A "Reading Rainbow" Feature Title Zum, zum, buzz.... zum, zum, buzz... What's that strange buzz coming from the double bass? Berlioz has no time to investigate, because he and his bear orchestra are due at the gala ball in the village square at eight. But Berlioz is so worried about his buzzing bass that he steers the mule and his bandwagon full of magicians into a hole in the road and gets stuck. Time is running out, and if a rooster, a cat, a billy goat, a plow horse, and an ox can't rescue the bandwagon, who can? As the suspense mounts, intricate borders reveal the village animals making their way to the square one by one. When the clock chimes eight, the animals, ready to dance, have filled the square-but there's no sign of Berlioz. Jan Brett's glorious illustrations invite the eye to linger over exquisite details and humorous nuances that enhance the story. This delightful cumulative tale is one that will be looked at again and again.

Hector Berlioz was not only a composer, but a renowned writer and critic, and his Memoirs and Evenings with the Orchestra are particularly well-known and loved. This book provides new translations of his criticism in English, taking him from his student days as a participant in musical polemics over Rossini to his first years of mature success.

Self-revelations of tormented great composer; musical life in Paris, Wagner and other contemporaries, musical opinions, much more. 11 plates.

This book examines how Berlioz used musical forms to represent a narrative, and to depict emotions such as madness or love.

A Travers Chants is the collection of writings selected from his thirty-odd years of musical journalism. These essays cover a wide spectrum of intellectual inquiry: Beethoven's nine symphonies and his opera, Fidelio; Wagner and the partisans of the "Music of the Future"; Berlioz's idols - Gluck, Weber, and Mozart. There is an eloquent plea to stop the constant rise in concert pitch (an issue still discussed today), a serious piece on the place of music in church, and a humorous and imaginative account of musical customs in China.

An exploration of fantastic soundworlds in nineteenth-century France, providing a fresh aesthetic and compositional context for Berlioz and others.

French Music Since Berlioz explores key developments in French classical music during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume draws on the expertise of a range of French music scholars who provide their own perspectives on particular aspects of the subject. D dre Donnellon's introduction discusses important issues and debates in French classical music of the period, highlights key figures and institutions, and provides a context for the chapters that follow. The first two of these are concerned with opera in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries respectively, addressed by Thomas Cooper for the nineteenth century and Richard Langham Smith for the twentieth. Timothy Jones's chapter follows, which assesses the French contribution to those most Germanic of genres, nineteenth-century chamber music and symphonies. The quintessentially French tradition of the nineteenth-century salon is the subject of James Ross's chapter, while the more sacred setting of Paris's most musically significant churches and the contribution of their organists is the focus of Nigel Simeone's essay. The transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century is explored by Roy Howat through a detailed look at four leading figures of this time: Faur Chabrier, Debussy and Ravel. Robert Orledge follows with a later group of composers, Satie & Les Six, and examines the role of the media in promoting French music. The 1930s, and in particular the composers associated with Jeune France, are discussed by Deborah Mawer, while Caroline Potter investigates Parisian musical life during the Second World War. The book closes with two chapters that bring us to the present day. Peter O'Hagan surveys the enormous contribution to French music of Pierre Boulez, and Caroline Potter examines trends since 1945. Aimed at teachers and students of French music history, as well as performers and the inquisitive concert- and opera-goer, French Music Since Berlioz is an essential companion for an