Benjamin Walton, Rossini in Paris: The Sound of Modern Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). xv + 349pp. £50

Abstract

Nineteenth-Century Music Review Among the intended audience of the Cambridge Companions series, 'the student, the performer and the music lover', 8 undoubtedly there will be some who read this book from cover to cover, and others who simply plumb it for specific details on a work or a research topic. I would highly recommend a coverto-cover reading, particularly since Barham has so carefully emphasized the connections between the articles in his introduction. One cannot miss the explicit connections, not only in the themes of the collection in general, but in the direct conversations between the authors of adjacent articles. Mahler's music inspires a passionate interest not only in performers and music researchers, but in music lovers in general who wish to find out as much as they can about his works. This book will appeal to all three.