This is a compelling and inspiring look at spiritual beliefs that influenced some of the world's greatest composers, now revised and expanded with eight additional composers.

A new and fascinating biography of the most outstanding composer in musical history. Covering Bach's earliest efforst in Eisenach, his cultural inheritance, his series of posts as organist or musician, and his stormy career in Leipzig, Bach: The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers traces the significant stages of development in his family and his music.

Describes how Johann Sebastian Bach survived the sorrows of his childhood and composed the music the world has come to love.

Biographies of the important composers from Monteverdi and Bach to Bartok and Webern are designed to show the history of music.

'A glorious plum-pudding of a book, to be consulted, with pleasure and profit, over and over again' Sir Jeremy Isaacs Michael Steen's 'Great Composers' was originally published in 2003. A lifetime's work and almost 1000 pages long, it has since become 'the' reference point and key read on the biographical backgrounds to classical music's biggest names. Authoritative and hugely detailed - but nonetheless a joy to read - this new edition will expand its readership further and capitalise on a newfound popular interest in classical music. Steen's book helps you explore the story of Bach, the respectable burgher much of whose vast output was composed amidst petty turf disputes in Lutheran Leipzig; or the ugly, argumentative Beethoven in French-occupied Vienna, obsessed by his laundry; or Mozart, the over-exploited infant prodigy whose untimely death was shrouded in rumour. Read about Verdi, who composed against the background of the Italian Risorgimento; or about the family life of the Wagners; and, Brahms, who rose from the slums of Hamburg to become a devotee of beer and coffee in fin-de-siecle Vienna, a cultural capital bent on destroying Mahler ... and much, much more.

This new authoritative reference provides an illustrated guide to the most influential western composers of classical music: the ones who have defined or developed particular styles of composition, and who have created for themselves a significant place in music history.

A new and fascinating biography of the most outstanding composer in musical history, covering Bach's earliest efforst in Eisenach, his cultural inheritance, his series of posts as organist or musician, and his stormy career in Leipzig. It also traces the significant stages of development in his family and his music. Reproductions of engraving and portraits of the time help to recreate the era in which Bach flourished. The origins of all the composer's major works are discussed and put into the context of the contemporary world. Written both the general reader and the specialist.