The Life of Haydn, in a Series of Letters Written at Vienna: Followed by the Life of Mozart, with Observations on Metastasio, and on the Present State of Music in France and Italy
ISBN: 9781139839198
Platform/Publisher: Cambridge Core / Cambridge University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited

Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal, is remembered today for such novels as Le Rouge et le Noir. In his lifetime, he wrote in a variety of literary genres and under a multitude of names. Louis-Alexandre-César Bombet was his choice of pseudonym for these early works, originally published in French in 1814. His lives of Haydn and Mozart were substantially derived from works by Giuseppe Carpani and Théophile Winckler respectively. Despite this audacious plagiarism, Stendhal's passion for music is evident, especially for Mozart, whose Clemenza di Tito he had enjoyed in Königsberg during the winter of 1812 whilst serving in Napoleon's army. Of especial interest to the modern reader are Stendhal's frequent digressions expressing his forthright opinions on the issues and figures of his day. This reissue is of Robert Brewin's English translation of 1817, with additional notes by the composer William Gardiner.

One of the great French novelists of the nineteenth century, Stendhal (pseudonym for Marie-Henri Beyle) describes his unhappy youth with sensitivity and intelligence in his autobiographical novel The Life of Henri Brulard. It was written in 1835 and 1836 but published in 1890, long after his death. He detested his father, a lawyer from Grenoble, France, whose only passion in life was making money. Therefore, Stendhal left home as soon as he could.

Stendhal served with Napoleon's army in the campaign in Russia in 1812, which helped inspire the famous war scenes in his novel The Red and the Black (1831). After Napoleon's fall, Stendhal lived for six years in Italy, a country he loved during his entire life. In 1821, he returned to Paris for a life of literature, politics, and love affairs.

Stendhal's novels feature heroes who reject any form of authority that would restrain their sense of individual freedom. They are an interesting blend of romantic emotionalism and eighteenth-century realism. Stendhal's heroes are sensitive, emotional individuals who are in conflict with the society in which they live, yet they have the intelligence and detachment to analyze their society and its faults.

Stendhal was a precursor of the realism of Flaubert. He once described the novelist's function as that of a person carrying a mirror down a highway so that the mirror would reflect life as it was, for all society.

(Bowker Author Biography)


hidden image for function call