Lives Composers

Profiles offer revealing insights into what drove each individual to create the musical masterpieces - symphonies, concertos and operatic scores - that changed the direction of classical music and are still celebrated as masterpieces today. The audiobook introduces the key influences, themes and working methods of each individual, setting their works within a wider historical and cultural context.

This is the first biography to chronicle the life and career of one of the most distinguished and beloved musical artists to come out of Wisconsin: Al Jarreau. From his earliest days singing in the 1940s until his death in 2017, Jarreau defied categorization. While his biggest hit, “We’re In This Love Together,” is pure pop, he smashed music industry stereotypes as the first artist to win Grammy Awards in three genres: jazz, pop, and R&B. Never Givin’ Up traces Jarreau’s singing career from humble beginnings in his hometown of Milwaukee to international fame.

After dropping out of college, he became immersed in the colorful world of pool hustlers as he managed the largest pool hall in Chicago. During a stint as a paratrooper early in the Vietnam war, he applied for discharge as a conscientious objector, and lived in San Francisco during 1967's "summer of love." While bumming around Europe the following year, Portnoy heard the blues again on a record by Sonny Boy Williamson and became obsessed with mastering blues harmonica.

What kind of a man could create the dreaming melodies of the "Moonlight Sonata"? Give birth to the dramatic voice of the "Fifth Symphony"? Compose the "Ode to Joy"? Meet Ludwig van Beethoven, the musical genius, the passionate artist, the incorrigible man, the composer from whose soul music breathed.

This audiobook analyzes the themes and progression of the composers' most famous works, comparing and contrasting them to each other and other composers' great works.

Ludwig van Beethoven, a genius composer, one of the most recognized and influential of all composers. Ludwig van Beethoven is a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Classical music. Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe.

This never-before-told "behind the screams" story of the Love Affair, the youngest group to have a number-one hit, may be fun and fascinating, but it is also a serious piece of rock music history, appealing to everyone who loved, or lived during, London’s swinging '60s. Patricia was the secret fiancée of Mick Jackson, bass player, and has catalogued his life in the group in astonishing detail. Coupled with a revealing, often humorous account of her own and Mick’s romance, this is an exceptional memoir.

Uno de los talentos musicales más importantes de la historia. Nacido en 1770, rebelde, infatigable, genial y ¡sordo!, es considerado el último gran representante del clasicismo vienés (después de Haydn y Mozart). Su obra imperecedera (donde destacan colosales sus inmortales nueve sinfonías) ha sido aclamada por los críticos de todas las épocas.