# Composer Biographies



## RJ Empson (Aug 28, 2010)

Hi just a quick question, what are the best biographies concerning the great composers? I have read snippets on the internet but would like to know which books are the best for which composers. (In your opinions of course.)

Thanks in advance


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## Guest (Aug 29, 2010)

Jan Swafford's biography of Brahms is the standard for that composer. I haven't read a whole lot of other composer bios but I plan on it.


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## Wicked_one (Aug 18, 2010)

Henry-Louis de la Grange has a massive biography of Mahler. I haven't read it cause I can't afford it (yet) but I know it's 4 books over 800 pages or so, as far as I can remember. So it must include like.. everything about Mahler.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Firstly I'd like to make a statement... :tiphat:

OK, so I've read biographies of Brahms (already mentioned; the Swafford one), Sibelius (Andrew Barnett, in conjunction with BIS's Sibelius Edition), and Bernstein (Joan Peyser, which also seems a "standard" biography).

Another biography I've been looking at is Enescu's bio, by Noel Malcolm.


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## RJ Empson (Aug 28, 2010)

Thanks guys I'll be looking those up. My wife and I were out in Winchester today and passed a church book sale I bought a stack of mini novello short biographies for £3.00 (which seemed reasonable to get going with)
I got
Bach, Beethoven, Bizet, Brahms, Chopin, Dvorak, Elgar,Handel, Haydn, Liszt, Mendelssohn,Mozart,Schubert,Thaikovsky and Wagner. (For £3 that seemed like a bargain to me.)


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