Showing results by publisher "Naxos AudioBooks" in Biographies & Memoirs

This highly enjoyable account of the life of Jane Austen is regarded as the classic biography of one of the greatest English novelists. It illustrates not only the character and opinions of an unusually perceptive and gifted woman, but also the social life amonst the county gentry of Georgian England. Outside her writing, Jane Austen's main interest was her large and affectionate family and their circle of friends.

This is a story from the Famous Composers collection.

Naxos AudioBooks launches a new introductory series 'In a Nutshell' with Darwin, marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of the English naturalist. Peter Whitfield explains how Darwin came to his revolutionary views following his voyage on the Beagle - and his initial reluctance to publish his findings.

Charles Dickens was a prolific writer of letters throughout his life. There are extant more than 13,000 letters that he wrote to friends, family, fellow authors, and actors as well as many letters written to people involved in good causes he espoused. In the hands of actor and writer Simon Callow, one of the most prominent Dickens interpreters of our time, this informative and entertaining selection shows Dickens in his many guises. We know Charles Dickens the author, but these letters offer a fascinating glimpse into Charles Dickens the man.

The two reigns - both unusually long - could scarcely have been more different. Queen Elizabeth I brought a much needed (and appreciated) stability to England at a key moment in the history of the nation. Queen Elizabeth II has, by contrast, been the constitutional monarch par excellence.

René Descartes is one of the formative figures in Western philosophy, logic and mathematics. His famous statement: "I think, therefore I am," has become perhaps the most famous phrase in all of philosophy. Descartes’s ground-breaking writings attempted to establish unshakeable foundations of knowledge, and set a trend for subsequent Western philosophy, which has endlessly critiqued and expanded upon his ideas.

Dante's vision, The Divine Comedy, has profoundly affected every generation since it first appeared in the early 14th century. Here is a brief account of his life, compiled from various sources (including his first biographer, Boccaccio) by Benedict Flynn. It sets the known facts of Dante's life against the turmoil of the times, and puts the very personal nature of his poetry into perspective.

This is a story from the Famous Composers collection.

The music of Bohemian composer Antonín Dvořák is suffused with natural nobility, fluency and freshness, and embodies the spirit of his native land. This revealing biography portrays Dvořák as a complex and wide-ranging composer, and explores the creation and performance of his music as well as its reception on both sides of the Atlantic, tracing his art in all its richness and variety.

The Great Gate of Kiev resounds to the tumultuous bell rings that end Pictures an an Exhibition, one of the most magnificent and virtuosic of all piano pieces. However, to some of his contemporaries, Modest Mussorgsky was ‘insane’ and ‘a perfect idiot’. Born into a wealthy land-owning family, what drove this tormented man and why did he suffer psychological breakdowns and alcoholism? How did he achieve his command of the realist idiom in his stage works? d, of course, Pictures at an Exhibition.

Polish by birth, Fryderyk Chopin made his name in post-Revolutionary Paris and is often depicted as the archetypal Romantic artist–blessed with extraordinary talent but consumed by the flame of genius, tormented by intense and tempestuous relationships and doomed to an early death. But how much of this story is based on fact? This account of Chopin’s life and times separates myth and reality and, illustrated with numerous musical examples, takes us from his youthful beginnings as ‘a second Mozart’ to the darkness and light of his life and the brilliance of his work.

Giuseppe Verdi, the son of an innkeeper from a poor village in the Po Valley, was a "self-made man". At the age of 26 he produced his first opera at La Scala in Milan, at 35 he became a landowner, and at 48 he was a member of parliament. This audio biography describes Verdi's life in the exciting worlds of the stage, agriculture, music and politics.

Dass in Franz Schubert, der aus seiner Geburtsstadt Wien nie weit hinauskam, gleichwohl die Sehnsucht nach der Ferne schlummerte, zeigen etliche seiner Kompositionen, die das Wandern besingen, die Natur im Lauf der Jahreszeiten ausdeuten. Im Geiste der Romantik sind dabei Trennung, Einsamkeit und Todesgedanken stets unterschwellig präsent.

The story of Richard Wagner's life–with its adventures and affairs, splendour and misery, delusions and visions–is almost like a novel. This audio biography conveys it brilliantly from all the material provided by music, original texts and contemporary documents. Colourful, polyphonic, and always authentic.

In this audio biography, Gustav Mahler's life story is told against the backdrop of an age full of tension–colourful and polyphonic, faithful to the facts, and close to the sources.

Fanny and Felix, the two eldest children of the music-loving banker Abraham Mendelssohn and his wife Lea, were both highly musical. While Felix became a famous composer and conductor, Fanny had to subordinate her compositional talent—according to the customs of the time—to a role as wife and mother. This audio biography deliberately focuses not only on Felix Mendelssohn but also on his sister Fanny.

Auch diese Hörbiographie wird das Rätsel Mozart nicht lösen. Aber Mozart soll, verkörpert von dem Wiener Schauspieler Florian Teichtmeister, lebendig werden in seinem Denken und Fühlen, seinem Alltag und seiner Epoche—streng nach den Originalquellen. Erzähler ist Udo Wachtveitl, Autor ist wiederum Jörg Handstein, der bereits in der Reihe BR-KLASSIK WISSEN das Leben von Mahler, Wagner und Verdi in Form von Hörbiografien nachzeichnete.

Erstmals widmet sich die erfolgreiche Reihe der BR-KLASSIK-Hörbiografien einem Komponisten des 20. Jahrhunderts: Dmitri Schostakowitsch. Seine Symphonien sind nach wie vor Highlights im Konzertsaal, sein Schicksal inspiriert großartige Romane. Doch was weiß man von seinem Leben wirklich? Er ließ sich nicht gern in die Karten schauen. Und er hatte Grund dafür...

Ludwig van Beethoven's life story is that of a radical individualist in uncertain times. The music–effective and profound, quirky and poetic, sensual and philosophical, and constantly in search of the new–plays a leading role here.

Bach ist ein Zentralgestirn der Musikgeschichte. Manche verehren ihn gar als den "Lieben Gott der Musik". Aber auch der Schöpfer der Matthäus-Passion war ein Mensch wie jeder andere, und sein Leben verlief nicht immer harmonisch. Die neue Hörbiografie erzählt seine ganze Geschichte.