Ernest Newman
Published: 1966
Total Pages: 332
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Ernest Newman's book on Hugo Wolf spread the Austrian composer's fame as a song writer throughout the English-speaking world. First published in 1907, it was the first exhaustive study in English of Wolf's qualities as a song writer, and remained, indeed, for nearly half acentury, the only book on Wolf written in English. Beginning with Wolf's early struggles (his father's objections to his becoming a musician, his repeated failures at school, his prolonged bouts with poverty), the book follows Wolf's career, first as the musical critic of the Vienna "Salonblatt," where his acid comments earned him the enmity of many, his productive years as a composer, and his final mental collapse and general paralysis that ended in his premature death at the age of 43. The author reconstructs the alternating periods of depression and creativity, describing with special excitement the birth of Wolf's beautiful song cycles: the Keller songs, the Spanish, Mörike, Goethe, and Eichendorff volumes. Even more fascinating and valuable than the biographical narrative are the sections that analyze Wolf's music and his unique contribution to song writing. Never hiding his own deep admiration for Wolf, Newman writes with exuberance and keen perception, guiding the reader to a true awareness of Wolf's genius as a composer. His chapter headed "The Songs" is particularly significant, not only for its insights into Wolf's own work, but for the extremely sensitive handling of the whole problem of song writing and the important relationship between music and poetry. Other chapters deal with Wolf's miscellaneous choral and instrumental works and his operas "Der Corregidor" and "Manuel Venegas."