The most fun you can have under a Tenor... Abigail Rosen, nicknamed Appassionata, was the sexiest, most flamboyant violinist in classical music, but she was also the loneliest and the most exploited girl in the world. When a dramatic suicide attempt destroyed her violin career, she set her sights on the male-dominated heights of the conductor's rostrum. Given the chance to take over the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra, Abby is ecstatic, not realising the RSO is in hock up to its neck and is composed of the wildest bunch of musicians ever to blow a horn or caress a fiddle. Abby finds it increasingly difficult to control her undisciplined rabble and pretend she is not madly attracted to the fatally glamorous horn player, Viking O'Neill, who claims droit de seigneur over every pretty woman joining the orchestra. And then Rannaldini, arch-fiend and international maestro, rolls up with Machiavellian plans of his own to sabotage the RSO. Effervescent as champagne, Jilly Cooper's novel brings back old favourites like Rupert and Taggie Campbell-Black, but also ends triumphantly with a rampageous orchestral tour of Spain and the high drama of an international piano competition. ------------------------------------- Praise for Appassionata: 'Delicious ... I could not put the damned thing down' Sunday Express 'A boisterous tale of sex and Chopin' Tatler 'Sexy, dazzling protagonists... the humour comes thick and fast' Daily Express

Selected as one of Oprah.com’s 20 Tantalizing Beach Reads Selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Isabel Merton is a renowned concert pianist, whose performances are marked by a rare responsiveness to the complexities of her art, and its intensities of feeling. At the height of her career, she feels increasingly torn between the compelling musical realm she deeply inhabits, and her fragmented itinerant artist’s life, with its frequent flights, anonymous hotels, and brief, arbitrary encounters. Away from her New York home on a European tour, Isabel meets a political exile from a war-torn country, a man driven by a rankling sense of injustice and a powerful desire to vindicate his cause and avenge his people. As their paths cross in several cities, they are drawn to each other both by their differences and their seemingly parallel passions–until a menacing incident throws her into a creative crisis, and forces her to reevaluate his actions, and her own motives. In this story of contemporary love and conflict, Hoffman illuminates the currents and undercurrents of our time, as she explores the luminous and dark faces of romanticism, and those perennial human yearnings, frustrations, and moral choices that can lead to destructiveness, or the richest art.

Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57 is considered by many, including Beethoven, to be one of his greatest sonatas. The nickname "appassionata" probably came from a four-hand version entitled Sonata appassionata, published in Hamburg in 1838. The famous opening thematic statement played two octaves apart and repeated immediately a half step higher sets a mood of tension and conflict in this majestic sonata. Dr. Stewart Gordon’s editions of Beethoven's most popular piano sonatas provide the key to a stylistic performance. Thorough research of the earliest available sources has enabled Dr. Gordon to produce the most accurate reflection of the composer’s intent. Each sonata contains helpful fingering suggestions and performance recommendations.

This volume contains the complete scores for some of Beethoven's most famous piano compositions, including “Waldstein”, “Les Adieux”, “Hammer-Klavier”, “Appassionata”, “Grand Sonata”, “Little Pathétique”, “Moonlight Sonata”, and more. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) was a seminal German composer. He had a significant influence on the transition from the Classical to the Romantic era of music, and to this day he is considered to be one the most celebrated and important composers of all time. This volume is highly recommended for fans of Beethoven's music, and it constitutes a must-have for collectors of important classical scores. Classic Music Collection constitutes an extensive library of the most well-known and universally enjoyed works of classical music ever composed, reproduced from authoritative editions for the enjoyment of musicians and music students the world over. This edition also includes an introductory biography of Beethoven written by Joseph Otten.