Book cover of The Romantic Generation

Book description

What Charles Rosen's celebrated book The Classical Style did for music of the Classical period, this new, much-awaited volume brilliantly does for the Romantic era. An exhilarating exploration of the musical language, forms, and styles of the Romantic period, it captures the spirit that enlivened a generation of composers and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Romantic Generation as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Although I am a classical music fan, 19th-century romanticism isn’t generally my cup of tea. And yet, I couldn’t stop reading Charles Rosen’s book about the romantic composers in 1830-1850.

While Richard Taruskin was an academic scholar with a side gig as a performer, with Charles Rosen, the situation was reversed. His identity as a professional pianist is quite palpable in this book. However, as with Taruskin, I enjoyed how Rosen was able to move back and forth between analyses of musical scores and discussions of the wider European culture in the 19th century.

This book helped me become a…

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