Second in interactive series of digital guides to the greatest works of classical music launches on 28th August.
London, United Kingdom – 28 August, 2014
Erudition, in partnership with Harmonia Mundi, is pleased to announce the second volume of Masterpieces of Music, an enhanced, interactive eBook series featuring comprehensive guides to the greatest classical works. The series is aimed at listeners of all levels of knowledge, whether they are just beginning to explore classical music or have loved it all their lives.
This new eBook explores a monument of Baroque choral music work once described as ‘the greatest musical work of all times and all people’, Bach’s Mass in B minor, widely regarded as the composer’s masterpiece, and a summation of his life’s work in the field of religious music. As with each guide in the series, author Matthew Rye uncovers the full story behind the work and places it in its historical and musical context, taking advantage of the non-linear nature of the medium to explore related topics suggested by the specific piece. Extensive music examples – complete with audio – are used to illustrate a descriptive breakdown of the composer’s creative process in a movement-by-movement walk-through, not only unravelling the intricacies of Bach’s contrapuntal and harmonic writing, but also exploring how he reworked much of the music from pieces he had composed earlier in his career.
Masterpieces of Music eBooks combine the latest scholarship with a range of innovative features designed to bring the music to life and increase enjoyment whatever the level of knowledge. Together, they will build into an essential collection for the music-lover, student or teacher.
Also available: Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony, one of the key works of Western music. This first eBook in the series tells the detailed story behind this epoch-making work and its composer’s love-hate relationship with Napoleon. In a see-and-hear walk-through, Matthew Rye guides the reader through every turn in the music with the aid of interactive examples, including a bar-by-bar exploration of the marvel that is Beethoven’s first-movement development section.
In preparation: Brahms’s Piano Concerto no.1 and Debussy’s La mer.
As with the first volume in the series, Bach’s Mass in B minor is available via Amazon, the Apple iBookstore and directly from the publisher’s website (www.eruditions.co.uk). By purchasing directly, customers will have access to the publications in a range of formats including a web application for viewing publications on a range of devices via a web browser. Downloadable versions of the publications are also available in Kindle and iBooks formats giving readers a wide range of reading options rather than being tied to a specific platform or device.
Click here to read a free preview of Bach’s Mass in B minor.
Click here to see the press kit for further information, press releases and links regarding the Masterpieces of Music series.
About the Author
Author Matthew Rye studied music at Magdalen College, Oxford, and has spent his career in music journalism as a writer, editor and critic. He has written numerous programme and CD booklet notes, was a reviewer for the Daily Telegraph for 13 years and BBC Music Magazine for over 15 years, and has also written for Independent, Sunday Times, Musical Times, The Wagner Journal and other publications. He contributed to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edition), The Rough Guide to Classical Music, The Blackwell History of Music in Britain and was general editor of 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die (Cassell Illustrated, 2007). He is currently reviews editor of The Strad.
About Harmonia Mundi
Founded in 1958, Harmonia Mundi is today the oldest independent classical record label in existence. After a series of recordings of organ music, Bernard Coutaz, the founder, offered a contract of collaboration to Alfred Deller, who remained faithful to his record company until his death in 1979. Nowadays Harmonia Mundi is proud of a vast catalogue that covers all repertories, from early music to the music of the twenty-first century, and of the exceptional loyalty of its musicians, such as René Jacobs, who, after more than thirty-five years working with the label, still records for it alongside musicians of the younger generation. Such constancy and fidelity have earned Harmonia Mundi a unique place in the world of sound recording.
