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Article: Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters.(Review)
- Article from:
- Notes
- Article date:
- June 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Music Library Association, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Selected and annotated by Styra Avins. Translations by Josef Eisinger and Styra Avins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. [xxviii, 858 p. ISBN 0-19-816234-0. $49.95.]
This may be the most useful Brahms book to appear during 1997, the centenary year of his death. The main part of the book, which spans 745 pages, presents 564 letters chronologically, all but 33 from Brahms himself, newly translated into English and contextualized through introductions and interspersed commentary. Avins has tried to serve two masters here - that is, to provide in one volume both a useful reference work and a readable, vivid account of Brahms's life. She has, for the most part, ...