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

Music and War in the United States (Paperback): Sarah Kraaz Music and War in the United States (Paperback)
Sarah Kraaz
R1,246 Discovery Miles 12 460 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Music and War in the United States introduces students to the long and varied history of music's role in war. Spanning the history of wars involving the United States from the American Revolution to the Iraq war, with contributions from both senior and emerging scholars, this edited volume brings together key themes in this vital area of study. The intersection of music and war has been of growing interest to scholars in recent decades, but to date, no book has brought together this scholarship in a way that is accessible to students. Filling this gap, the chapters here address topics such as military music, commemoration, music as propaganda and protest, and the role of music in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), enabling readers to come to grips with the rich and complex relationship between one of the most essential arts and the conflicts that have shaped American society.

Music's Immanent Future - The Deleuzian Turn in Music Studies (Paperback): Sally Macarthur, Judy Lochhead, Jennifer Shaw Music's Immanent Future - The Deleuzian Turn in Music Studies (Paperback)
Sally Macarthur, Judy Lochhead, Jennifer Shaw
R1,329 Discovery Miles 13 290 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The conversations generated by the chapters in Music's Immanent Future grapple with some of music's paradoxes: that music of the Western art canon is viewed as timeless and universal while other kinds of music are seen as transitory and ephemeral; that in order to make sense of music we need descriptive language; that to open up the new in music we need to revisit the old; that to arrive at a figuration of music itself we need to posit its starting point in noise; that in order to justify our creative compositional works as research, we need to find critical languages and theoretical frameworks with which to discuss them; or that despite being an auditory system, we are compelled to resort to the visual metaphor as a way of thinking about musical sounds. Drawn to musical sound as a powerful form of non-verbal communication, the authors include musicologists, philosophers, music theorists, ethnomusicologists and composers. The chapters in this volume investigate and ask fundamental questions about how we think, converse, write about, compose, listen to and analyse music. The work is informed by the philosophy primarily of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and secondarily of Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva and Jean-Luc Nancy. The chapters cover a wide range of topics focused on twentieth and twenty-first century musics, covering popular musics, art music, acousmatic music and electro-acoustic musics, and including music analysis, music's ontology, the noise/music dichotomy, intertextuality and music, listening, ethnography and the current state of music studies. The authors discuss their philosophical perspectives and methodologies of practice-led research, including their own creative work as a form of research. Music's Immanent Future brings together empirical, cultural, philosophical and creative approaches that will be of interest to musicologists, composers, music analysts and music philosophers.

Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! - The Enduring Phenomenon of Gilbert and Sullivan (Paperback): Ian Bradley Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! - The Enduring Phenomenon of Gilbert and Sullivan (Paperback)
Ian Bradley
R1,099 Discovery Miles 10 990 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! expert and enthusiast Ian Bradley explores the world of Gilbert and Sullivan over the last four and a half decades, looking at the way this "phenomenon" is passed from generation to generation. Taking as his starting point the expiry of copyright on the opera libretti at the end of 1961 and using fascinating hitherto unpublished archive material, Bradley reveals the extraordinary story of the last years of the old D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, the guardian of Savoy tradition for over a hundred years, and the troubled history of its successor. He explores the rich vein of parodies, spoofs, and spin-offs of the songs, as well as their influence on twentieth century lyricists and composers. He analyzes professional productions across the world, looks at the unique place of G&S in schools, colleges, and universities, and lovingly explores the culture of amateur performance. He also uncovers the largely male world of the obsessive fans, those collecting memorabilia, the myriad magazines, journals, websites, and festivals devoted to G&S, and the arcane interests of some of the faithful "inner brotherhood."

The George Gershwin Reader (Paperback): Robert Wyatt, John Andrew Johnson The George Gershwin Reader (Paperback)
Robert Wyatt, John Andrew Johnson
R1,098 Discovery Miles 10 980 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

George Gershwin is one of the giants of American music, unique in that he was both a brilliant writer of popular songs and of more serious music. Here, music lovers are treated to a spectacular celebration of this great American composer.
The Reader offers a kaleidoscopic collection of writings by Gershwin, as well as those about Gershwin, written by a who's who of famous commentators. More than eighty pieces of superb variety, color, and depth include the critical debate over Gershwin's concert pieces, especially "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris." There is a complete section devoted to the controversies over "Porgy and Bess," including correspondence between Gershwin and DuBose Hayward, the opera's librettist, plus unique interviews with the original Porgy and Bess--Todd Duncan and Anne Brown. Sprinkled throughout the book are excerpts from Gershwin's own letters, which offer unique insight into this fascinating and charming man. Along with a detailed chronology of the composer's life, the editors provide informative introductions to each entry.
Here is a book for anyone interested in American music. Scholars, performers, and Gershwin's legions of fans will find it an irresistible feast.

The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922-1936 - Shaping a Nation's Tastes (Book): Jennifer Doctor The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922-1936 - Shaping a Nation's Tastes (Book)
Jennifer Doctor
R1,330 R1,221 Discovery Miles 12 210 Save R109 (8%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book, first published in 2000, examines the BBC's campaign to raise cultural awareness of British mass audiences in the early days of radio. As a specific case, it focuses on policies and plans behind transmissions of music by composers associated with Arnold Schoenberg's circle between 1922, when the BBC was founded, and spring 1936, when Edward Clark, a former Schoenberg pupil and central figure in BBC music, resigned from the Corporation. This study traces and analyses the BBC's attempts to manipulate critical and public responses to this repertory. The book investigates three interrelated aspects of early BBC history. Policy decisions relating to contemporary music transmissions are examined to determine why precious broadcast time was devoted to this repertory. Early personnel structures are reconstructed to investigate the responsibilities, attitudes and interests of those who influenced music broadcasting. Finally, broadcasts of Second Viennese School works are examined in detail.

"Taken by the Devil" - The Censorship of Frank Wedekind and Alban Berg's Lulu (Hardcover): Margaret Notley "Taken by the Devil" - The Censorship of Frank Wedekind and Alban Berg's Lulu (Hardcover)
Margaret Notley
R1,575 Discovery Miles 15 750 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Censorship had an extraordinary impact on Alban Berg's operaLulu, composed by the Austrian during the politically tumultuous years spanning 1929 to 1935. Based on plays by Frank Wedekind that were repeatedly banned from being published and performed from1894 until the end of World War I, the libretto was in turn censored by Berg himself when he characterized it as a morality play after submitting it to authorities in Nazi Germany in 1934. After Berg died the next year, the third act was censored by his widow, Helene, and his former teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. In "Taken by the Devil", author Margaret Notley uncovers the unusual and uniquely generative role of censorship throughout the lifecycle of Berg's great opera. Placing the opera and its source material in wider cultural contexts, Notley provides close readings of the opera's libretto and score to reveal techniques employed by the composer and by Wedekind before him in negotiating censorship. She also explores ways in which Berg chose to augment discrepancies between the plays rather than flatten them as in certain performances of the plays during the 1920s, adding further dimensions of interpretation to the work. Elegantly readable,"Taken by the Devil"is one of the most meticulously researched and nuanced studies of Lulu to date, and illuminates the process of politically-driven censorship of theater, music, and the arts during the tumultuous early twentieth century.

Edward Elgar and the Nostalgic Imagination (Hardcover): Matthew Riley Edward Elgar and the Nostalgic Imagination (Hardcover)
Matthew Riley
R2,551 Discovery Miles 25 510 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

During his lifetime, and in the course of the twentieth century, Edward Elgar and his music became sites for a remarkable variety of nostalgic impulses. These are manifested in his personal life, in the content of his works, in his critical and biographical reception, and in numerous artistic ventures based on his character and music. Today Elgar enjoys renewed popularity in Britain, and nostalgia of various forms continues to shape our responses to his music. From one viewpoint, Elgarian nostalgia might be dismissed as escapist, regressive and reactionary, and the revival in Elgar's fortunes regarded as the symptom of a pernicious 'heritage industry' in post-colonial, post-industrial Britain. While there is undeniably a grain of truth to that view, Matthew Riley's careful treatment of the topic reveals a more complex picture of nostalgia, and sheds new light on Elgar and his cultural significance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Music of the Soviet Era: 1917-1991 (Paperback, 2nd edition): Levon Hakobian Music of the Soviet Era: 1917-1991 (Paperback, 2nd edition)
Levon Hakobian
R1,462 Discovery Miles 14 620 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This volume is a comprehensive and detailed survey of music and musical life of the entire Soviet era, from 1917 to 1991, which takes into account the extensive body of scholarly literature in Russian and other major European languages. In this considerably updated and revised edition of his 1998 publication, Hakobian traces the strikingly dramatic development of the music created by outstanding and less well-known, 'modernist' and 'conservative', 'nationalist' and 'cosmopolitan' composers of the Soviet era. The book's three parts explore, respectively, the musical trends of the 1920s, music and musical life under Stalin, and the so-called 'Bronze Age' of Soviet music after Stalin's death. Music of the Soviet Era: 1917-1991 considers the privileged position of music in the USSR in comparison to the written and visual arts. Through his examination of the history of the arts in the Soviet state, Hakobian's work celebrates the human spirit's wonderful capacity to derive advantage even from the most inauspicious conditions.

Shostakovich - A Life Remembered - Second Edition (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition): Elizabeth Wilson Shostakovich - A Life Remembered - Second Edition (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition)
Elizabeth Wilson
R1,240 Discovery Miles 12 400 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

"Shostakovich: A Life Remembered" is a unique study of the great composer Dmitri Shostakovich, based on reminiscences from his contemporaries. Elizabeth Wilson covers the composer's life from his early successes to his struggles under the Stalinist regime, and his international recognition as one of the leading composers of the twentieth century. She builds up a detailed picture of Shostakovich's creative processes, how he was perceived by contemporaries, and of the increased contrast between his private life and public image as his fame increased.

This new edition, produced to coincide with the centenary of Shostakovich's birth, draws on many new writings on the composer. In doing so, it provides both a more detailed and focused image of Shostakovich's life and a wider view of his cultural background. In particular, Shostakovich's sardonic and witty sense of humor reveals itself in many of his letters to close friends. Shostakovich offers fascinating insight into the complex personality and musical life of this great composer, and examines his position as one of the major figures in the cultural life of twentieth-century Russia.

A Most Ingenious Paradox - The Art of Gilbert and Sullivan (Paperback): Gayden Wren A Most Ingenious Paradox - The Art of Gilbert and Sullivan (Paperback)
Gayden Wren
R1,238 Discovery Miles 12 380 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Written more than a century ago and initially regarded even by their creators as nothing more than light entertainment, the fourteen operas of Gilbert & Sullivan emerged over the course of the twentieth century as the world's most popular body of musical-theater works, ranking second only to Shakespeare in the history of English-language theater.
Despite this resounding popularity and proven longevity, most books written about the duo have focused on the authors rather than the works. With this detailed examination of all fourteen operas, Gayden Wren fills the void. His bold thesis finds the key to the operas' longevity, not in the clever lyrics, witty dialogue, or catchy music, but in the central themes underlying the characters and stories themselves. Like Shakespeare's comedies, Wren shows, the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan endure because of their timeless themes, which speak to audiences as powerfully now as they did the first time they were performed.
Written out of an abiding love for the Savoy operas, this volume is essential reading for any devotee of these enchanting works, or indeed for anyone who loves musical theater.

The Mahler Family Letters (Hardcover, New): Stephen McClatchie The Mahler Family Letters (Hardcover, New)
Stephen McClatchie
R1,911 Discovery Miles 19 110 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Hundreds of the letters that Gustav Mahler addressed to his parents and siblings survive, yet they have remained virtually unknown. Now, for the first time Mahler scholar Stephen McClatchie presents over 500 of these letters in a clear, lively translation in The Mahler Family Letters. Drawn primarily from the Mahler-Rose Collection at the University of Western Ontario, the volume presents a complete, well-rounded view of the family's correspondence.
Spanning the mid 1880s through 1910, the letters record the excitement of a young man with a bourgeoning career as a conductor and provide a glimpse into his day-to-day activities rehearsing and conducting operas and concerts in Budapeast and Hamburg, and composing his first symphonies and songs. On the private side, they document his parents' illnesses and deaths and the struggles of his siblings Alois, Justine, Otto, and Emma. The letters also give Mahler's insightful impressions of contemporaries such as Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, and Hans von Bulow, as well as his personal feelings about significant events, such as his first big success--the completion of Carl Maria von Weber's Die drei Pintos in 1889. In the fall of 1894, the character of the letters changes when Justine and Emma come to live with Mahler in Hamburg and then Vienna, removing the need to communicate by letter about quotidian matters. At this point, the letters relay noteworthy events such as Mahler's campaign to be named Director of the Vienna Court Opera, his conducting tours throughout Europe, and his courtship of Alma Schindler.
The Mahler Family Letters provides a vital, nuanced source of information about Mahler's life, his personality, and hisrelationships. McClatchie has generously annotated each letter, contextualizing and clarifying contemporary historical references and Mahler family acquaintances, and created an indispensable resource for all Mahlerists, 19th-century musicologists, and historians of 19th-century Germany and Austria.

Brothers, Sing On! - My Half-Century Around the World with the Penn Glee Club (Hardcover, New): Bruce Montgomery Brothers, Sing On! - My Half-Century Around the World with the Penn Glee Club (Hardcover, New)
Bruce Montgomery
R1,255 Discovery Miles 12 550 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Brothers, Sing On My Half-Century Around the World with the Penn Glee Club Bruce Montgomery "While you're reading this book, you will find yourself enjoying a wonderful man."--Bill Cosby "As a Penn alum (class of '48), and someone who has known Bruce Montgomery for many years, I was happy to read of his adventures, training and shepherding the Penn Glee Club. It is often funny, earnest, and always interesting."--Hal Prince "Monty is a treasure--and so is his book."--Marciarose Shestack In 1862, a group of undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania put the University's colors of red and blue in their buttonholes and gave the first performance of the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club. Ninety-four years later, in 1956, Bruce Montgomery became the Glee Club's director and brought the Club to new heights of musicianship and international acclaim. In his forty-four-year tenure, "Monty" made the Glee Club the premier musical voice of the University and brought Penn and the spirit of Philadelphia to audiences around the world. The Glee Club has performed on five continents in thirty countries and countless times in Philadelphia. In "Brothers, Sing On " Monty shares his stories and experiences. From an impromptu photo op on a Wisconsin highway during a blizzard in 1977 to singing for U.S. presidents, this exhilarating memoir is filled with the Glee Club's farflung adventures. Backstage anecdotes let the reader step behind the scenes of such performances at home, abroad, and on worldwide television. A reflection of Monty's boundless energy and flair for showmanship, this volume also includes stories of the students with whom the Glee Club director worked in other clubs--the Penn Singers, the Marching Band, the Penn Players, and the Mask & Wig Club, to name a few. Throughout his memoir, Montgomery reflects fondly on the development of the Glee Club. It is a testament to his immeasurable contribution to its success and renown. Bruce Montgomery is former director of musical activities at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as former director of the Penn Glee Club and the University Band. He is recognized internationally as one of America's foremost authorities on the works of Gilbert & Sullivan and, indeed, has directed and performed all fourteen of the operas both in the U.S. and abroad. His compositions have been performed by such notable ensembles as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. His 1964 Off-Broadway hit, "The Amorous Flea," is still performed throughout the world and his paintings and sculptures adorn private collections and galleries across the land. He is both former director and musical director of the Mask & Wig Club and the Penn Players. Currently he is acting director of the Penn Singers. 2005 296 pages 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 75 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-3856-3 Cloth $45.00s 29.50 World Rights Biography, Music Short copy: A memoir from the former longtime director of the University of Pennsylvania's Glee Club.

Growing Up with Jazz - Twenty-Four Musicians Talk about Their Lives and Careers (Hardcover, New): W.Royal Stokes Growing Up with Jazz - Twenty-Four Musicians Talk about Their Lives and Careers (Hardcover, New)
W.Royal Stokes
R1,177 Discovery Miles 11 770 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

A jazz writer for three decades, W. Royal Stokes has a special talent for capturing the initial spark that launches a musician's career. In Growing Up With Jazz, he has interviewed twenty-four instrumentalists and singers who talk candidly about the early influences that started them on the road to jazz and where that road has taken them.
Stokes offers a kaleidoscopic look at the jazz scene, featuring musicians from a dazzling array of backgrounds. Ray Gelato recalls the life of a working class youth in London, Patrizia Scascitelli recounts being a child prodigy in Rome who became the first woman of Italian jazz, and Billy Taylor tells about his childhood in Washington, DC, where his grandfather was a Baptist minister and his father a dentist--and everyone in the family seemed well trained in music. Perhaps most exotic is Luluk Purwanto, an Indonesian violinist who as a child listened to gamelan music in the morning and took violin lessons in the afternoon (on an instrument so expensive she didn't dare quit). For some, the flame burned bright at an early age. Jane Monheit sang before she could speak and was set on a musical career by age eight. Lisa Sokolov played classical piano, sang opera and choral music, and was in a jazz band--all by high school. But Carol Sudhalter, though born into a very musical family ("a Bix Beiderbecke family"), was a botany major at Smith, and only became a serious musician after college, quitting a government job to study the flute and saxophone in Italy.
From Art Blakey to Claire Daly to Don Byron, here are the compelling stories of two dozen top musicians finding their way in the world of jazz.

The Cambridge Companion to Music and Romanticism (Paperback): Benedict Taylor The Cambridge Companion to Music and Romanticism (Paperback)
Benedict Taylor
R844 Discovery Miles 8 440 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This Companion presents a new understanding of the relationship between music and culture in and around the nineteenth century, and encourages readers to explore what Romanticism in music might mean today. Challenging the view that musical 'romanticism' is confined to a particular style or period, it reveals instead the multiple intersections between the phenomenon of Romanticism and music. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary approaches, and reflecting current scholarly debates across the humanities, it places music at the heart of a nexus of Romantic themes and concerns. Written by a dynamic team of leading younger scholars and established authorities, it gives a state-of-the-art yet accessible overview of current thinking on this popular topic.

The Composer As Intellectual - Music and Ideology in France, 1914-1940 (Hardcover, New): Jane Fulcher The Composer As Intellectual - Music and Ideology in France, 1914-1940 (Hardcover, New)
Jane Fulcher
R2,076 Discovery Miles 20 760 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In The Composer as Intellectual, musicologist Jane Fulcher reveals the extent to which leading French composers between the World Wars were not only aware of but also engaged intellectually and creatively with the central political and ideological issues of the period. Employing recent sociological and historical insights, she demonstrates the extent to which composers, particularly those in Paris since the Dreyfus Affair, considered themselves and were considered to be intellectuals, and interacted closely with intellectuals in other fields. Their consciousness raised by the First World War and the xenophobic nationalism of official culture, some joined parties or movements, allying themselves with and propagating different sets of cultural and political-social goals.
Fulcher shows how these composers furthered their ideals through the specific language and means of their art, rejecting the dominant cultural exclusions or constraints of conservative postwar institutions and creatively translating their cultural values into terms of form and style. This was not only the case with Debussy in wartime, but with Ravel in the twenties, when he became a socialist and unequivocally refused to espouse a narrow, exclusionary nationalism. It was also the case with the group called "Les Six," who responded culturally in the twenties and then politically in the thirties, when most of them supported the programs of the Popular Front. Others could not be enthusiastic about the latter and, largely excluded from official culture, sought out more compatible movements or returned to the Catholic Church. Like many French Catholics, they faced the crisis of Catholicism in the thirties when the churchnot only supported Franco, but Mussolini's imperialistic aggression in Ethiopia. While Poulenc embraced traditional Catholicism, Messiaen turned to more progressive Catholic movements that embraced modern art and insisted that religion must cross national and racial boundaries.
Fulcher demonstrates how closely music had become a field of clashing ideologies in this period. She shows also how certain French composers responded, and how their responses influenced specific aspects of their professional and stylistic development. She thus argues that, from this perspective, we can not only better understand specific aspects of the stylistic evolution of these composers, but also perceive the role that their art played in the ideological battles and in heightening cultural-political awareness of their time.

Inside Bluebeard's Castle - Music and Drama in Bela Bartok's Opera (Paperback, Revised): Carl S. Leafstedt Inside Bluebeard's Castle - Music and Drama in Bela Bartok's Opera (Paperback, Revised)
Carl S. Leafstedt
R2,070 Discovery Miles 20 700 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This is the first book-length examination of Bartok's 1911 opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, one of the twentieth century's enduring operatic works. Writing in an engaging style, Leafstedt adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the opera by introducing, in addition to music-dramatic analysis, a number of topics that are new to the field of Bartok studies. These new areas of critical and scholarly terrain include a detailed literary study of the libretto and a gender-focused analysis of the opera's female character, Judith. Leafstedt begins with a short introductory chapter that places Duke Bluebeard's Castle within the context of Bartok's early composing career, his discovery of folk music, and its impact on his later work. The book goes on to explore the composition's troubled history, its failure to win two early Hungarian opera competitions, and the three versions of the ending that resulted, discussed here in depth for the first time. The core of the book is devoted to the musical and dramatic organization of the opera and offers an analysis of the seven individual door scenes, including a detailed analysis of scene six, the "lake of tears" scene, illustrating the work's complex tonal organization and dramatic structure. A separate chapter places this darkly psychological version of the Bluebeard story within the broader context of European history and literature. Throughout the book, Leafstedt draws on original Hungarian source material, much of it newly translated by the author and available here for the first time in English, and he includes a generous selection of musical examples. Inside Bluebeard's Castle is an ideal starting point for research in twentieth-century music, Hungarian cultural history, and opera studies, as well as an invaluable guide for anyone interested in Bartok's only opera.

The Cambridge Companion to Women in Music since 1900 (Paperback): Laura Hamer The Cambridge Companion to Women in Music since 1900 (Paperback)
Laura Hamer
R839 Discovery Miles 8 390 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This Companion explores women's work in music since 1900 across a broad range of musical genres and professions, including the classical tradition, popular music, and music technology. The crucial contribution of women to music education and the music industries features alongside their activity as composers and performers. The book considers the gendered nature of the musical profession, in areas including access to training, gendered criticism, sexualization, and notions of 'gender appropriate' roles or instruments. It covers a wide range of women musicians, such as Marin Alsop, Grace Williams, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell and Adele. Each thematic section concludes with a contribution from a practitioner in her own words, reflecting upon the impact of gender on her own career. Chapters include suggestions for further reading on each of the topics covered, providing an invaluable resource for students of Feminist Musicology, Women in Music, and Music and Gender.

Music's Modern Muse - A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac (Paperback): Sylvia Kahan Music's Modern Muse - A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac (Paperback)
Sylvia Kahan
R817 R770 Discovery Miles 7 700 Save R47 (6%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

A biography of Winnaretta Singer-Polignac, heiress to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, who befriended and subsidized some of the most important musical and literary artists of the 20th Century, including Stravinsky, Proust, Ravel, Cocteau, and Colette. The American-born Winnaretta Singer (1865-1943) was a millionaire at the age of eighteen, due to her inheriting a substantial part of the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Her 1893 marriage to Prince Edmond de Polignac, an amateur composer, brought her into contact with the most elite strata of French society. After Edmond's death in 1901, she used her fortune to benefit the arts, science, and letters. Her most significant contribution was in the musical domain: in addition to subsidizing individual artists (Boulanger, Haskil, Rubinstein, Horowitz) and organizations (the Ballets Russes, l'Opera de Paris, l'Orchestre Symphonique de Paris), she made a lifelong project of commissioning new musical works from composers, many of them unknown and struggling, to be performed in her Paris salon. The list of works created as a result is long and extraordinary: Stravinsky's Renard, Satie's Socrate, Falla'sEl Retablo de Maese Pedro, and Poulenc's Two-Piano and Organ Concertos are among the best-known titles. In addition, her salon was a gathering place for luminaries of French culture such as Proust, Cocteau, Monet, Diaghilev, and Colette. Many of Proust's memorable evocations of salon culture were born during his attendance at concerts in the Polignac music room. Sylvia Kahan brings to life this eccentic and extravagant lover of the arts, whose influence on the 20th Century world of music and literature remains incalculable.

Othmar Schoeck - Life and Works (Hardcover): Chris Walton Othmar Schoeck - Life and Works (Hardcover)
Chris Walton
R3,551 Discovery Miles 35 510 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Places the Swiss composer Schoeck, master of a late-Romantic style both sensuous and stringent, in context and gives insight into his increasingly popular musical works. The work of the late-Romantic Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957) has in recent years enjoyed a surge of interest. His 300 songs with piano accompaniment are now all on CD, as are his orchestral song cycles and five of his eight stage works. Yet despite an impressive discography featuring names such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Lucia Popp and Ian Bostridge, no biographical study of Schoeck has ever been available in English. Chris Walton, authorof Richard Wagner in Zurich: The Muse of Place, charts the turbulent course of Schoeck's life and career with care and candor, from a rampant youth to midlife monogamy and an old age ravaged by fears of neglect. He tracesSchoeck's relationships to musicians such as Max Reger, Ferruccio Busoni, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Paul Hindemith, and Igor Stravinsky, and to writers Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, and James Joyce. New light is also shed on Schoeck's uneasy relationship with Nazi Germany and its culmination, for him, in public humiliation and private catastrophe. As an accompanist, Schoeck was an arch-Romantic master of rubato; as a conductor, he was a fervent champion of the new; and in his compositions, he moved from late-Romanticism through a modernist vortex to emerge in full mastery of an individual musical language both sensuous and stringent. In this thorough new biography, Waltonplaces Schoeck the man and the artist squarely in the context of his time. Chris Walton is Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and Managing Director of the Orchestre Symphonique Bienne in Switzerland. He is the recipient of the 2010 Max Geilinger Prize honoring exemplary contributions to the literary and cultural relationship between Switzerland and the English-speaking world.

Making Music Modern - New York in the 1920s (Paperback): Carol J Oja Making Music Modern - New York in the 1920s (Paperback)
Carol J Oja
R1,107 Discovery Miles 11 070 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book recreates an exciting and productive period in which creative artists felt they were witnessing the birth of a new age. Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, George Gershwin, Roy Harris, and Virgil Thomson all began their careers then, as did many of their less widely recognized compatriots. While the literature and painting of the 1920's have been amply chronicled, music has not received such treatment. Carol Oja's book sets the growth of American musical composition against parallel developments in American culture, provides a guide for the understanding of the music, and explores how the notion of the concert tradition, as inherited from Western Europe, was challenged and revitalized through contact with American popular song, jazz, and non-Western musics.

Roger Sessions - How a "Difficult" Composer Got That Way (Hardcover): Frederik Prausnitz Roger Sessions - How a "Difficult" Composer Got That Way (Hardcover)
Frederik Prausnitz
R1,653 Discovery Miles 16 530 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

For more than half of his long life, composer Roger Sessions was a commanding figure on the American musical scene. He enjoyed the solid respect of his peers, and as a teacher of a generation of composers and author of compelling writings on his craft, his influence on musical thought remains profound. Yet, even in his lifetime, his music endured vastly disrespectful neglect. He was a "difficult" composer. As the story is told, often in the composer's own words, the complex picture emerges of a remarkable man who, gradually learned, not very, willingly, to accept his unexpected lot.

Introduction to a Philosophy of Music (Paperback): Peter Kivy Introduction to a Philosophy of Music (Paperback)
Peter Kivy
R1,206 Discovery Miles 12 060 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Philosophy of music has flourished in the last thirty years, with great advances made in the understanding of the nature of music and its aesthetics. Peter Kivy has been at the centre of this flourishing, and now offers his personal introduction to philosophy of music, a clear and lively explanation of how he sees the most important and interesting philosophical issues relating to music. Anyone interested in music will find this a stimulating introduction to some fascinating questions and ideas.

Hanns Eisler: A Rebel in Music - Selected Writings (Paperback, New edition): Hanns Eisler Hanns Eisler: A Rebel in Music - Selected Writings (Paperback, New edition)
Hanns Eisler; Volume editing by M. Grabs; Translated by Marjorie Meyer; Introduction by Manfred Grabs; Notes by Manfred Grabs; Preface by …
R545 Discovery Miles 5 450 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This is a reprint of the collection of Eisler's writings in English, first published in 1978. For Eisler the written word was very important and people paid tribute to his mind, quickness of thought, wit and breadth of cultural knowledge.

New Essays on Musical Understanding (Paperback, New): Peter Kivy New Essays on Musical Understanding (Paperback, New)
Peter Kivy
R1,400 Discovery Miles 14 000 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Peter Kivy presents a selection of his new and recent writings on the philosophy of music, a subject to which he has for many years been one of the most eminent contributors. In his distinctively elegant and informal style, Kivy explores such topics as musicology and its history, the nature of musical works, and the role of emotion in music, in a way that will attract the interest of philosophical and musical readers alike.

Symphony No. 8 (Book, Study score): Ralph Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 8 (Book, Study score)
Ralph Vaughan Williams; Edited by David Lloyd Jones
R883 Discovery Miles 8 830 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Vaughan Williams wrote his Symphony No. 8 between 1953 and 1955, when he was in his eighties. It is his shortest symphony, and is considered by many to be his least serious. Aside from a few sombre moments, the symphony is optimistic in mood and displays Vaughan Williams's love for exotic and colourful combinations of instruments, with a percussion sections that, he said, employs 'all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer'. For this newly engraved edition, editor David Lloyd-Jones has consulted all extant sources and materials to create a score matching the composer's intentions. The full score is completed with Textual Notes and Preface, and accompanying orchestral parts are available on hire.

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