Among the Great Masters of Music

Paintings of composers become the starting points for accounts of their lives in Walter Rowlands's Among the Great Masters of Music. The volume presents thirty-two reproductions with accompanying text, ranging from the legend of St. Cecilia to scenes involving Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt. Music, biography and the visual arts meet in chapters built around particular people and pictures.

Haydn's visits to England bring the reader into concert rooms, royal gatherings and the habits of audiences. One anecdote links the sudden chord in the Surprise symphony to listeners falling asleep; another describes stockings woven with tunes from his compositions. The Weber chapter takes a more questioning approach, explaining that a painting of his supposed Last Thoughts rests on a mistaken attribution. Readers interested in how famous musicians were pictured and remembered will find short biographical accounts alongside the stories attached to musical scenes.