Overview

From the bestselling author of How Shostakovich Changed My Mind comes a new book about the cathartic power of music. For Stephen Johnson, there have been key points in his life when music that is considered 'dark' has confronted him with life-changing insights. Some of these insights have been hard to accept, but once accepted, all have opened up new possibilities of thinking, feeling and living. Through an exploration of seven pieces, including Anton Bruckner's 'Symphony No 8', Lili Boulanger's Du fond de l'abime (Psalm 130), Jean Sibelius's 'Symphony No 5' and David Bowie's 'I Can't give Everything Away', Johnson explores the lives and the intentions of the composers who created them, and how they have affected him personally.

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9781912559879

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Author Information

Stephen Johnson is the author of How Shostakovich Changed My Mind and The Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910. He has taken part in several hundred radio programmes and documentaries, including BBC Radio 3's weekly Discovering Music series, and has made numerous appearances on TV, contributing as a guest interviewee on BBC Radio 4's coverage of The Proms, ITV's The South Bank Show, and on BBC1's The One Show. Additionally, he made an important contribution, both as commentator and narrator, to Tony Palmer's controversial film about the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, Oh Thou Transcendent, and more recently to Palmer's film about Gustav Holst, In the Bleak Midwinter. He lives in Herefordshire.

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