New Releases by Charles Rosen

"What is the real business of the critic?" Rosen asks of George Bernard Shaw in one of his essays. It is a question he answers throughout this collection as he demonstrates and analyzes various critical approaches. In writing about the Romantic poets Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, William Cowper, and Friedrich Holderlin, he examines the kind of criticism which attempts to uncover concealed code. He investigates the relationship between Romantic aesthetic theory and artworks, and explores the way Romantic art criticism has been practiced by critics from Friedrich Schlegel to Walter Benjamin. In essays on Honore de Balzac, Robert Schumann, Gustave Flaubert, and others, he highlights the intersections between Romantic art and music; the artist''s separation of life and artistic representations of it; and the significance of the established text.

Presents a detailed analysis of the musical styles and forms developed by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven.

In this lucid, revealing book, award-winning pianist and scholar Charles Rosen sheds light on the elusive music of Arnold Schoenberg and his challenge to conventional musical forms. Rosen argues that Schoenberg''s music, with its atonality and dissonance, possesses a rare balance of form and emotion, making it, according to Rosen, "the most expressive music ever written." Concise and accessible, this book will appeal to fans, non-fans, and scholars of Schoenberg, and to those who have yet to be introduced to the works of one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. "Arnold Schoenberg is one of the most brilliant monographs ever to be published on any composer, let alone the most difficult master of the present age. . . . Indispensable to anyone seeking to understand the crucial musical ideas of the first three decades."—Robert Craft, New York Review of Books "What Mr. Rosen does far better than one could reasonably expect in so concise a book is not only elucidate Schoenberg''s composing techniques and artistic philosophy but to place them in history."—Donal Henahan, New York Times Book Review "For the novice and the knowledgeable, Mr. Rosen''s book is very important reading, either as an introduction to the master or as a stimulus to rethinking our opinions of him. Mr. Rosen''s accomplishment is enviable."—Joel Sachs, Musical Quarterly

The Romantic Generation is an even more important book than Charles Rosen’s last title The Classical Style (1972) (winner of the American National Book Award and many other prizes) which rapidly established itself as one of the few truly indispensible modern books about music.

Charles Rosen describe el lenguaje caracteristico del estilo clasico y articula el libro en torno a la evolucion de generos diferentes para cada compositor: el concierto, el quinteto de cuerda y la opera comica en el caso de Mozart; y la sinfonia, el cuarteto de cuerda, la musica de camara con piano y la misa y el oratorio en el caso de Haydn, mientras que las relaciones entre ellos y Beethoven se estudian a partir de la sonata para piano.

"Quiconque s''empare d''un livre sur la forme sonate pense probablement en connaître le sujet. Depuis que la forme sonate a été définie par des théoriciens du XIXe siècle sur les bases des pratiques en cours à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, elle constitue la forme musicale la plus prestigieuse. ( ... ) J''imagine que " les mélomanes " aimeraient qu''un livre sur la forme sonate leur révèle ce qu''elle était vraiment et quelle a été son histoire - son origine, son développement, son destin. ( ... ) Ces questions supposent que l''on puisse définir la forme sonate comme un reflet précis des œuvres de l''ensemble du XVIIIe siècle, alors qu''il semble difficile de définir une forme sonate unique qui en couvrirait simplement la dernière décennie. Elles supposent qu''une forme a une histoire : mais si une forme " change " on ne sait pas clairement jusqu''à quel moment elle reste la même forme ni à partir de quand il faut la considérer comme une forme nouvelle."

"Nobody writes better about music .... again and again, unerring insight into just the features that make the music special and fine."--The New York Review of Books

Players and Pretenders tells the story of the flip side of basketball''s "March Madness, " where the game is played by average players for love, not for money. At the end of the 1970s at Bard College, where there was no pretense of institutional support, Charley Rosen gathered his hoops hopefuls and put together a basketball season whose impact reached far beyond the court. & Writing with a humorous touch, Rosen details the Running Red Devils'' season, simultaneously examining the lives of those who made it so memorable and providing a glimpse of how the team members existed off the courts as both players and pretenders. His book playfully depicts the 1979-80 basketball season at Bard College and the "sports for fun" side of the game.