Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neighbors Thought)

Subtitled Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neighbors Thought), this delightfully candid book offers rare insights into the lives of famous composers from Antonio Vivaldi to Woody Guthrie. See the great musicians as never before through this collection of fascinating and humorous mini-biographies. Many of us are familiar with the life stories of composers, such as Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven. But still we wonder, what were these people really like? What kind of children were they? What style of clothing did they wear? What kinds of food did they like to eat? How did they die? Lives of the Musicians answers these questions and uncovers a host of little-known facts about the lives of musicians. Did you know, for example, that Mozart proposed marriage to Marie Antoinette at the ripe old age of eight? Or, that Giuseppe Verdi disliked fame so much that he once hid out in a toolshed when a group of fans came to visit? Read and find out which composer was deathly terrified of being buried alive, which one hated music as a baby, and which one banged the piano keys so hard his fingers bled. The light-hearted spirit of this volume is evident, not only by the lively text, but also by the caricature-like portraits of the musicians and witty chapter titles such as My Dear Corpse: Frederic Chopin; Twenty Children and 1,200 Compositions: Johann Sebastian Bach; and (my favorite) The Checked Cotton Underwear: Johannes Brahms. No longer will you have to bribe your children to get them to study music history. Lives of the Musicians is so captivatingly fun, it will leave your kids begging for more! Please note that at least one artist is mentioned as being a homosexual, but this is not elaborated upon. ~ Rachel