The Lives of the Great Composers

by Harold C. Schonberg

In this new edition, Harold Schonberg offers music lovers a series of fascinating biographical chapters. Music, the author contends, is a continually evolving art, and all geniuses, unique as they are, were influenced by their predecessors. Schonberg discusses the lives and works of the foremost figures in classical music, among them Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, the Schumanns, Copland, and Stravinsky, weaving a fabric rich in detail and anecdote. He also includes the creators of light music, such as Gilbert and Sullivan and the Strausses.



Schonberg has extended the volume's coverage to provide informative and clearly written descriptions of the later serialists such as Stockhausen and Carter, the iconoclastic John Cage, the individualistic Messiaen, minimalist composers, the new tonalists, and women composers of all eras, including Mendelssohn Hensel, Chaminade, Smyth, Beach, and Zwilich. Scattered throughout are many changes and additions reflecting musicological findings of the past fifteen years.

Genres: Music, Biography, History, Nonfiction, Classical Music, Reference, Biography Memoir

656 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Harold Charles Schonberg was an American music critic and journalist, most notably for The New York Times. He was the first music critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (1971). He was the author of a number of books on musical subjects, and also one on chess.

Reviews

[Jonathan O'Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐

“So life fades and withers behind us, and of our sacred and vanished past, only one thing remains immortal—music” - Jean Paul


This 3rd edition of Schonberg’s work spans over 400 years, from the birth of Monteverdi in 1567 to the minimalists of the late 20th Century. Encyclopaedic in nature but never dull, full of interesting, occasionally hilarious, anecdotes. It’s like a musical tour bus that takes you all the way through the major musical eras; Baroque (1600-1750), Classical (1750-1820), Romantic (1820-1900), and all the way to the 1990s. Along the way, Schonberg broadly covers such interesting topics as, but not limited to, Bach’s use of Counterpoint; Handel’s damaging popularity in Britain; the fearsome spectre of Beethoven’s Symphonic works (particularly the 9th); Wagnerism, Wagner’s use of leitmotif and the concept of Gesamtkuntswerk ("total work of art”); Debussy and the “Impressionists”; Stravinsky, polytonality and neo-classicism; Schoenberg, atonality and dissonance; serialism, and minimalism.

The thing about tour buses is that whenever you hurtle past an amazing attraction, you inevitably get whisked away to the next before you’ve really had a chance to explore it satisfactorily. Needless to say, I added an enormous number of books to my tbr as I travelled past these attractions and now that I’ve finished the tour, I’m ready to explore certain areas with a bit more depth.


Schonberg allows approximately 20 pages for each of the “Greatest” composers and often has some of the “less formidable” individuals share a chapter. It’s a wonderful combination of discussion on the Composer’s work, their personal life, and the times in which they lived. There is also discussion on general trends within music of the time. One such trend was that of the Castratos.

Castratos (castrated male vocalists) were another of the Church’s wonderful contributions to mankind. In the late 16th century, women’s voices had been banned in the Church so obviously they had to castrate boys before puberty and put them through years of rigorous training, resulting in female voices with male lungs, Wallah! Everyone’s a winner…. Except for the girls who aren't allowed to sing... Oh, and all the boys who HAD THEIR TESTICLES TWISTED UNTIL THEY ATROPHIED!! Wait a second you pesky Church, there are no winners at all! Leave your High-C on the coat rack my Lord; I quite enjoy my balls right where they are!


It's a dog-eat-dog world, the World of Classical Music, let me tell ya! Schonberg includes an unbelievable amount of slander from composers and critics towards their contemporaries and, as he evidently gets off on it, he can’t help but get involved himself. Here are a couple of examples, inexhaustive of the number I had listed:

Critics: “[the art of] covering pages with thoughts little worth noting and of hiding an intrinsic poverty of invention by grim or monotonous eccentricity.” – Henry Fothergill Chorley on Schumann.
“[Offenbach] is the outgrowth of the governing demi-monde epoch of the Second Empire, the froth of tisane, neither healthy nor nourishing” - The Music Trade Review”

Composers: “… a frightful muddle, an incongruous mess… one ought to wash one’s hands after handling one of his scores.” - Mendelssohn on Berlioz
“What a good thing it isn’t music.” - Rossini on Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie fantastique’
“[Offenbach’s music was] a dung heap on which all the swine of Europe wallowed” - Wagner

Schonberg, unfortunately, comes across as very catty himself and struggles immensely to temper his own biases (by "struggles immensely" I mean, "is incapable of" doing so). The level of hypocrisy shown here is almost beyond belief. At one stage he criticises the non-objectivity of another work, ’Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians’, regarding a statement made of Rachmaninoff and then in the paragraph immediately following, says of another composer’s (Sergei Taneiev) work, that it is ”devoid of any life and character and is as individual as a toothpick in a box of toothpicks”. There are at least a dozen other times when he takes very “non-objective” stabs at composers (often bullying on a personal level). Here are just a few:

After reeling off the names of no less than 20 composers who worked alongside Giuseppi Verdi: “Not one of those composers rates even a footnote in any history of music”

“[Francesca] Cuzzoni (a female singer) was short, fat, ugly, ill-tempered, and no actress at all”

“…clear, elegant, precise, logical… Probably it sounded like the playing of a Kalkbrenner with brains.”

In addition to these, he imitates the lisp of Saint-Saebs in a mocking jibe.

On the other hand, he's very trigger-happy with the term 'Masterpiece' whenever it comes to something he does enjoy. It got to the point where I'd see a sentence like, "... and the word masterpiece is not too strong" and just roll my eyes further back into my head than I ever thought was possible. I’m being a bit of a hypocrite, to be honest; I was exactly the same… when I was 16. Everything I enjoyed was a masterpiece too: “What?! You haven’t heard Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’, it’s a fucking masterpiece man!”… “Bro, you listened to Hendrix’s ‘Band of Gypsys’ yet?”…*stabs hand violently into friends chest*… “ab.so.lute masterpiece!”

I don’t want to be too critical about this, because every man has his passions, but he also has a weird habit of referring to the works of some composers as erotic. Chausson's Poeme, for example, is "sensuous... unashamedly erotic, as much as music can be erotic". Scriabin’s harmonies—"no matter how complicated, no matter how divorced from key relationships—have a sensuous quality [and] can be called erotic".
I have a feeling every time Schonberg reads the sheet music for Chausson’s Poeme, he adds one bar… If you get my drift.


Just a general observation, but there were a total of 3 (maybe 5 if I’m being generous) women discussed in this book of which 2 are given merely a paragraph each and the other, barely a mention. Without a doubt, token additions in Schonberg's mind. Schonberg’s main justification for this would be that they aren’t in the active repertory; that appears to be his no.1 rule for the compilation. He might also mention that there were very few female compositions that made a stir in their time. I would call bullshit. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is a Pulitzer-prize winning composer, is in the active repertory, and receives a photo and 1/3 of a paragraph. The most favourable words he can conjure up for her are "her music is always solid and dependable"... Good ol’ solid and dependable. You go girl!

In terms of female composers not getting much of a go before the 20th century, he’s right but they were still composing and we have access to some of their compositions today. I feel like he could’ve broken his golden rule just to increase the male-female ratio to, I don’t know, 97-3%. There are some individuals I would love to hear more about:

Clara Schumann (Wife of Robert Schumann) was one of the finest pianists of her time and was composing at the age of 14. Unfortunately, she did give it up eventually, being so beaten into submission that she truly believed “women must not desire to compose”.

Fanny Mendelssohn, sister of Felix Mendelssohn, composed more than 460 works. Some assert that she preceded her brother in the development of ‘Songs without words’ and, in fact, some of her earlier works may have been published under Felix’s name.

Mozart’s sister, Maria Anna Mozart, was a prodigy of equal, some suggest greater, talent than her brother. From 1769 onwards she was no longer permitted to show her artistic talent on travels with her brother, as she had reached a marriageable age.
A page?... Surely they could each have a measly page each?


For as much as you can know a person after reading 700 odd pages of their work, I come away not particularly liking Schonberg, but respecting his knowledge and expertise immensely. Given that the last revision of this book was in 1997 (third edition) some of the commentary on what constitutes the "active repertory" should probably be taken with a grain of salt. If you’re looking to dip your feet in Classical music, I would unreservedly recommend starting here. Take your time with it; the music is so much more enjoyable when you’ve got a bit of a background and some context. Unless you want to spend thousands on records, some of which you’d probably never be able to find anyway, you’ll want to get a Spotify account, it’s absolutely indispensable. There wasn’t a single work that I couldn’t find, and there’s some obscure stuff here.

On a personal note, I just noticed this is my 100th book 'read' since coming out of reading hibernation. I think I'll chuck on a party hat and go hire a jumping castle; what a time to be alive! Ciao for now.

"Strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest, and it is mine” - Beethoven

[Mk Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good introduction to classical composers, but this guy gets unnecessarily catty at times, and if you're new to classical music and impressionable you may want to be wary of letting Schoenberg sway you against certain composers. Another thing to consider - pare this book with a premium Spotify subscription and you can build playlists to match what you're reading, without having to drop huge wads of money (operas can get expensive). Also, as you approach the late 19th century, consider augmenting this with Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century.

[Thomas J. Hubschman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rarely read biography, especially biographies of writers and other artists. I assume anything worth knowing about them is in their art, that the source of their creativity is a different self from the person the artists' friends and family and public know. Also, artists are notoriously mistaken about themselves. You could even say they know themselves less well than does the average person who would no more think of writing a poem or a symphony than s/he would sign up to take a trip to the moon. Notorious bigots, if they happen to be good writers, create sympathetic characters whom by right they should be portraying in the worst light. Think Anthony Trollope's MP in The Way We Live Now. And walking saints can produce pap and cant. But not always. Chekhov was saintly in some ways, and no one has matched him as a short story writer.

And then there's the question of biography being just another form of fiction, or at least being as much about the author of the biography as about the subject.

Even so, I overcame my aversion, made an exception, as it were, for Harold C. Schonberg's The Lives of the Great Composers and then for his The Lives of the Great Pianists. The reason is my schoolboy-like adoration of classical musicians. I know what neurotic jerks writers usually are (I'm one myself...a writer, I mean). But I put great composers and their interpreters high up on pedestals--or did until I read Mr. Schonberg's books.

This "lives of" genre, of course, started with the medieval Lives of the Saints, and continued in the Renaissance with Vasari's Lives of the Artists, which tells you something about how Western culture has progressed or a least changed its focus over the last thousand years. By the 19th century artists pretty much had a clear field to themselves, and they played it for all it was worth.

Not that the Bachs, Chopins and Prokofievs or Liszts, Hofmanns and Horowitzes come off badly in these books. If anything, Schonberg is an even bigger groupie than I am, though much better qualified to see his subjects' moral and social warts. It's not a matter of any one of the greats being brought down a peg or two by what he puts in these volumes but of a cumulative impression one is left with and the standards of value by which a modern musicologist like Schonberg (not to be confused, by the way, with the 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg) evaluates them and their work.

I don't know why I was so naïf as to think musicians were not, like fiction writers, subject to the academic bent for seeing art as a progressive historical process classifiable into schools and periods: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Post-Romantic, Modern, Post-Classical and God knows what else. Scholar’s minds work that way. But it never occurred to me that great musicians could fall for that kind of silliness. They create because they are moved to do so, and what comes out of them is the only thing possible. Or, so I had thought.

But they were in fact frequently all too conscious of the imperative to be innovative, if not always original. Truly great artists break the molds, create new forms, because the content of their art, what they must express, demands new forms. Beethoven didn't have to think about in what ways he could show up Haydn and out-Mozart Mozart. He spent a few years under the influence of those two, but then found his own voice, matching it to the powerful creation inside him. He didn't innovate for the sake of innovation. The content of his art dictated the form and the expression.

But others were more self-conscious. Brahms was looked down on as old-fashioned by the school that saw Wagner as the future of music, and then of course Wagner suffered the same fate, until by the time we reach the twentieth century composers would rather die than be thought anything less than avant garde. In consequence we got a dogged academic adherence to innovation for its own sake (and, perhaps, more tellingly, combined with mediocrity) that has driven otherwise sympathetic listeners in our own time to rock and jazz (which have their own issues with innovation for innovation's sake).

The backbiting that went on in this fight to be at the head of the pack is worthy of a high school locker room. It's embarrassing to read some of the things composers said about each other, and no doubt still do. I suppose they did so partly to keep their stock up in their own estimations. Unless they were fools they knew what Bach or Beethoven meant to music no matter how they tried to trash them with glib asides (they probably stayed up nights thinking up those nasty one-liners). What's more disconcerting is the way they worried about their place at the cutting edge of their art. God forbid they should write something that was behind the times. Ever onward. The past, if not prologue, is something to be spurned. Who can write as if there had been no Wagner? Or no Stravinsky? Well, Brahms could, for one. And Rachmaninoff for another.

We've seen the same thing in literature. Who could expect to be taken seriously as a serious writer unless s/he wrote in a post-Joycean style? Not Saul Bellow. Not John Updike. And then who could expect to get the lit-crit establishment's seal of approval if they ignored the tenets of Post-Modernism? How many first-rate talents have succumbed to this orthodoxy and diminished their talents rather than end up as, God forbid, "popular" writers?

Walter Kaufmann, best known as the translator of Frederic Nietzsche, pointed out that all the great philosophers were what today would be considered amateurs. Maybe something similar could be said about great writers and composers. The best educated in their craft are self-educated, i.e. they learn by experiencing others' art. Frequently they are mentored by another great talent. But with the ascendance of the academy and its minions we have just the opposite situation: a cadre of mediocrities mass-produced and as conformist in their thinking and creations as any mainline clergyman.

It's in the nature of the academy to foster conformity and uniformity, even when it professes to want the opposite. The firestorm of petty invective and personal insult that met B. R. Myers's A Reader's Manifesto a few years back showed just how sensitive and insecure the establishment is to any questioning of its authority. The Inquisition was liberal-minded by comparison.

Schonberg seems surprisingly deaf to the diktats of the establishment of which he is of course a part. But I still say "surprisingly," because the man is nothing if not a passionate lover of music--all music, it seems, though he is lukewarm about some composers I would think he would be enthusiastic about--Prokofiev, for example, who managed to write fabulous music despite the towering presence of Stravinsky. And how dare he! (I mean Schonberg) leave out George Gershwin in a book like this, while including, not to mention--not to mention--infinitely less talented contemporary composers.

Even so, The Lives of the Composers is a valuable book, as is The Lives of the Great Pianists, if only as an introduction to the subject, or subjects. A decent bibliography of related readings is included; musicians then as now are a garrulous and scribbling lot.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tone of this book is as comforting as a cool blanket on a warm night.

From the movie "Last Action Hero"
Jack Slater : [John Practice has just betrayed Slater] Danny told me not to trust you. He said you killed Mozart.
John Practice : Mo- who?
Jack Slater : -zart.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A superior harmonic sense is the mark of nearly all the great composers. Where most composers of his day would confine themselves to the rules, Bach made the rules.” Sounding more like a Romantic than a Baroque composer, Bach told an aspiring organist to not only play the notes but express the “affect”, the emotional significance of the piece. None of Corelli’s pieces go higher than third position on violin. “A feeling for modulation, is the infallible mark of the important composer. It is the mediocrity who sits so close to home, who does not have the imagination or the daring to go from key to key.” “It is safe to say no great music is without the element of the unexpected.” “Melodies had to be harmonized, and in his harmonic ideas Schubert was supreme.” Music totally changes between 1830 and 1840. It moves from classical harmony to romantic which means allowing seventh, ninth, eleventh, and even altered chords. Romantic is more legato and rich. Rubato: “Every sensitive musician uses it; the device is equivalent to variation of line in a drawing by a master”. Chopin was known for using it a lot although he made his pupils stick to a metronome for Bach and Mozart. Chopin loved singers, so you must bring out his singing lines. Donizetti composed L’Elisir d’Amore in eight days including one of my favorite arias of all time, Una Furtiva Lagrima. Wagner and Berlioz sucked at playing any instrument yet look at what they wrote. Wagner actually went through a radical period where he fell under the influence of the super cool anarchist Mikhail Bakunin; sadly, he quickly went back to being a racist jerk. Cesar Frank got uneasy when any student composer did not modulate enough. I loved Mahler’s critique of orchestral musicians: “They cannot read the score markings, and thus sin against the holy law of dynamics and the inner hidden rhythms of a work. When they see a crescendo they immediately play forte and speed up; at a diminuendo they become piano and retard the tempo. One looks in vain for gradations.” When Saint Saens went back for his recital encore at age ten, he offered the audience “to play any of Beethoven’s thirty-two sonatas from memory.” Debussy’s ear was his only rule; chords did not have to resolve. Ravel was only five feet tall.

On the negative side, I did not like the fact that Harold was not a fan of Saint Saens Piano Concerto #2, and that he dissed the amazing first movement of Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony. Then Harold dares to say, “It is true that no one can make the case for Grieg as one of the immortals.” Really? Jan Garbarek, would beg to differ. Jan sells more records than any classical artist today and his favorite composer is Grieg (Jan is also Norwegian). Grieg loving Jan’s record Officium with the Hillard Ensemble sold 1.5 million copies. Let’s see one of Harold’s classical musical friends pull that off. Another snotty PMS comment by Harold is “How could the composer of Valse Triste (Sibelius) be taken seriously?” A good book for the most part but occasionally you wonder how elitist-douchebag Harold (who looks like John Gielgud pistol-whipped by a midget) got this book deal.

[jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

5/13 read: chapter 8, "poet of music, franz schubert". there's this whole bit about how beethoven was in vogue during much of schubert's life, and, despite a ridiculously huge and enormously beautiful catalog of music, was totally underappreciated during his life. he died in 1828. it follows that "it was robert schumann who unearthed [schubert's] ninth symphony, the 'great' c major. schumann had known of its existence and on new year's day of 1839 he visited schubert's brother ferdinand, who showed him piles of manuscripts. ferdinand allowed schumann to depart with the scor of the c-major symphony, and on march 29, 1839, mendelssohn [!] conducted the world premiere in leipzig. there is some evidence that the work was tried out in vienna in 1828, under schubert's supervision, and was shelved as being too difficult. in a letter to clara wieck, schumann raved about the score: 'it is not possible to describe it to you. all the instruments are human voices. it is gifted beyond measure, and this instrumentation, beethoven notwithstanding---and it's length, this heavenly length like a novel in four volumes, longer than the beethoven ninth symphony.' [actually, not true.] then schumann reviewed the liepzig premiere with his typical understanding and big-heartedness: 'the symphony produced such an effect among us as none had produced since beethoven... years must pass, perhaps, before the work will be thoroughly understood in germany, but there is no danger that it will ever be overlooked or forgotten. it bears within it the core of everlasting youth.' schumann, as so often, was right. the c-major symphony, in its breadth and passion, had a claim to stand near the beethoven ninth. schubert, in his last year, expanded tremendously. his music is packed with ideas, is enormous in scale, is starting to head in a new direction. on his deathbed he is said to have cried that new ideas were running through his head. what would he not have done had he lived!"

i should add here that he died at age 31. to me, that story is extraordinarily moving.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very well written, informative overview of some of the most important composers of the Western tradition, from Bach to Webern. Schonberg has the power to make the same bare facts of a particular composer's life that I've read before in CD liner notes or reference book entries take on real drama and significance, without distorting the facts. He writes well about music, succeeding in conveying the experience of the various pieces discussed without growing stale or sounding pretentious.

However, I do not always agree with him. He is downright wrong about Mahler, whose music he dismisses as the over-emphasised, over-scored product of a neurotic mind. He accepts that Sibelius was a composer with an individual style, and one whose reputation may well increase with time (these words were written at a time when Sibelius' initial popular appeal had faded and the current revival of interest in him had not begun), but he also pegs him as a minor composer, which is questionable at best. He is similarly cavalier with Bartok. He is also rather sketchy on Shostakovich. On the other hand, he very sympathetic to Liszt, and to the French 'impressionists', perhaps in excess in the latter case. By and large, Schonberg overemphasises the intellectual aspects of music while showing a certain distaste for the emotional aspect, which may serve as a corrective to a certain tendency to value maudlin displays of emotional excess but is hardly a balanced approach to any form of art, particularly music, which hardly needs to aspire to the condition of science.

Still, a superbly written book, an excellent guide for lay readers who are reasonably familiar with the composers being discussed and can draw their own conclusions.

[Mark Dickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended!

This is one of my favorite books. I used to own the 1st edition when I was a 20-something, but it was lost along the way. I found this 3rd edition just recently and have loved revisiting these chapters.

The value is the 10-15 page chapters devoted to each composer. None of the treatments are thorough, but a single volume thread of composers from Monteverdi to Copland is just right for me. Especially when I just want an hour or two diversion to whatever else I'm reading.

[Maja Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving this 4 stars because it's a great resource, but I wish I could give it 1 star for the overarching misogyny.

[Johann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had this book as a companion for the last two-and-a-half months. It really felt like a friend introducing the mighty composers from Monteverdi to the time of this 1981 edition. This book kept me company while my wife and daughter waited for hours in the ER, me in the van reading about Chopin and Liszt. It took me so long to read, because I had to pause every few pages to listen to samples of music on iTunes. Well written, I’d highly recommend this volume as an introduction to many of the great composers.

I did observe a noticeable lack of female composers, as well as a curious lack of more “popular” composers, such as George Gershwin. Also interesting would have been to include a segment on the impact of popular music in the 1950s-1960s on “serious” music. The author laments a decline in interest in academic composers during these decades, but stops short of possible explanations other than a public disinterest in serial compositions.

[Abhi V · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this over a long time, out of order, and skipped some of the opera people but re-read a few of the chapters a few times (eventually I'll read them all).

I love this book, and there are hundreds of quotes and lines from it which I think are excellent. The compressed descriptions—sentences that declare a composer was five different adjectives—inspire me and make me giddy. And I love the sense of tradition in the book, it reminds me of the instruction in culture, the autonomous world of classical music, with its characteristic, canonical opinions.... (I think of religious education of children, and to some extent grad students: being taught how to feel about things—moral instruction, basically....)

[Greg Fanoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot, but this was far too dry to merit more than 3 stars. Still, glad I read it just from the standpoint of my own cultural edification.

[Puddingclubber · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great reference book to dip in and out of, with snappily short chapters on each of the greats. Some glaring omissions - where is Vivaldi? - but, fascinating nonetheless.

[Genni · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are in contact with a mind, and we must attempt an identification with that mind.” This is Schonberg's stance on understanding music. Music cannot be divorced from the mind that created it. It is not simply structural or harmonic analysis. So Schonberg attempts to relate to each composer and the world and culture that produced him as well as the make and personality that lent itself to the creation of classical music. Therefore, it is largely biographical, in contrast with The Great Pianists, which focuses more on the specific contributions of each pianist.

I often wondered at some of the “great” composers he included. Some he terms “minor” composers. Perhaps they did not contribute anything earth-shattering, but did produce works that continue to be popular (i.e. Greig). I can understand their inclusion. But what of the chapter devoted to Meyerbeer, Cherubini, and Auber? Not only did they not contribute anything significant to the repertoire, but they also are never played. But I suppose this is nitpicking.

Overall, Schonberg is a great writer, though I did feel he exhausted musical prose here more than in The Great Pianists. I lost count of how many composers found themselves to be an “anachronism in his own time”, for example. Still, those who have not studied the composers before will find a fine exposition. For those who have studied them before, a fitting recapitulation.

[Zevi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book, thoroughly researched, lucidly written and highly entertaining. It contains details on the lives of all the great composers and many of the more obscure ones as well. The composer Charles Ives became one of my heroes after reading this. One of my friends is currently writing an instructional book on playing the guitar titled, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, and he told me this book really inspired him and also influenced some of the musical ideas he decided to include for illustration purposes.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this book to bits for decades now (an earlier edition). The only reservation I have about Schonberg is that he didn't always write about the composers themselves with respect. But all his sins are forgiven him because of the short chapter he devoted to my beloved Hugo Wolf, of whose ultrasubtle, inspired settings of good poetry Schonberg said "No greater songs exist". Sometimes I agree with that.

[Ioana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't enjoy the book. Although it was written in a slightly charming style, I found the author rather subjective and judgmental. I don't know if this is the proper way to get people into the history of music, with journalistic idiosyncrasies.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where I get all my facts about the greats. You love their music, now get to know them.

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

When it comes to the arts or the humanities, I think it is often better to learn from an opinionated rather than an “objective” expert. After all, what is the point of learning about perspective and chiaroscuro, about rhyme schemes and metaphor, about counterpoint and castrati, if this information does not enrich your enjoyment and sharpen your aesthetic judgment? This is why I prefer, say, Bertrand Russell’s heavily biased History of Western Philosophy over more neutral texts; since even if there are inaccuracies and shortcomings, one can at least see a philosopher’s mind in action—which is more of an education than simply reading about his conclusions.

By the same token, this collection of biographies is both more entertaining and, in a way, more valuable than a textbook. Schonberg, after all, was a critic, not an academic, and it is his job to give the reader his opinions. His goal is to orient us to the current “repertory” (what is most often played in concert halls). Thus, he has virtually nothing to say about Western music prior to Claudio Monteverdi, as medieval and Renaissance music are not often featured in concert programs. The book spans from that seminal Italian through Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, all the way to the messy twentieth century (where he arguably breaks his own rule, since the serial music discussed in the last chapters is very rarely played for the general public).

Each chapter focuses on one or, sometimes, a handful of important composers, giving a brief sketch of their lives and a sharp assessment of their works. The biographies are often hilarious, full of charming anecdotes and innumerable tales of eccentricity. I was most fond of his physical descriptions, which could be savage. Here is Schonberg on Haydn:

Physically he was not a prepossessing figure. He was short and dark, his face was pitted by smallpox, his legs were too short for his body. His nose had a polyp that threw it out of shape, and he appears to have been sensitive about it. The famous Haydn never commissioned a portrait.

If the book falls short in any respect, it is in the offhand way in which Schonberg throws off his verdicts. Admittedly, this is not entirely his fault, as discussing music for the general public, without the use of any special terminology, is extremely difficult. Yet he does not make much of an effort to explain why he finds one symphony to be masterful and another to be a failure. This is a shame, since it is exactly in this respect that I hoped to gain from this book.

Another shortcoming is the almost complete lack of women. To be fair to Schonberg, there are very few women composers in the repertory. Even today, the most progressive of classical radio stations will play mostly male composers. That being said, aside from excluding women composers, Schonberg often goes out of his way to criticize a composer’s wife’s influence on his work. It seems that women cannot do anything right in the world of classical music. Schonberg does not even let Clara Schumann entirely off the hook, though he does praise her piano playing.

Speaking of which, while Schonberg almost entirely avoids the technicalities of musical theory, he is loquacious on the topic of piano technique. He wrote a book on the subject and was clearly something of an expert. As a result, there is a bias toward piano music present throughout this book—though considering that instrument’s central role in classical music, it is a forgivable hobbyhorse.

The last chapter of the book is rather sad. Schonberg notes that although many brilliant and innovative composers have worked in the latter half of the twentieth century, their works have failed to find any favor with audiences. True, at many points in history there has been a lag between audience appreciation and compositional innovation. But it has been 100 years since Schoenberg and Webern wrote their avant-garde music, and it still sounds incomprehensible to most listeners. As a frequent visitor to the National Auditorium here in Spain, I get the powerful impression that this tradition is moribund. The vast bulk of the repertory are old concert favorites, and the large majority of the audience have white hair. And how is a tradition to continue if new composers cannot connect with new audiences?

But I do not want to end on such a sad note. Rather, I wish to remark that, although the composers in this book have all sorts of personality types, they do share something in common: a determination to go their own way, a commitment to their own artistic vision. That is to say, they are all uncompromising. This is curious, since stubbornness is often a negative quality. Most of us are more likely to praise somebody for being flexible and easygoing; and there are many situations when it is decidedly negative for a person to doggedly follow their own path. If this book has a moral, then, it is that it takes a certain amount of arrogance, a certain touch of pigheadedness, to make your artistic mark.

[Darcy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was originally written in 1970 with the third edition updated in 1997. The author, Harold C. Schonberg, has written 5 other books, was the New York Times Music critic for about 20 years, and managed to squeeze in a Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for music criticism so I am taking it on faith that he knows what he is talking about. This book came highly recommended through a couple of Great Courses I had listened to about classical music. Being relatively new to this world I am attempting to get as much knowledge and insight as possible to aid in my appreciation of listening. As a result, I am greatly pleased with the information provided by this marvelous book.

Moving through the years we are taken on a roughly chronological journey through the greats, but at the same time are introduced (Well me anyway) to the evolution of music. We see how some composers are driven by the public desire, while others forge their own paths. We see how some are sponsored by patrons who give them free reign and others, in some cases under a despotic state system, are held to rigid standards of what they can and cannot compose. And, of course, in the more modern era, we are introduced to the true avant-garde who seek to break with any notion of what music has been and instead seek to find what it could be. It is quite a journey and one which may introduce you to names you have never heard before.

Sure, Beethoven is in here. As is Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Strauss. But I also learned about Gluck, Glinka, Franck, Reger ,Gottschalk, Webern, and Messiaen. So much so that while there are biographical references highlighting portions of their lives, the author has to stick to his theme and discuss only each composers important works and how they impacted society and other composers, both at the time in in the years following. There is such a wealth of information here it is clear this is just a sampling to whet the appetite for a deeper dive into any of the names mentioned.

You will find that Schonberg does not pull any punches. He does not hesitate to call other authors out on their failed ability to appreciate a composer's brilliance. (In fact, some of the funniest passages in the book are when he does exactly that. There is no reading between the lines here!) At the same time his is unfailingly complimentary for those composers whose work was overlooked at the time or who have not yet been recognized for their brilliance. This is absolutely a work that will demand a re-read while at the same time become a handy reference for a refresher on whoever you happen to be listening to. Absolutely worth your investment of time and a work you may be grateful for.

[Avery Anarchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third edition of “The Lives of the Great Composers” was a great survey of Western classical music from the medieval times (1400s) all the way up until the present (1900s). Each chapter is fairly accessible, concise, and detailed description of each composer. Even a non-musician could easily enjoy this book.
I realize that this book was written before the year 2000, not even during our current millennia, and lots has changed in musicological thought since then- however I had some issues with it.
First of all, yes this book is about Western classical music. But could we have a few composers of color? Women composers? Yes there were a few mentioned, but pales in comparison to the number of white males.
This is again understandable since it was written before the year 2000, musicology wasn’t even close to realizing that more diversity needs to be included.
My biggest problem with the book was the amount of opinion the author included. There are several statements that the author makes that I do not agree with. For example, in the chapter on Rachmaninoff “Rachmaninoff may have contributed nothing to twentieth-century form or harmony..” he does go on to say that Rachmaninoff was one of the best pianists of all time and should be recognized as so. As well as his music being something special, and it would have been forgotten if it wasn’t.. but I found that the book had too many of these statements that feel like opinion and not fact.
Apart from that, I really enjoyed the book and it felt great to be immersed in music history. I definitely recommend it for those classical music lovers who want to delve more into musicology.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has taken me a month to plow through this tome. I had attempted to read it when I first bought it in the mid 1990's and got about halfway through. I'm glad I picked it up again, as it is a truly impressive read. Schonberg, who was the New York Times chief music critic for three decades, covers the canon of Western Music from Monteverdi right through the 1960's (the book was originally published in 1970). And it is a long adventure, covering all of the major composers and some minor ones as well. The major names get their own chapters, while the minor names are sometimes lumped into "schools." While one could argue in favor of some composers over others and that a bit more could be included for the composer you'd like to champion, the overall book is very thorough and comprehensive. I learned about a number of composers whose music I am not familiar with and now have many new scores to explore!

NOTE: This review is for the revised edition published in 1981. A third edition, which appears to have been updated for the late chapters of the book relating to 20th century music, was published in 1997, six years before the authors death. I will have to track this edition down to see what changes were made. I expect that 27 years after the first edition was published led Schonberg to reassess the late 20th century composers and I'd be curious to see how some of the composers like John Cage, Philip Glass, and Elliott Carter are viewed from that lens.

[Yijia Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensible encyclopedia of all music labeled "classical" and its progression since the Baroque period. Schonberg did a good job including all major composers and exploring their lives, expertise, and innovation. I personally spent the most time on the giants of the Classical and Romantic periods and threw my mind into their lives and contemporaries, though not as much for those from the 20th century.

The book is substantial in content, and it took me a little more than two month to walk through this long history of music. Although I enjoyed this book as a music amateur, I would really recommend reading it if you have professional knowledge in music theory or the major pieces.

[Athena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has so much knowledge in it. I know, in my heart of hearts, that it is going to be an invaluable resource in my study of music theory. It is well organised, witty, and provides you with the facts, rather than opinion.

However, I have been reading this for about 8 and a half months. My brain is filled with musical knowledge, and I could tell you an awful lot about an unreasonable amount of composers, but I need a break. Being a person who is used to reading a book every week or so, this has been tough.

If you are interested in classical music, I cannot recommend this enough. It is extremely interesting.

But I also cannot wait to get back to reading something fictional.

[Alexander Lochard · Rating 5 out of 5]

After finishing reading this book I realize that my understanding about the lives of all of the great composers,that have existed throughout the ages, are essentially the markers of what I understand to be the makers of the sounds and expressions of the moment in humanity’s development within Europe. Each composer defines the sounds that belongs to its space in time making them the creators of the sounds of the times they lived in, in humanity’s history on this planet. I begin to wonder, where is the music that defines our era in our present day human history? I guess we may have to listen closely and see how it describes the world we live in.

[Samantha Webster · Rating 3 out of 5]

to start, this book ends on a slightly depressing (?) note, as it basically states that the line of “great composers” is dead and whatnot which is kinda funny but also kinda true but whatever that’s a tangent for another day.

anyways this was fine, i enjoyed it substantially more in the beginning but as the music got more complicated the book got more tedious and technical which was unfortunate as the anecdotal nature of the beginning was quite endearing. also the author just got a little annoying by the end, i know this was written in the 90s but he’s got some badddd takes that kinda got on my nerves. anyways very informative but got dry towards the end.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an inspiring and very informative book about the greatest composers ever! It is highly recommended for the Dilettant, the amateur who wants a general idea about the composer and to understand without much jargon why he is really great. In contrast with many non-fiction books this is fun to read, it makes one want to grab the computer and search and listen to the music. So its mission is accomplished even if there are faults or omissions for some. My personal recommendation is read a chapter a day so that all information can be absorbed! And then enjoy!

[Sandy Salzinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A year of the Great Composers of Classical Music in one book! I enjoyed Schonberg's insights and opinions. With the lessening of our newspapers due to the internet and social media it seems that the great music critics of yesterday are down to only a few in the U.S. The same goes for program notes at the concerts I've attended in the last 20-30 years, as compared to reading Klaus Roy's program notes at the Cleveland Orchestra concerts of my youth. I think a nice companion to this book might be "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross

[Tugrul Akyuz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yaklaşık olarak her hafta 1 bölümünü okuyarak 40 bölümü 1 senede bitirdim. Esasında her bir bestecinin yazarın
bahsettiği eserlerini dinleyerek okumak istiyordum, ama o zaman 10 senende biterdi. Tekrar tekrar okuyacağım kitaplardan biri.
Kitap, müziğin soyutluğuna bestecilerin yaklaşımlarıyla ve hayatlarıyla küçük referans noktaları yaratması açısından (gerekli olup olmadığı tartışma konusudur, ama beni genelde heyecanlandırır) çok başarılı bir kitap. Ama odaklanma gerektiriyor.

[Gergő Radóczi]

Considering the scope, this book is fairly insightful, and represents composers who had smaller effect on later generations (and thus are mostly neglected) as well,

I like that this book is also very much about music as well and not just about "tabloid" details of the private lives of the artists,

Have to say that I've read a Hungarian translation of the book.