Musical Delights [antikvár]

"Treludehat was it like to be present when Liszt or Paderewski performed?How strange did the avant-garde music of Wagner and Berlioz sound to the ears of a contemporary audience? What was the atmosphere of the eighteenth-century theatre? These and hundreds of similar questions arise as we listen to or read about music. The written word can teli us much, but the artist's pen or pencil, swiftly traversing the page, can capture the spirit of the moment in an incomparable way.This collection of cartoons and caricatures distils the very essence of musical artists and events. Hogarth's ardent, roisterous singers are more likely to be true to the occasion than the studied portraits of a studio artist. Gillray, Rowlandson and Cruikshank move with the utmost ease from one level of society to another. Daumier opens a window on the homely musical pursuits and pretensions of the Parisian bourgeoisie and café artists. With the other brilliant caricaturists who surrounded Philipon and his journals, he illuminates the prodigious virtuosos of the period, and records the impact of the new music and instruments in a visual shorthand of the preoccupations and passions of the time.Caricature is a continuing art. In our own century we have admired and enjoyed Beerbohm, Kapp, Searle and Hoffnung from Britain, Cocteau and Sempé from Francé, Kühne and Leitner from Germany, Bendiner from America. Each has a characteristic touch and vision.'A good caricature, like every work of art, is more true to life than reality itself, wrote Caracci, the Italian artist who brought the art to public notice. His words may serve as the motto of this book.J.M. Thomson Wellington January 1984