Books by Jonathan Keates

The story of the composition, first performances and cultural afterlife of one of the best-loved and most widely performed works in the entire history of music.

A collection of four stories set in 19th-century Italy, a war-torn, emerging nation of secrets and enigmas, of sudden violence and muted anguish, a land where the sought-after beauties of art clash with the unavoidable truth of life as it is lived.

Taking readers from Stendhal's childhood in Grenoble through his varied careers to his death at fifty-nine, this book examines the author's personal life, his many friendships and his work.

Though unquestionably one of the greatest and best-loved of all composers, George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) had received little attention from biographers. This work charts Handel's life, from his youth in Germany, through his brilliantly successful Italian sojourn, to the opulence and squalor of Georgian London.

In the chaos of the English Civil War and Puritan Commonwealth, churches were defaced and organs broken, but the tradition of fine music survived. When Charles II returned from exile in 1660, one of the first things he demanded was music, sacred and profane, anthems and motets, pavannes and gavottes. In 1659 Henry Purcell was born, and his genius would give the period and nation an unforgettable voice.Jonathan Keates traces Purcell's development against the turbulent movements of his time - political, religious, theatrical and social. He shows him growing up in the shadow of Westminster Abbey and follows him as a chorister in the Chapel Royal, copying the innovative and colourful style of Matthew Locke; beginning to composer for the theatre, and for State occasions; writing his great settings of sacred music, his chamber sonatas, and his triumphant Dido and Aeneas, the first British opera.In the background are the heady politics of Restoration England, which expelled the Stuart James II and brought William and Mary to the throne. But almost more important is the rich musical history, the influence of French and Italian composers, blending with and modifying the native tradition. We know and love Purcell through his work; his songs were sung in taverns, his psalms in churches; he was urbane and witty, impassioned and profound.This engrossing biography is as remarkable for its sensitive critical appreciation of Purcell's music, in all its forms, as it is for its vivid portrait of the man, and the boisterous age in which he lived.

A young Englishman, Edward Rivers, arrives in the small town of Villafranca and an intriguing tale of passion, jealousy and betrayal unfolds.

The siege of Venice, in 1848, is one of history's most thrilling and tragic episodes. Focusing on it, this book presents a story that embraces the wider world of the revolutionary Italy of Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Pope Pius IX, its battles, its dreams, and its wild zigzags between hope and despair.