Informationen zu "Amico The Life of Giovanni Battista Viotti hardcover"
Verlag: Oxford University Press Distribution Services
Verlagsnummer: 9780195372403
EAN: 9780195372403
ISBN: 978-0-19-537240-3
Beschreibung
This is the first full-length biography in English of Giovanni Battista
Viotti (1755-1824), one of the great violinist-composers in the history of
music, and arguably the most influential violinist who ever lived. This study
is based on extensive documentary research, much of it here revealed for the
first time.Giovanni Battista Viotti was unquestionably the most influential
violinist of his time, and his style continues to pervade to the present day.
The last great representative of the Italian tradition that Corelli began,
Viotti is often considered the founder of the modern or 19th-century French
school of violin playing. In Amico: The Life of Giovanni Battista Viotti,
author Warwick Lister provides the first complete biography in English of
this continuously
significant violinist. Much of the documentary material Lister cites is
previously unknown or not translated. Lister's biography takes the reader on
a fascinating journey over the European continent and into the musical
culture of the late 18th century. Born one year prior to Mozart and dying
three years before
Beethoven's death, Viotti rose from the humble origins of a blacksmith's son
in a village near Turin, Italy, to international fame. His multifarious
career as a concert performer, composer, teacher, opera theater director, and
impresario was played out against the backdrop of a dramatically changing
world - he served as a court musician for no less a figure than Marie
Antoinette before founding an opera house in Paris. Viotti also knew tragedy
as well as success: he was forced to flee the
French Revolution, he was exiled from England for an extended period based on
suspicions of certain Jacobin tendencies, his attempt to establish himself in
business met with failure, and he died heavily in debt. Lister concludes
Amico by coming to grips with the very things that account for Viotti's
greatness and influence: the technical aspects of his violin playing and
compositions. With its extensive documentary research and the inclusion of
translations of various archival documents, this is the essential
English-language biography of Viotti, a significant addition to the libraries
of students and scholars of 18th and early 19th century music, as well as
violin performers, students, and instructors.
