The Great Composers Portrayed on Film, 1913 through 2002

This book is a comprehensive filmography of biographical films featuring the lives of 65 great classical composers. Performances analyzed include Richard Burton as Richard Wagner, Cornel Wilde as Frederic Chopin, Gary Oldman as Ludwig van Beethoven, Tom Hulce as Mozart, and Katharine Hepburn as Clara Schumann, among others.
Arranged alphabetically by composer’s name and illustrated1with stills and posters, the text provides a brief biography of each composer and analyzes the feature films portraying him or her. Emphasis is given to the factual accuracy of the screenplay, the validity of the portrayal, and the film’s presentation of the composer’s music.

The late Charles P. Mitchell was a librarian in Millinocket, Maine. He wrote on film for numerous periodicals and on music for several more and hosted radio shows about classical music in New York City and Portland, Maine.

Charles P. Mitchell
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 348
Bibliographic Info: 35 photos, appendices, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2010 [2004]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4586-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0985-0
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      vii

Preface      1

Isaac Albéniz      7

Johann Sebastian Bach      8

Arnold Bax      15

Ludwig van Beethoven      16

Vincenzo Bellini      33

Hector Berlioz      38

Georges Bizet      41

Johannes Brahms      43

Anton Bruckner      49

Frederic Chopin      51

Aaron Copland      59

Claude Debussy      60

Frederick Delius      62

Gaetano Donizetti      64

George Gershwin      68

Mikhail Glinka      71

Charles Gounod      74

Percy Grainger      76

Edvard Grieg      78

George Frideric Handel      82

Franz Joseph Haydn      90

Victor Herbert      93

Bernard Herrmann      97

Charles Ives      100

Scott Joplin      103

Constant Lambert      105

Franz Liszt      107

Gustav Mahler      121

Marin Marais      130

Bohuslav Martinu      133

Pietro Mascagni      134

Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart      135

Modeste Mussorgsky      151

Carl Nielsen      153

Jacques Offenbach      154

Ignace Jan Paderewski      158

Niccolò Paganini      161

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi      172

Giacomo Puccini      173

Henry Purcell      178

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov      179

Sigmund Romberg      184

Gioacchino Rossini      185

Camille Saint-Saëns      191

Pablo de Sarasate      192

Erik Satie      192

Franz Schubert      195

Robert Schumann

and Clara Schumann      201

Dmitri Shostakovich      208

Jean Sibelius      215

Bedrich Smetana      217

John Philip Sousa      218

Leopold Stokowski      222

Johann Strauss, Jr., and

Johann Strauss, Sr. 0227

Richard Strauss      238

Igor Stravinsky      241

Arthur Sullivan      245

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky      252

Giuseppe Verdi      264

Heitor Villa-Lobos      267

Antonio Vivaldi      267

Richard Wagner      269

Peter Warlock      279

Appendix A: Films about Fictional Composers      285

Appendix B: Composers on Series Television      291

Bibliography      295

Index      299

“extensive index…useful”—ARBA; “a masterwork of research and a triumph of film and music commentary. Mitchell’s command of the subject covers an extraordinary spectrum. For anyone with a passion for music and movies, this book hits the right notes”—New York Resident; “in-depth analyses of many movies”—Katahdin Times.