Charles Rosen

Pianist and writer, born in New York City, New York, USA. He studied piano from childhood, and later studied music history and gained a doctorate in French literature at Princeton University. He made his New York debut as a recitalist in 1951, and thereafter he maintained an active performing and teaching career. His many books on music include the 1971 Classical Style, itself a classic.

Perhaps his most famous work is The Classical Style, which analyzes the nature and evolution of the high classical style as it was developed by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.

The polymathic Rosen has also published in other areas of the humanities: Romanticism and Realism: The Mythology of Nineteenth-Century Art and Romantic Poets, Critics, and Other Madmen.

Rosen has from time to time held positions as a university professor. in French Literature from Princeton University, and has taught at Harvard, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago.

He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. Chicago: University of Chicago Press): ISBN 0-691-02706-4 Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion (2001, New Haven: Yale University Press): ISBN 0-300-09070-6 The Classical Style (2nd ed., 1997, New York: Norton): ISBN 0-393-31712-9 Critical Entertainments: Music Old and New (2001. Cambridge: Harvard University Press): ISBN 0-674-00684-4 The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994. New York: Hill and Wang): ISBN 1-871082-65-X The Musical Languages of Elliott Carter (1984. Washington, D.C.: Music Division, Research Services, Library of Congress) Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist (2002: Free Press): ISBN 0-7432-4312-9 Romanticism and Realism: The Mythology of Nineteenth-Century Art (with Henri Zerner; New York: Norton): ISBN 0-393-30196-6 Romantic Poets, Critics, and Other Madmen (2000. Cambridge: Harvard University Press): ISBN 0-674-77951-7 The Romantic Generation (1998, Cambridge: Harvard University Press): ISBN 0-674-77934-7 Sonata Forms (2nd ed., 1988, New York: Norton): ISBN 0-393-30219-9