The Chronicle of Opera -- Michael Raeburn

Condition : Very Good.

First Edition, Thames and Hudson, 1998, Large-format Hardback with removable protective plastic wrap - Classical Music - 256pp. ISBN 9780500018675.

Opera has never been more popular than it is now. Four centuries after a group of Florentine intellectuals and musicians set out to revive the musical drama of Classical Greece, opera's intrinsic appeal has been greatly strengthened by the vast range and quality of recordings available, as well as by a new, young, passionate audience.

A year-by-year and sometimes month-by-month guide, The Chronicle of Opera unfolds the great eras of opera. Stile recitativo, arias, choruses, instrumental introductions, and interludes were all developed early; with Monteverdi, who wrote his first opera in 1607, this new style of musical drama achieved definitive form.

During the seventeenth century comic opera found a separate existence, apart from tragic and serious opera. National styles began to emerge in France, Germany, Spain, and England, although Italian opera maintained its hold as an international style. The operatic masterpieces of the next three hundred years -- by Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Moussorgsky, Berg, Britten, Gershwin, and many others -- shared the essential strengths of the basic form, despite changes in musical styles.The text is accompanied by hundreds of wonderful, creatively researched illustrations, many as dramatic as their subject matter.

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