his contemporaries.Using many previously unpublished documents, he constructs a profile of Mahler even more complex and compelling than that familiar from his letters and the often unreliable memoirs of his widow, Alma. Compassionate or callous, idealistic or pragmatic, Mahler aroused violently contrasting impressions and emotions in those who lived and worked with him.Accounts of the composer include the artist Alfred Rollers description of Mahlers naked body, a Nazi-era reappraisal by one of his closest relatives, Natalie Bauer-Lechners unpublished jottings of Mahlers childhood, and Stefan Zweigs report of his final voyage. Together, they form a remarkable and deeply illuminating image of a formidable personality.The effect is cumulative, sometimes contradictory and vivid - like a written version of a radio or film portrait.Classical MusicNorman Lebrechts Mahler Remembered is quite breathtakingly interesting.Birmingham Post

Un siglo después de su muerte, Gustav Mahler es el compositor más importante de los tiempos modernos. ¿Por qué Mahler? ¿Por qué su música nos afecta tanto? ¿Por qué un músico judío "tres veces apátrida" expresa tan cabalmente las añoranzas y ansiedades de nuestra sociedad postindustrial? Después de situar la relevancia actual de Mahler, Norman Lebrecht presenta un apasionante relato de su vida y, por último, ofrece al lector una guía segura que le orienta entre las numerosas interpretaciones de Mahler. Ameno y cargado de erudición, biografía y narración de un viaje al mismo tiempo, el presente libro es una exploración del papel que la música de Mahler desempeña como la banda sonora de nuestras vidas.

Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness is a sparkling exposé of the strange truth and sheer brilliance behind the classical music recording industry. Leading music critic Norman Lebrecht charts its rise since the great Caruso's first gramophone bestseller of 1902 and predicts the industry's imminent doom in the face of schmaltzy crossover albums and new technology. From the imperious Karajan to the perfectionist Toscanini and charismatic Bernstein, the leading figures are all here, depicted in witty, incisive pen portraits.

Verónica is late, and Julián is increasingly convinced she won't ever come home. To pass the time, he improvises a story about trees to coax his stepdaughter, Daniela, to sleep. He has made a life as a literature professor, developing a novel about a man

Without Beethoven, music as we know it wouldnt exist. By examining one hundred of his compositions, a portrait emerges of the man behind the music.Lebrecht has immersed himself in the rich catalog of Beethoven recordings and presents a unique picture of the man through his music. He selects the best recordings of one hundred key pieces, showing the composer as weve never seen him before. Unruly, offensive, and hopeless in so much of his life, yet driven to a fault and devoted to his art, conquering deafness to pen masterpieces. Norman Lebrecht has been grappling with this icon at the heart of music for his entire life. Who was the irascible, unpredictable, warped genius who stretched what music could do to the breaking point? In this unique examination, Lebrecht attempts to understand the power of this man through his compositions, the history of who has performed them, and what it has meant to successive generations of audiences. In turn a detective story (we learn who Elise of Fur Elise is for the first time) and a confession, Why Beethoven aims to rise to the challenge of how to encompass the relentless energy of this singular genius. With a narrative that mirrors the wayward sequence of Beethovens compositions, Beethoven emerges as a cornerstone of the world as we know it.

In wartime London, the Simmonds family takes in a Jewish refugee from Warsaw named Dovidl, who is also a violin prodigy, and young Martin Simmonds and Dovidl become fast friends. When Dovidl loses his entire family in the camps, his adoptive father, a music impresario, arranges a debut for him--but the boy disappears just before he is due onstage. The family never recovers from the loss. Years later, after the deaths of his parents, Martin is sure that a young violinist he hears bears all the marks of Dovidl''s playing....THE SONG OF NAMES was a winner of England''s Whitbread Prize.

“Ningún compositor ejerció sobre la música del siglo veinte -dice Norman Lebrecht- una influencia mayor que Gustav Mahler; ninguno puso más de sí mismo en su música. Estas verdades resultan tan insep

Without Beethoven, music as we know it wouldnt exist. Who was this titan of world culture?You want to build a Beethoven library? There can be no better starting point... Brilliant. John Suchet, Classic FM presenterThrough 100 recordings, Lebrecht brings to life the composer as weve never seen him before. Unruly, offensive and hopeless in so much of his life, yes, but driven to a fault and devoted to his art, conquering deafness to compose some of the towering works of our culture.Along the way, we encounter the great musicians who have taken on the challenge of Beethoven, in all their glories and foibles. In this revealing, unique biography, Beethoven emerges as a cornerstone of the modern world.All recordings are freely available on Idagio and YouTube.

A unique chronicle of the hundred-year period when the Jewish people changed the world and it changed themA riveting, gossipy, action-packed, seam-bursting blast through 100 years of (mainly) European history Impressively wide-ranging in scope and unflaggingly fascinating. FINANCIAL TIMESMarx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Bernhardt and Kafka. Between the middle of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a few dozen men and women changed the way we see the world. But many have vanished from our collective memory despite their enduring importance in our daily lives. Without Karl Landsteiner, for instance, there would be no blood transfusions or major surgery. Without Paul Ehrlich no chemotherapy. Without Siegfried Marcus no motor car. Without Rosalind Franklin genetic science would look very different. Without Fritz Haber there would not be enough food to sustain life on earth.These visionaries all have something in common their Jewish origins and a gift for thinking outside the box.In 1847 the Jewish people made up less than 0.25% of the worlds population, and yet they saw what others could not. How?

In this compulsively readable, fascinating, and provocative guide to classical music, Norman Lebrecht, one of the worlds most widely read cultural commentators tells the story of the rise of the classical recording industry from Carusos first notes to the heyday of Bernstein, Glenn Gould, Callas, and von Karajan. Lebrecht compellingly demonstrates that classical recording has reached its end pointbut this is not simply an expos? of decline and fall. It is, for the first time, the full story of a minor art form, analyzing the cultural revolution wrought by Schnabel, Toscanini, Callas, Rattle, the Three Tenors, and Charlotte Church. It is the story of how stars were made and broken by the record business; how a war criminal conspired with a concentration-camp victim to create a record empire; and how advancing technology, boardroom wars, public credulity and unscrupulous exploitation shaped the musical backdrop to our modern lives. The book ends with a suitable shrine to classical recording: the authors critical selection of the 100 most important recordingsand the 20 most appalling.Filled with memorable incidents and unforgettable personalitiesfrom Goddard Lieberson, legendary head of CBS Masterworks who signed his letters as God; to Georg Solti, who turned the Chicago Symphony into the loudest symphony on earththis is at once the captivating story of the life and death of classical recording and an opinioned, insiders guide to appreciating the genre, now and for years to come.

In an unnamed country at the end of a world war, Paul Miller escapes from a labor camp, collapsing after a few hundred feet. Taken in by a young woman he learns to love, Paul decides to stay where he is, and, as the war ends, he marries, starts a family, and helps to rebuild the village. But Paul is inescapably haunted by his life before the war, by his time in the camp, and by the fact that the people who are now his friends ignored for years the horrors in their midst. So when the camps commander suddenly returns to the village, Paul finds himself forced to choose between vengeance and forgiveness. The Game of Opposites is a universal tale of good and evil, and a stunning evocation of the capability for both within us all.

Although Gustav Mahler was a famous conductor in Vienna and New York, the music that he wrote was condemned during his lifetime and for many years after his death in 1911. Pages of dreary emptiness, sniffed a leading American conductor. Yet today, almost one hundred years later, Mahler has displaced Beethoven as a box-office draw and exerts a unique influence on both popular music and film scores. Mahlers coming-of-age began with such 1960s phenomena as Leonard Bernsteins boxed set of his symphonies and Luchino Viscontis film Death in Venice, which used Mahlers music in its sound track. But that was just the first in a series of waves that established Mahler not just as a great composer but also as an oracle with a personal message for every listener. There are now almost two thousand recordings of his music, which has become an irresistible launchpad for young maestros such as Gustavo Dudamel. Why Mahler? Why does his music affect us in the way it does? Norman Lebrecht, one of the worlds most widely read cultural commentators, has been wrestling obsessively with Mahler for half his life. Pacing out his 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 wasalong with Picasso, Einstein, Freud, Kafka, and Joycea maker of our modern world. Mahler dealt with issues I could recognize, writes Lebrecht, with racism, workplace chaos, social conflict, relationship breakdown, alienation, depression, and the limitations of medical knowledge. Why Mahler? is a book that shows how music can change our lives.

Entre mediados del siglo XIX y del siglo XX, un puñado de hombres y mujeres cambiaron la manera en que vemos el mundo. Algunos de ellos serán para siempre nombres de referencia: Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Bernhardt, Kafka... Sin embargo, muchos otros nombres se han ido borrando de nuestra memoria colectiva, aunque perdura su importancia en nuestra vida diaria. Sin Karl Landsteiner, por ejemplo, no habria transfusiones ni cirugia mayor; sin Paul Ehrlich no tendriamos quimioterapia; sin Siegfrid Marcus no existirian los automoviles; sin Rosalind Franklin la ciencia de la genetica no seria la misma; sin Fritz Haber no habria suficiente comida para sostener la vida en la Tierra.Todos estos visionarios tienen algo en comun: su origen judio y su capacidad para el pensamiento original. Como lograron ver lo que otros no pudieron es el tema de este libro."Cuando se suavizaron las restricciones a la participacion de los judios en la sociedad europea, los judios hicieron grandes aportaciones a la vida artistica, literaria, musical politica y cientifica, contribuciones que no fueron bien recibidas por los antisemitas, cada vez mas vociferantes. Norman Lebrecht describe vividamente las tensiones entre el exito y la discriminacion, y ofrece un recordatorio oportuno de lo que la civilizacion occidental debe a los judios". David Abulafia, Universidad de Cambridge