Description
About the Author
Chris Walton studied at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Zurich and Munich. He was head of the Music Department of the Zentralbibliothek Zurich for ten years before being appointed chair of music at the University of Pretoria. He moved back to Switzerland in 2008 and lives today in Solothurn. He is an Honorary Professor at Africa Open Institute (Stellenbosch University) and runs two research projects at the Bern University of the Arts for the Swiss National Science Foundation. He has published widely on Austro-German and Swiss music.
Reviews
Walton's new translation and investigation should become the standard edition for all students of conducting. More widely, this book will also be of interest to any musician or scholar engaged in performances of Wagner's works or in 19th-century performance practices as a whole. -- Michael Graham * Wagner Society of Scotland *
Walton has performed an invaluable service to those seeking enlightenment concerning many aspects of der Meister von Bayreuth. This volume contains translations and abundant annotations of four of Wagner's prose works relating to conducting. Of equal importance are 21 fascinating essays illuminating Wagner's incarnations as conductor, musicologist, and writer. . . . With its insights, this book will enhance our perception of this seminal figure as well as being a pleasure to read. -- Ira Leiberman * Wagner Notes *
[Walton] has succeeded admirably [in his new translation]. "On Performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony" contains detailed performance suggestions, with music examples. The real meat of this book is Walton's own 136-page scholarly essay, "Richard Wagner and the Art of Conducting." Brilliantly written and based on thorough research,...it discusses the genesis and early reception of Wagner's writings on conducting...[which] made his ideas widely known and tremendously influential. * AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE *
Christopher Walton has produced something splendid here: a book that is at once of the highest scholarly quality, written with an intimate understanding of both music and music-making. A comprehensive portrayal of Wagner as conductor, blended with [the] history of conducting from its beginnings until well into the twentieth century. Reading Chris Walton is always a pleasure. -- Nicholas Vazsonyi * WAGNERSPECTRUM *
Chris Walton . . . has brought together all of Wagner's writings on conducting in a new transIation, complementing them with an extended critical and contextual essay of his own. Walton traces in interesting detail the influence of Wagner's essays on the leading conductors of subsequent generations, especially in the matter of tempo variation within symphonic movements. As Walton convincingly shows, the music and conducting of effect [rather than self-restraint] was to win the day. -- Nicholas Spice * LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS *
Book Information
ISBN 9781648250125
Author Chris Walton
Format Paperback
Page Count 324
Imprint University of Rochester Press
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd