Priest of Music - (Amadeus) by William R Trotter (Hardcover)

About the Book

Mitropoulos' story unfolds against the rich backdrop of the Golden Age of conductors and reveals secret wars among musicians, patrons, promoters, and critics. Based upon extensive research, this radiant account of a tragically noble and neglected giant promises to be the most important musical biography of the decade. Photos.

Book Synopsis

Impeccably researched and written with a novelist's narrative mastery, this biography of the great conductor is a modern tragedy. Mitropoulos was a passionate advocate of difficult modern music and an early champion of Mahler; his emotionally charged performances brought the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra into the first rank of American orchestras. Generous and self-effacing, he was an innocent in the game of musical politics, unprepared for the intrigues and treachery in store when he became music director of the New York Philharmonic, "the orchestra that took no prisoners."

From the Back Cover

At the time of his death, Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960) was considered one of the most brilliant conductors of the twentieth century. Yet within a decade, his achievements were largely forgotten. An ascetic and mystic throughout his life, Mitropoulos was attracted in his youth to the monastic life, and he brought the same fervent passion to music. He studied in Rome, Brussels, and Berlin, but his career flowered in his native Greece, where he developed his trademark style of conducting without a baton - or score. Success did not change his essential simplicity and boundless generosity, and he never aspired to the glamorous trappings of celebrity. His story unfolds against the rich backdrop of the Golden Age of conductors and reveals secret wars among musicians, patrons, promoters, and critics. Based upon extensive research by the late musicologist Oliver Daniel, this radiant account of a tragically noble and neglected giant promises to be the most important musical biography of the decade.

About the Author

William R. Trotter is a writer whose recent books include the novel _Winter Fire and A Frozen Hell: The Story of the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940 _ a military history that won the Finlandia Foundation Arts and Letters Prize in 1992. A devotee of Leopold Stokowski and an avid record collector, Trotter resides in Greensboro, North Carolina.