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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Western music, periods & styles > 20th century music

Aurea Luce (Sheet music, Vocal score): Cecilia McDOWALL Aurea Luce (Sheet music, Vocal score)
Cecilia McDOWALL
R134 Discovery Miles 1 340 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

for SATB (with divisions) and organ Commissioned and first performed by the choir of Liverpool Cathedral, this anthem is ideal for use during the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. The choral lines move between sonorous homophonic writing and vibrant imitative passages, and are underpinned by a repeated quaver motif in the organ. Combining a sense of joy with moments of reflection, this anthem will particularly appeal to choirs looking to expand their choral repertoire.

Piano: The New Composers Volume 2 (Sheet music): Piano: The New Composers Volume 2 (Sheet music)
R482 R437 Discovery Miles 4 370 Save R45 (9%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days
Schoenberg (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition): Malcolm Macdonald Schoenberg (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition)
Malcolm Macdonald
R835 Discovery Miles 8 350 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In this fully updated edition of his long-indispensable study, Malcolm MacDonald takes advantage of 30 years of recent scholarship, new biographical information, and deeper understanding of Schoenberg's aims and significance to produce a superb guide to Schoenberg's life and work. MacDonald demonstrates the indissoluble links among Schoenberg's musical language (particularly the enigmatic and influential twelve-tone method), his personal character, and his creative ideas, as well as the deep connection between his genius as a teacher and as a revolutionary composer. Exploring newly considered influences on the composer's early life, MacDonald offers a fresh perspective on Schoenberg's creative process and the emotional content of his music. For example, as a previously unsuspected source of childhood trauma, the author points to the Vienna Ringtheater disaster of 1881, in which hundreds of people were burned to death, including Schoenberg's uncle and aunt-whose orphaned children were then adopted by Schoenberg's parents. MacDonald brings such experiences to bear on the music itself, examining virtually every work in the oeuvre to demonstrate its vitality and many-sidedness. A chronology of Schoenberg's life, a work-list, an updated bibliography, and a greatly expanded list of personal allusions and references round out the study, and enhance this new edition.

Musical Notation in the West (Hardcover): James Grier Musical Notation in the West (Hardcover)
James Grier
R2,339 Discovery Miles 23 390 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Musical notation is a powerful system of communication between musicians, using sophisticated symbolic, primarily non-verbal means to express musical events in visual symbols. Many musicians take the system for granted, having internalized it and their strategies for reading it and translating it into sound over long years of study and practice. This book traces the development of that system by combining chronological and thematic approaches to show the historical and musical context in which these developments took place. Simultaneously, the book considers the way in which this symbolic language communicates to those literate in it, discussing how its features facilitate or hinder fluent comprehension in the real-time environment of performance. Moreover, the topic of musical as opposed to notational innovation forms another thread of the treatment, as the author investigates instances where musical developments stimulated notational attributes, or notational innovations made practicable advances in musical style.

A Road All Paved with Stars - Paperback (Book, Study score): Ralph Vaughan Williams A Road All Paved with Stars - Paperback (Book, Study score)
Ralph Vaughan Williams; Arranged by Adrian Williams
R636 Discovery Miles 6 360 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Jointly commissioned by The Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust and Oxford University Press, 'A Road All Paved with Stars' is a single-movement orchestral work incorporating the finest music of Vaughan Williams's opera The Poisoned Kiss. Using material from the most memorable songs and sections, including 'Blue larkspur in a garden', 'Love breaks all rules', and of course the 'Kiss' climax and its aftermath, Adrian Williams has created an orchestral synthesis befitting the composer's own musical vision.

Marc Blitzstein - His Life, His Work, His World (Paperback): Howard Pollack Marc Blitzstein - His Life, His Work, His World (Paperback)
Howard Pollack
R1,015 Discovery Miles 10 150 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

A composer and lyricist of enormous innovation and influence, Marc Blitzstein remains one of the most versatile and fascinating figures in the history of American music, his creative output running the gamut from films scores and Broadway operas to art songs and chamber pieces. A prominent leftist and social maverick, Blitzstein constantly pushed the boundaries of convention in mid-century America in both his work and his life. Award-winning music historian Howard Pollack's new biography covers Blitzstein's life in full, from his childhood in Philadelphia to his violent death in Martinique at age 58. The author describes how this student of contemporary luminaries Nadia Boulanger and Arnold Schoenberg became swept up in the stormy political atmosphere of the 1920s and 1930s and throughout his career walked the fine line between his formal training and his populist principles. Indeed, Blitzstein developed a unique sound that drew on everything contemporary, from the high modernism of Stravinsky and Hindemith to jazz and Broadway show tunes. Pollack captures the astonishing breadth of Blitzstein's work-from provocative operas like The Cradle Will Rock, No for an Answer, and Regina, to the wartime Airborne Symphony composed during his years in service, to lesser known ballets, film scores, and stage works. A courageous artist, Blitzstein translated Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera during the heyday of McCarthyism and the red scare, and turned it into an off-Broadway sensation, its "Mack the Knife" becoming one of the era's biggest hits. Beautifully written, drawing on new interviews with friends and family of the composer, and making extensive use of new archival and secondary sources, Marc Blitzstein presents the most complete biography of this important American artist.

Charles Munch (Paperback): D. Kern Holoman Charles Munch (Paperback)
D. Kern Holoman
R979 Discovery Miles 9 790 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

A mesmerizing figure in concert, Charles Munch was celebrated for his electrifying public performances. He was a pioneer in many arenas of classical music-establishing Berlioz in the canon, perfecting the orchestral work of Debussy and Ravel, and leading the world to Roussel, Honegger, and Dutilleux. A pivotal figure, his accomplishments put him on a par with Arturo Toscanini and Leonard Bernstein. In Charles Munch, D. Kern Holoman provides the first full biography of this giant of twentieth-century music, tracing his dramatic survival in occupied Paris, his triumphant arrival at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his later years, when he was a leading cultural figure in the United States, a man known and admired by Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. He turned to conducting only in middle age, after two decades as a violinist and concertmaster, a background which gave him special insight into the relationship between conductor and orchestra. At the podium, his bond with his musicians unleashed something in them and in himself. "A certain magic took wing that amounts to the very essence of music in concert," the author writes, as if "public performance loosed the facets of character and artistry and poetry otherwise muffled by his timidity and simple disinclination to say much." In concert, Munch was arresting, even seductive, sweeping his baton in an enormous arch from above his head down to his knee. Yet as Holoman shows, he remained a lonely, even sad figure, a widower with no children, a man who fled admirers and avoided reporters. With groundbreaking research and sensitive, lyrical writing, Charles Munch penetrates the enigma to capture this elusive musical titan.

Henry Cowell - A Man Made of Music (Paperback): Joel Sachs Henry Cowell - A Man Made of Music (Paperback)
Joel Sachs
R1,300 Discovery Miles 13 000 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Joel Sachs offers the first complete biography of one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century American music. Henry Cowell, a major musical innovator of the first half of the century, left a rich body of compositions spanning a wide range of styles. But as Sachs shows, Cowell's legacy extends far beyond his music. He worked tirelessly to create organizations such as the highly influential New Music Quarterly, New Music Recordings, and the Pan-American Association of Composers, through which great talents like Ruth Crawford Seeger and Charles Ives first became known in the US and abroad. As one of the first Western advocates for World Music, he used lectures, articles, and recordings to bring other musical cultures to myriad listeners and students including John Cage and Lou Harrison, who attributed their life work to Cowell's influence. Finally, Sachs describes the tragedy of Cowell's life, being sentenced to fifteen years in San Quentin - of which he served four - after pleading guilty to a morals charge that even the prosecutor felt was trivial. Providing a wealth of insight into Cowell's ideas and philosophy, Joel Sachs lays out a much-needed perspective on one of the giants of twentieth-century American music.

Literary Britten - Words and Music in Benjamin Britten's Vocal Works (Hardcover): Kate Kennedy Literary Britten - Words and Music in Benjamin Britten's Vocal Works (Hardcover)
Kate Kennedy; Contributions by Adrian Poole, Brian Young, David Fuller, Hanna Rochlitz, …
R2,325 R1,398 Discovery Miles 13 980 Save R927 (40%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Britten is the most literary British composer of the twentieth century. His relationship to the many and varied texts that he set was deeply committed and sensitive. As a result, both his responses to poetry and his collaborationswith his librettists tell us a great deal about his music, and often, about the man himself. Britten is the most literary British composer of the twentieth century. His relationship to the many and varied texts that he set was deeply committed and sensitive. As a result, both his responses to poetry and his collaborationswith his librettists tell us a great deal about his music, and often, about the man himself. This book takes a unique approach to Britten, drawing together well-known Britten experts alongside English, music, modern language andhistory scholars who bring their own perspective to bear on Britten's work. Chapters examine all aspects of Britten's text setting, from his engagement with a wide variety of poetry to his relationship with his librettists. By approaching Britten's operas and songs through their literature, this book offers fresh insights into his vocal works. KATE KENNEDY is the Weinrebe Research Fellow in Life-writing at Wolfson College, Oxford, where she is an associate of both Music and English Faculties. She is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC and specialises in interdisciplinary biography and has published widely on twentieth century music and literature. Contributors:JOANNA BULLIVANT, PHILIP ROSS BULLOCK, NICHOLAS CLARK, MERVYN COOKE, DAVID FULLER, JOHN FULLER, PETER HAPPE, J. P. E. HARPER-SCOTT, JOHN HOPKINS, KATE KENNEDY, ADRIAN POOLE, HANNA ROCHLITZ, PHILIP RUPPRECHT, REBEKAH SCOTT, VICKISTROEHER, JUSTIN VICKERS, LUCY WALKER, BRIAN YOUNG

Source - Music of the Avant-garde, 1966-1973 (Paperback): Larry Austin, Douglas Kahn, Nilendra Gurusinghe Source - Music of the Avant-garde, 1966-1973 (Paperback)
Larry Austin, Douglas Kahn, Nilendra Gurusinghe
R946 R791 Discovery Miles 7 910 Save R155 (16%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This journal "Source: Music of the Avant-garde" was and remains a seminal source for materials on the heyday of experimental music and arts. Conceived in 1966 and published to 1973, it included some of the most important composers and artists of the time: John Cage, Harry Partch, David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Steve Reich, and many others. A pathbreaking publication, "Source" documented crucial changes in performance practice and live electronics, computer music, notation and event scores, theater and installations, intermedia and technology, politics and the social roles of composers and performers, and innovations in the sound of music.

Joy (English, Italian, Sheet music): Giovanni Allevi Joy (English, Italian, Sheet music)
Giovanni Allevi
R488 R444 Discovery Miles 4 440 Save R44 (9%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days
Composing for the Red Screen - Prokofiev and Soviet Film (Paperback): Kevin Bartig Composing for the Red Screen - Prokofiev and Soviet Film (Paperback)
Kevin Bartig
R1,196 Discovery Miles 11 960 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Sound film captivated Sergey Prokofiev during the final two decades of his life: he considered composing for nearly two dozen pictures, eventually undertaking eight of them, all Soviet productions. Hollywood luminaries such as Gloria Swanson tempted him with commissions, and arguably more people heard his film music than his efforts in all other genres combined. Films for which Prokofiev composed, in particular those of Sergey Eisenstein, are now classics of world cinema. Drawing on newly available sources, Composing for the Red Screen examines - for the first time - the full extent of this prodigious cinematic career. Author Kevin Bartig examines how Prokofiev's film music derived from a self-imposed challenge: to compose "serious" music for a broad audience. The picture that emerges is of a composer seeking an individual film-music voice, shunning Hollywood models and objecting to his Soviet colleagues' ideologically expedient film songs. Looking at Prokofiev's film music as a whole - with well-known blockbusters like Alexander Nevsky considered alongside more obscure or aborted projects - reveals that there were multiple solutions to the challenge, each with varying degrees of success. Prokofiev carefully balanced his own populist agenda, the perceived aesthetic demands of the films themselves, and, later on, Soviet bureaucratic demands for accessibility.

Arranging Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon (Paperback): Ryan Banagale Arranging Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon (Paperback)
Ryan Banagale
R815 Discovery Miles 8 150 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In Arranging Gershwin, author Ryan Banagale approaches George Gershwin's iconic piece Rhapsody in Blue not as a composition but as an arrangement -- a status it has in many ways held since its inception in 1924, yet one unconsidered until now. Shifting emphasis away from the notion of the Rhapsody as a static work by a single composer, Banagale posits a broad vision of the piece that acknowledges the efforts of a variety of collaborators who shaped the Rhapsody as we know it today. Arranging Gershwin sheds new light on familiar musicians such as Leonard Bernstein and Duke Ellington, introduces lesser-known figures such as Ferde Grofe and Larry Adler, and remaps the terrain of this emblematic piece of American music. At the same time, it expands on existing approaches to the study of arrangements -- an emerging and insightful realm of American music studies -- as well as challenges existing and entrenched definitions of composer and composition.
Based on a host of newly discovered manuscripts, the book significantly alters existing historical and cultural conceptions of the Rhapsody. With additional forays into visual media, including the commercial advertising of United Airlines and Woody Allen's Manhattan, it moreover exemplifies how arrangements have contributed not only to the iconicity of Gershwin and Rhapsody in Blue, but also to music-making in America -- its people, their pursuits, and their processes."

Orpheus in Manhattan - William Schuman and the Shaping of America's Musical Life (Paperback): Steve Swayne Orpheus in Manhattan - William Schuman and the Shaping of America's Musical Life (Paperback)
Steve Swayne
R955 Discovery Miles 9 550 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Winner of the ASCAP Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Musical Biography The musical landscape of New York City and the United States of America would look quite different had it not been for William Schuman. Orpheus in Manhattan, a fully objective and comprehensive biography of Schuman, portrays a man who had a profound influence upon the artistic and political institutions of his day and beyond. Steve Swayne draws heavily upon Schuman's letters, writings, and manuscripts as well as unprecedented access to archival recordings and previously unknown correspondence. The winner of the first Pulitzer Prize in Music, Schuman composed music that is rhythmically febrile, harmonically pungent, melodically long-breathed, and timbrally brilliant, and Swayne offers an astute analysis of his work, including many unpublished music scores. Swayne also describes Schuman's role as president of the Juilliard School of Music and of Lincoln Center, tracing how he both expanded the boundaries of music education and championed the performing arts. Filled with new discoveries and revisions of the received historical narrative, Orpheus in Manhattan confirms Schuman as a major figure in America's musical life.

Jean Sibelius and His World (Paperback): Daniel M. Grimley Jean Sibelius and His World (Paperback)
Daniel M. Grimley
R1,002 R846 Discovery Miles 8 460 Save R156 (16%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Perhaps no twentieth-century composer has provoked a more varied reaction among the music-loving public than Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). Originally hailed as a new Beethoven by much of the Anglo-Saxon world, he was also widely disparaged by critics more receptive to newer trends in music. At the height of his popular appeal, he was revered as the embodiment of Finnish nationalism and the apostle of a new musical naturalism. Yet he seemingly chose that moment to stop composing altogether, despite living for three more decades. Providing wide cultural contexts, contesting received ideas about modernism, and interrogating notions of landscape and nature, "Jean Sibelius and His World" sheds new light on the critical position occupied by Sibelius in the Western musical tradition.

The essays in the book explore such varied themes as the impact of Russian musical traditions on Sibelius, his compositional process, Sibelius and the theater, his understanding of music as a fluid and improvised creation, his critical reception in Great Britain and America, his "late style" in the incidental music for "The Tempest," and the parallel contemporary careers of Sibelius and Richard Strauss.

Documents include the draft of Sibelius's 1896 lecture on folk music, selections from a roman a clef about his student circle in Berlin at the turn of the century, Theodor Adorno's brief but controversial tirade against the composer, and the newspaper debates about the Sibelius monument unveiled in Helsinki a decade after the composer's death.

The contributors are Byron Adams, Leon Botstein, Philip Ross Bullock, Glenda Dawn Goss, Daniel Grimley, Jeffrey Kallberg, Tomi Makela, Sarah Menin, Max Paddison, and Timo Virtanen."

Music in Their Time: The Memoirs and Letters of Dora and Hubert Foss (Hardcover): Stephen Lloyd, Diana Sparkes, Brian Sparkes Music in Their Time: The Memoirs and Letters of Dora and Hubert Foss (Hardcover)
Stephen Lloyd, Diana Sparkes, Brian Sparkes
R1,284 Discovery Miles 12 840 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

An intimate and readable account, filled with interesting and amusing anecdotes, of a highly creative period in English musical history Hubert J. Foss (1899-1953) is best known for his work as founder and first music editor for Oxford University Press. Foss promoted composers in England between the World Wars, most notably Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, Constant Lambert, and Peter Warlock. The first part of this book is based on the memoirs of his wife Dora, who was herself a professional singer. The book - through the presentation of memoirs and letters - recreates a vivid picture of the musical world during the inter-war period when there was a renaissance of English music. Foss's work for OUP saw the music department expand from publishing a limited number of sheet music items to a comprehensive inventory of operas, orchestral compositions, chamber and vocal works, and piano pieces. Foss also greatly expanded the press's publication of books on music, music analysis, and music appreciation. Leaving OUP's music department in1941, Foss pursued a number of freelance musical occupations, serving as critic, reviewer, journalist, author and frequent broadcaster. The book includes letters sent to and received from such luminaries as Hamilton Harty,Constant Lambert, Edith Sitwell, Donald Tovey, Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, Henry J. Wood, Arthur Bliss, Benjamin Britten, Roger Quilter, Percy Scholes, Leopold Stokowski, Michael Tippett, Thomas Hardy, James Joyce andWalter de la Mare. Many of the letters presented here have never been published before. An authoritative introduction by Simon Wright (Head of Rights & Contracts, Music, OUP) provides a detailed overview of Hubert Foss and his place in music publishing. STEPHEN LLOYD is the author of William Walton: Muse of Fire and Constant Lambert: Beyond the Rio Grande (both published by Boydell). DIANA SPARKES is the daughter of Hubert and Dora Foss. BRIAN SPARKES is her husband and an Emeritus Professor of Classical Archaeology.

Rethinking Britten (Paperback): Philip Rupprecht Rethinking Britten (Paperback)
Philip Rupprecht
R1,586 Discovery Miles 15 860 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Rethinking Britten offers a fresh portrait of one of the most widely performed composers of the 20th century. In twelve essays, a diverse group of contributors--both established authorities and leading younger voices--explore a significant portion of Benjamin Britten's extensive oeuvre across a range of genres, including opera, song cycle, and concert music. Well informed by earlier writings on the composer's professional career and private life, Rethinking Britten also uncovers many fresh lines of inquiry, from the Lord Chamberlain's last-minute censorship of the Rape of Lucretia libretto to psychoanalytic understandings of Britten's staging of gender roles; from the composer's delight in schoolboy humor to his operatic revival of Purcellian dance rhythms; from his creative responses to Cold-War-era internationalism to his dealings with BBC Television. Each essay blends awareness of overarching contexts with insights into particular expressive achievements. Balancing biographical, archival, and analytic commentary with cultural and historical criticism, Rethinking Britten broadens the interpretive context surrounding all phases of Britten's career and is essential reading for scholars and fans alike.

The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture (Paperback): Tina Fruhauf The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture (Paperback)
Tina Fruhauf
R1,025 Discovery Miles 10 250 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture examines the powerful but often overlooked presence of the organ in synagogue music and the musical life of German-speaking Jewish communities. Tina Fruhauf expertly chronicles the history of the organ in Jewish culture from the earliest references in the Talmud through the 19th century, when it had established a firm and lasting presence in Jewish sacred and secular spaces in central Europe. Fruhauf demonstrates how the introduction of the organ into German synagogues was part of the significant changes which took place in Judaism after the Enlightenment, and posits the organ as a symbol of the division of the Jewish community into Orthodox and Reform congregations. Newly composed organ music for Jewish liturgy after this division became part of a cross-cultural music tradition in 19th and 20th century Germany, when a specific style of organ music developed which combined elements of Western and Jewish cultures. Concluding with a discussion of the organ in Jewish communities in Israel and the USA, the book presents in-depth case studies which illustrate how the organ has been utilized in the musical life of specific Jewish communities in the 20th century. Based on extensive research in the archives of organ builders and Jewish musicians, The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture offers comprehensive and detailed descriptions of specific organs as well as fascinating portraits of Jewish organists and composers. With an extensive companion website featuring full color illustrations and over 200 organ dispositions, this book will be eagerly read by performers, students, and scholars of the organ, as well as students and scholars in historical musicology and Jewish music.

Monarch of the Flute - The Life of Georges Barr`ere (Paperback): Nancy Toff Monarch of the Flute - The Life of Georges Barr`ere (Paperback)
Nancy Toff
R1,420 Discovery Miles 14 200 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Georges Barr`ere (1876-1944) holds a preeminent place in the history of American flute playing. Best known for two of the landmark works that were written for him-the Poem of Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Density 21.5 by Edgard Var`ese-he was the most prominent early exemplar of the Paris Conservatoire tradition in the United States and set a new standard for American woodwind performance. Barr`ere's story is a musical tale of two cities, and this book uses his life as a window onto musical life in Belle Epoque Paris and twentieth-century New York. Recurrent themes are the interactions of composers and performers; the promotion of new music; the management, personnel, and repertoire of symphony orchestras; the economic and social status of the orchestral and solo musician, including the increasing power of musicians' unions; the role of patronage, particularly women patrons; and the growth of chamber music as a professional performance medium. A student of Paul Taffanel at the Paris Conservatoire, by age eighteen Barr`ere played in the premiere of Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. He went on to become solo flutist of the Concerts Colonne and to found the Societe Moderne d'Instruments a Vent, a pioneering woodwind ensemble that premiered sixty-one works by forty composers in its first ten years. Invited by Walter Damrosch to become principal flute of the New York Symphony in 1905, he founded the woodwind department at the Institute of Musical Art (later Juilliard). His many ensembles toured the United States, building new audiences for chamber music and promoting French repertoire as well as new American music. Toff narrates Barr`ere's relationships with the finest musicians and artists of his day, among them Isadora Duncan, Yvette Guilbert, Andr'e Caplet, Paul Hindemith, Albert Roussel, Wallingford Riegger, and Henry Brant. The appendices of the book, which list Barr`ere's 170 premieres and the 50 works dedicated to him, are a resource for a new generation of performers. Based on extensive archival research and oral histories in both France and the United States, this is the first biography of Barr`ere.

The Irving Berlin Reader (Hardcover): Benjamin Sears The Irving Berlin Reader (Hardcover)
Benjamin Sears
R1,424 Discovery Miles 14 240 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Without any formal training in music composition or even the ability to notate melodies on a musical staff, Irving Berlin took a knack for music and turned it into the most successful songwriting career in American history. Berlin was the first Tin Pan Alley songwriter to go "uptown" to Broadway with a complete musical score (Watch Your Step in 1914); he is the only songwriter to build a theater exclusively for his own work (The Music Box); and his name appears above the title of his Broadway shows and Hollywood films (iIrving Berlin's Holiday Inn), still a rare honor for songwriters. Berlin is also notable due the length of his 90+ year career in American Song; he sold his first song at the age of 8 in 1896, and passed away in 1989 at the age of 101 having outlived several of his own copyrights. Throughout his career, Berlin showed that a popular song which appealed to the masses need not be of a lesser quality than songs informed by the principles of "classical" music composition. Forty years after his last published song many of his songs remain popular and several have even entered folk song status ("White Christmas," "Easter Parade," and "God Bless America"), something no other 20th-century American songwriter can claim. As one of the most seminal figures of twentieth century, both in the world of music and in American culture more generally, and as one of the rare songwriters equally successful with popular songs, Broadway shows, and Hollywood scores, Irving Berlin is the subject of an enormous corpus of writing, scattered throughout countless publications and archives. A noted performer and interpreter of Berlin's works, Benjamin Sears has unprecedented familiarity with these sources and brings together in this Reader a broad range of the most insightful primary and secondary materials. Grouped together according to the chronology of Berlin's life and work, each section and article features a critical introduction to orient the reader and contextualize the materials within the framework of American musical history. Taken as a whole, they provide a new perspective on Berlin that highlights his musical genius in the context of his artistic development through a unique mix of first-hand views of Berlin as an artist, critical assessments of his work, and more general overviews of his life and work.

Stravinsky and His World (Paperback, New): Tamara Levitz Stravinsky and His World (Paperback, New)
Tamara Levitz
R943 R844 Discovery Miles 8 440 Save R99 (10%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

"Stravinsky and His World" brings together an international roster of scholars to explore fresh perspectives on the life and music of Igor Stravinsky. Situating Stravinsky in new intellectual and musical contexts, the essays in this volume shed valuable light on one of the most important composers of the twentieth century.

Contributors examine Stravinsky's interaction with Spanish and Latin American modernism, rethink the stylistic label "neoclassicism" with a section on the ideological conflict over his lesser-known opera buffa "Mavra," and reassess his connections to his homeland, paying special attention to Stravinsky's visit to the Soviet Union in 1962. The essays also explore Stravinsky's musical and religious differences with Arthur Lourie, delve into Stravinsky's collaboration with Pyotr Suvchinsky and Roland-Manuel in the genesis of his groundbreaking "Poetics of Music," and look at how the movement within stasis evident in the scores of Stravinsky's "Orpheus" and "Oedipus Rex" reflected the composer's fierce belief in fate. Rare documents--including Spanish and Mexican interviews, Russian letters, articles by Arthur Lourie, and rarely seen French and Russian texts--supplement the volume, bringing to life Stravinsky's rich intellectual milieu and intense personal relationships.

The contributors are Tatiana Baranova, Leon Botstein, Jonathan Cross, Valerie Dufour, Gretchen Horlacher, Tamara Levitz, Klara Moricz, Leonora Saavedra, and Svetlana Savenko."

Claiming Diaspora - Music, Transnationalism, and Cultural Politics in Asian/Chinese America (Paperback): Su Zheng Claiming Diaspora - Music, Transnationalism, and Cultural Politics in Asian/Chinese America (Paperback)
Su Zheng
R1,245 Discovery Miles 12 450 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Framed by a century and a half of racialized Chinese American musical experiences, Claiming Diaspora explores the thriving contemporary musical culture of Asian/Chinese America. Ranging from traditional operas to modern instrumental music, from ethnic media networks to popular music, from Asian American jazz to the work of recent avant-garde composers, author Su Zheng reveals the rich and diverse musical activities among Chinese Americans and tells of the struggles of Chinese Americans to gain a foothold in the American cultural terrain. She not only tells their stories, but also examines the dynamics of the diasporic connections of this musical culture, revealing how Chinese American musical activities both reflect and contribute to local, national, and transnational cultural politics, and challenging us to take a fresh look at the increasingly plural and complex nature of American cultural identity.

Rubble Music - Occupying the Ruins of Postwar Berlin, 1945-1950 (Paperback): Abby Anderton Rubble Music - Occupying the Ruins of Postwar Berlin, 1945-1950 (Paperback)
Abby Anderton
R671 R597 Discovery Miles 5 970 Save R74 (11%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

As the seat of Hitler's government, Berlin was the most frequently targeted city in Germany for Allied bombing campaigns during World War II. Air raids shelled celebrated monuments, left homes uninhabitable, and reduced much of the city to nothing but rubble. After the war's end, this apocalyptic landscape captured the imagination of artists, filmmakers, and writers, who used the ruins to engage with themes of alienation, disillusionment, and moral ambiguity. In Rubble Music, Abby Anderton explores the classical music culture of postwar Berlin, analyzing archival documents, period sources, and musical scores to identify the sound of civilian suffering after urban catastrophe. Anderton reveals how rubble functioned as a literal, figurative, psychological, and sonic element by examining the resonances of trauma heard in the German musical repertoire after 1945. With detailed explorations of reconstituted orchestral ensembles, opera companies, and radio stations, as well as analyses of performances and compositions that were beyond the reach of the Allied occupiers, Anderton demonstrates how German musicians worked through, cleared away, or built over the debris and devastation of the war.

Making Music for Modern Dance - Collaboration in the Formative Years of a New American Art (Paperback, New): Katherine Teck Making Music for Modern Dance - Collaboration in the Formative Years of a New American Art (Paperback, New)
Katherine Teck
R1,481 Discovery Miles 14 810 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Making Music for Modern Dance traces the collaborative approaches, working procedures, and aesthetic views of the artists who forged a new and distinctly American art form during the first half of the 20th century. The book offers riveting first-hand accounts from innovative artists in the throes of their creative careers and provides a cross-section of the challenges faced by modern choreographers and composers in America. These articles are complemented by excerpts from astute observers of the music and dance scene as well as by retrospective evaluations of past collaborative practices.
Beginning with the careers of pioneers Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn, and continuing through the avant-garde work of John Cage for Merce Cunningham, the book offers insights into the development of modern dance in relation to its music. Editor Katherine Teck's introductions and afterword offer historical context and tie the artists' essays in with collaborative practices in our own time. The substantive notes suggest further materials of interest to students, practicing dance artists and musicians, dance and music history scholars, and to all who appreciate dance.

Enrique Granados - Poet of the Piano (Paperback): Walter Aaron Clark Enrique Granados - Poet of the Piano (Paperback)
Walter Aaron Clark
R1,246 Discovery Miles 12 460 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Enrique Granados (1867-1916) is one of the most compelling figures of the late-Romantic period in music. During his return voyage to Spain after the premiere of his opera Goyescas in New York, a German submarine torpedoed the ship on which he and his wife were sailing and they perished in the waters of the English Channel. His death was mourned on both sides of the Atlantic as a stunning loss to the music world, for he had died at the pinnacle of his career and his late works held the promise of greater things to come. While Granados's tragic demise casts a pall over his life story, author Walter Clark reveals an artist of remarkable versatility and individuality and sheds new light on his enduring significance.

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