"The word 'masterpiece' should be used rarely if at all. But it applies to Charles Rosen's The Classical Style. This is more than a superbly penetrating, closely argued analysis of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. It is a piece of 'active criticism' which only a very distinguished performer could have achieved. Rosen carries over into English prose those strengths of clarity, scruple, and excitement which he brings to his playing. Simply by itself, this book sets new standards for the application of language to music."-George Steiner. "A book for which both musicians and music-lovers should be grateful."- Edward T. Cone. "[Rosen] never loses sight of the organic nature of the music he discusses; in other words he seems nearly always to find the dynamic function of each element, whether it be thematic, rhythmic, harmonic, or tonal. Such writing is rare, and to be cheered to the echo when it is found...Rosen's [ears] are very acute indeed, and he is able to savor the essential concentration of thought in a mature Haydn quartet or the subtleties of exquisitely timed disguised recapitulations in Mozart's operas, and express himself about them in language of fine clarity....One of the best books of its kind to have appeared since Tovey." - Robert Simpson.

What Charles Rosen's celebrated book The Classical Style did for music of the Classical period, this new, much-awaited volume brilliantly does for the Romantic era. An exhilarating exploration of the musical language, forms, and styles of the Romantic period, it captures the spirit that enlivened a generation of composers and musicians, and in doing so it conveys the very sense of Romantic music. In readings uniquely informed by his performing experience, Rosen offers consistently acute and thoroughly engaging analyses of works by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Bellini, Liszt, and Berlioz, and he presents a new view of Chopin as a master of polyphony and large-scale form. He adeptly integrates his observations on the music with reflections on the art, literature, drama, and philosophy of the time, and thus shows us the major figures of Romantic music within their intellectual and cultural context. Rosen covers a remarkably broad range of music history and considers the importance to nineteenth-century music of other cultural developments: the art of landscape, a changed approach to the sacred, the literary fragment as a Romantic art form. He sheds new light on the musical sensibilities of each composer, studies the important genres from nocturnes and songs to symphonies and operas, explains musical principles such as the relation between a musical idea and its realization in sound and the interplay between music and text, and traces the origins of musical ideas prevalent in the Romantic period. Rich with striking descriptions and telling analogies, Rosen's overview of Romantic music is an accomplishment without parallel in the literature, a consummate performance by a master pianist and music historian.

"Is there a moment in history when a work receives its ideal interpretation? Or is negotiation always required to preserve the past and accommodate the present? The freedom of interpretation, Charles Rosen suggests in these sparkling explorations of music and literature, exists in a delicate balance with fidelity to the identity of the original work. Rosen cautions us to avoid doctrinaire extremes when approaching art of the past. To understand Shakespeare only as an Elizabethan or Jacobean theatergoer would understand him, or to modernize his plays with no sense of what they bring from his age, deforms the work, making it less ambiguous and inherently less interesting. For a work to remain alive, it must change character over time while preserving a valid witness to its earliest state.

In three lucid and entertaining essays, Charles Rosen explores the true meaning of music and how this meaning changes from performer to performer, as well as audience to audience.