Entertainment Books:

Unfinished History

A New Account of Franz Schubert's B minor Symphony
Click to share your rating 0 ratings (0.0/5.0 average) Thanks for your vote!

Format:

Paperback / softback
$233.00
Available from supplier

The item is brand new and in-stock with one of our preferred suppliers. The item will ship from a Mighty Ape warehouse within the timeframe shown.

Usually ships in 3-4 weeks
Free Delivery with Primate
Join Now

Free 14 day free trial, cancel anytime.

Buy Now, Pay Later with:

4 payments of $58.25 with Afterpay Learn more

6 weekly interest-free payments of $38.83 with Laybuy Learn more

Availability

Delivering to:

Estimated arrival:

  • Around 11-21 June using International Courier

Description

This study addresses a long-standing mythology concerning the "Unfinished" Symphony and reviews anachronistic performance practices that prevent listeners from experiencing the work as a product of its own time. David Montgomery's Unfinished History challenges the traditional story of Franz Schubert's B-minor Symphony and searches for a more credible account of this great work. Written for all Schubert lovers from lay readers to musicians and musicologists, the book reviews a strangely persistent mythology concerning the symphony, continuing with the first in-depth examination of its manuscript and related documents. Details of handwriting, notation, paper, watermarks, compositional procedures, and stylistic contexts suggest a new year and country of origin for the "Unfinished" Symphony, a possible explanation for the absence of a finale in the sketches, and an alternative account of the score's disappearance and prolonged sequestration. The author concludes with an essay on performing the work in the context of its own times. The story of the Unfinished has been based partly upon three conflicting letters written in old age by Schubert's former secretary long after the composer's death. A fourth document in this insupportable mythology is a photograph of a lost letter purportedly sent from Schubert to the Styrian Music Society in Graz, promising to send them a symphony. Many historians still believe the letter to be genuine, despite the fact that its signature has been traced. David Montgomery's handwriting analysis finally identifies the real writer of this odd missive, clearing a further path to new research.

Author Biography:

David Montgomery is an American conductor, pianist, and musicologist. He studied in Paris with René Leibowitz and in the U.S. and Vienna with Paul Badura-Skoda. He became Leibowitz's assistant in France, specializing in music of the Second Viennese school. Later, he studied the interpretation of contemporary music with Pierre Boulez in Los Angeles. After completing a PhD in musicology at UCLA, he taught for several years at UC Santa Barbara. In 1990 Montgomery joined the summer faculty of the Waterloo Festival at Princeton University as a chamber music coach and Director of the Baroque Ensemble. He worked in New York for Sony Tri-Star/Columbia Pictures as a conductor, and then in Europe for the editorial and production divisions of Sony Music Inc and Sony Classical GmbH. From Hamburg, Montgomery toured Europe as a pianist and helped to revitalize the Jena Philharmonic in the former East Germany as the orchestra's principal guest conductor. With the Philharmonic he made recordings for BMG's Arte Nova label in Munich. David Montgomery's first book, Franz Schubert's Music in Performance (Pendragon, 2003/paperback 2010) has become widely known in performance and scholarly circles. He is an authority on Austro-German music of the past several centuries, and his essays for the international recording industry have been translated into numerous languages and distributed throughout the world. Montgomery has lectured at Georgetown University, the College of William and Mary, University of Chicago, Harvard University, the Universities of Halle and Göttingen, and at the major campuses of the University of California.
Release date NZ
April 1st, 2017
Contributor
  • Foreword by David Zinman
Pages
270
Audience
  • General (US: Trade)
Illustrations
100 illustrations
Dimensions
178x254x14
ISBN-13
9781627346450
Product ID
26782312

Customer reviews

Nobody has reviewed this product yet. You could be the first!

Write a Review

Marketplace listings

There are no Marketplace listings available for this product currently.
Already own it? Create a free listing and pay just 9% commission when it sells!

Sell Yours Here

Help & options

Filed under...