The music of the Strauss family – Johann and his three sons, Johann, Josef and Eduard – enjoys enormous popular appeal. Yet existing biographies have failed to do justice to the family's true significance in nineteenth and early twentieth-century musical history. David Wyn Jones addresses this deficiency, engagingly showing that – from Johann's first engagements in the mid-1820s to the death of Eduard in 1916 – the music making of the family was at the centre of Habsburg Viennese society as it moved between dance hall, concert hall and theatre. The Strauss industry at its height was, he demonstrates, greater than any one of the individuals, with serious personal and domestic consequences including affairs, illness, rivalry and fraud. This zesty biography, spanning over a hundred years of history, brings the dynasty brilliantly to life across a large canvas as it offers fresh and revealing insights into the cultural life of Vienna as a whole.

Downton Abbey meets the classic British comedy of errors in this warm and witty YA romance.

A supplement to the current edition of The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and Cassettes, this yearbook looks in depth at new and reissued classical recordings that appeared from the summer of 1994 up to the summer of 1995. Arranged alphabetically by composer, the book evaluates the interpretation and performance of each work, assesses the recording quality, and gives advice on the best values.