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Books > Music > Western music, periods & styles > 20th century music
Symphony No. 9 in E minor was the last symphony written by Ralph Vaughan Williams and was premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent on 2nd April 1958. It is described in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as 'the most impressive achievement' of the composer's final decade. This scholarly edition replaces the original 1958 edition, and includes detailed preliminary matter comprising a preface, sources and editorial method, and detailed textual notes. Orchestral material is available on hire/rental.
This hauntingly beautiful piece is extracted from Rutter's large-scale work Visions. The expressive solo line features long phrases, double stopping in thirds and sixths, and a quasi-improvised section, making it an ideal concert work for advanced violinists.
First Published in 1998. This book serves as the key to study of Kodaly for an English-speaking audience. The volume presents a biographical outline, a catalog of his compositions according to genre, and over 1,400 annotated primary and secondary sources. Three indexes cover listings by author and title, Kodaly's compositions, and proper names. Primary sources include Kodaly's own essays, articles, lectures on folk music and art music, letters and other documents, and his folk music collections and facsimiles. Secondary sources include: biographical and historical studies; theoretic, analytic, stylistic, and aesthetic studies of his music; discussions of folk music influences and art music influences; studies of his compositional process; and discussions of the Kodaly concept. Doctoral dissertations and Masters theses pertaining to Kodaly are included in this guide. This annotated, topically organized book is the first to draw together the most important primary and secondary bibliographic sources that cover his varied activities as composer, ethnomusicologist, linguist, and educator.
One of today's most widely acclaimed composers, Arvo Part broke into the soundscape of the Cold War West with Tabula Rasa in 1977, a work that introduced his signature tintinnabuli style to listeners throughout the world. In the first book dedicated to this pathbreaking composition, author Kevin C. Karnes tells the story of Tabula Rasa as one of Part and of Europe itself, traced over the course of a quarter-century that saw momentous transitions in European culture and politics, history and memory. Beginning at the site of the work's creation in the Estonian SSR, and drawing extensively upon a range of previously unexamined archival materials, Karnes recounts Part's discovery of tintinnabuli amidst his experiments with the music of the Western and Soviet avant-gardes. He examines Tabula Rasa in relation to modernist conceptions of musical structure, the ascetic practice of Orthodox Christianity, postwar experiences of electronic music, and the polystylistic approaches to composition that have become emblematic of the Soviet 1970s. Tracing the export of Tabula Rasa to the West and Part's emigration in 1980, the book reveals intersections of critical commentary with visions of the "end of history" that attended the collapse of European communism to suggest that it was in this confluence of listening, discovery, and geopolitical reordering that enduring lines of conversation about Part and his music took shape.
Musicians are always quick to adopt and explore new technologies. The fast-paced changes wrought by electrification, from the microphone via the analogue synthesiser to the laptop computer, have led to a wide range of new musical styles and techniques. Electronic music has grown to a broad field of investigation, taking in historical movements such as musique concrete and elektronische Musik, and contemporary trends such as electronic dance music and electronica. The first edition of this book won the 2009 Nicolas Bessaraboff Prize as it brought together researchers at the forefront of the sonic explorations empowered by electronic technology to provide accessible and insightful overviews of core topics and uncover some hitherto less publicised corners of worldwide movements. This updated and expanded second edition includes four entirely new chapters, as well as new original statements from globally renowned artists of the electronic music scene, and celebrates a diverse array of technologies, practices and music.
This paperback edition is updated to include new insights into Holst's life and work resulting from the discovery of important unseen archival materials. Imogen Holst was one of the most wide-ranging and highly regarded of musicians. Popular with all who knew her, she was intensively protective of her inner life, reminding one friend of a 'locked door of which she had thrown away the key'. Imogen Holst: A Life in Music uses a wealth of newly discovered material to explore the complexities and contradictions of her life and career, drawing on her own writings - ranging from heartfelt early poetry, through correspondence, to a series of journals that maintain a colourful record of her travels and achievements. Most revealing of these is the daily journal that she kept at the start of her working association with Britten, adocument that provides a unique insight both into her own thoughts, and into the professional and domestic life of a major composer. Extensively revised with new material, the book also includes a study of Imogen Holst's music and a chronological list of her works, revealing her as a composer of tremendous talent, whose music deserves to be much more familiar. CHRISTOPHER GROGAN is Director of Collections and Heritage at the Britten-Pears Foundation.
Witold Lutoslawski was one of the most important composers of the twentieth century, whose significance extends far beyond his native Poland. His vita is just as captivating as his compositionally path-breaking music. Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) was one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. His significance extends far beyond his native Poland: his classical music was premiered by internationally renowned performers likethe LaSalle Quartet and Krystian Zimerman, and his symphonies, concertante, chamber, instrumental and vocal music are produced by the leading labels of the recording industry. Lutoslawski's vita is just as captivating as his compositionally path-breaking music. He lived through the Second World War and brutal German oppression of Poland, negotiated the challenges of Soviet influence and fluctuating local politics during Poland's post-war transition to communism, and finally strove for a new voice in the post-Stalin Thaw of the mid-1950s. Lutoslawski's Worlds is a landmark volume which looks at the multi-faceted spheres that informed the composer's life and works andrepresents a new departure in the study of his music. Throughout his life, he steered musicologists away from the connections between his extraordinary biography and concert music. He also sought to minimize scholarly attention to the many other spheres of creative activity - popular music, theatre music, film scoring, propaganda music, and educational music - that occupied him. In this volume, for the first time, the world's leading Lutoslawski scholars consider the full range of his musical output and the biographical, cultural and historical contexts in which those musics were created. It contends that all of Lutoslawski's worlds are equally worthy of study, because each represents an opportunity better to understand the life and music of a figure of paramount importance to the critical and cultural history of twentieth-century music.
Elliott Carter (b.1908) is now generally acknowledged as America's most eminent living composer. This definitive volume of his essays and lectures -- many previously unpublished or uncollected -- shows his thinking and writing on music and associated issues developing in parallel with his career as a composer; his reputation became established in the 1950s, and the material in this book offers an important and knowledgeable commentary on the course of American and European music in the succeeding decades. Carter's articles on his own music have become classic texts for students of his oeuvre; he also writes on the state of new music in Europe and the United States and the relations between music and the other arts. Other pieces range from a consideration of aspects of music to the work of individual composers. As a whole, the collection is the expression of Carter's musical philosophy, and a valuable record for historians of modern music.
The first full-length study dedicated to Schoenberg's life and music in the United States, Schoenberg's New World dispels many myths and fills significant gaps in the existing literature on Schoenberg. Drawing on much new information, the book traces early Schoenberg pioneers in America, who set the stage for Schoenberg's arrival in 1933. The volume addresses in detail how Schoenberg while coming to terms with his German and Jewish identities, thoroughly adapted to American society both privately and professionally. New light is cast on Schoenberg's relations with Americans, his interest in American culture, and changes in his religious and political thinking and lifestyle. As Schoenberg was committed to the advancement of American music and composed music inspired by and composed for American musicians, his American works are examined anew with regard to their contexts and the history of their performance and publication. Schoenberg's many interactions with performers and publishers in the United States are explored as well. Illustrating how Schoenberg adjusted to the American educational system, the book delves into Schoenberg's American teaching career, teaching methods and materials and features some of the many remarkable students he taught in Boston and Los Angeles. Finally the impact of Schoenberg's music and ideas on American performers, composers and scholars after World War II is gauged in the light of major political and cultural changes during the Cold War era. Schoenberg's New World contributes to a new understanding of one of the most important pioneers of musical modernism and most polarizing figures in twentieth-century music.
Thomas Ades (b. 1971) is an established international figure, both as composer and performer, with popular and critical acclaim and admiration from around the world. Edward Venn examines in depth one of Ades's most significant works so far, his orchestral Asyla (1997). Its blend of virtuosic orchestral writing, allusions to various idioms, including rave music, and a musical rhetoric encompassing both high modernism and lush romanticism is always compelling and utterly representative of Ades's distinctive compositional voice. The reception of Asyla since its premiere in 1997 by Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) has been staggering. Instantly hailed as a classic, Asyla won the 1997 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Large-Scale Composition. An internationally acclaimed recording made of the work was nominated for the 1999 Mercury Music Prize, and in 2000, Ades became the youngest composer (and only the third British composer) to win the Grawemeyer prize, for Asyla. Asyla is fast becoming a repertory item, rapidly gaining over one hundred performances: a rare distinction for a contemporary work.
The first comprehensive study of the music of Frederick Delius (1862-1934), from his earliest pieces up to his final compositions, with background information and a complete list of works. There are many biographies and articles about Frederick Delius's life (1862-1934), but there has never been a comprehensive book about his music until now. Everything he wrote, from his earliest compositions right up to his finalworks, is analysed here; the history and background of each work and its critical reception are all examined, set against events in Delius's life and the wider musical world. The book contains numerous music examples and quotations from many contemporary newspapers and journals. A complete list of all of Delius's works, with catalogue numbers, and a select bibliography are also provided. MARTIN LEE-BROWNE is the Chairman of The Delius Society, a former Chairman of the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival, and author of The Life & Times of Frederic Austin (1996). PAUL GUINERY is a pianist and associate of the Royal College of Music, as well as a former broadcaster for BBC Radio 3 and co-author (with Lyndon Jenkins) of Delius and Fenby, A Photographic Journey (The Delius Society, 2004).
Dmitry Shostakovich was one of the most successful composers of the twentieth century - a musician who adapted as no other to the unique pressures of his age. By turns vilified and feted by Stalin during the Great Purge, Shostakovich twice came close to the whirlwind of political repression and he remained under political surveillance all his life, despite the many privileges and awards heaped upon him in old age. Yet Shostakovich had a remarkable ability to work with, rather than against, prevailing ideological demands, and it was this quality that ensured both his survival and his posterity. Pauline Fairclough's absorbing new biography offers a vivid portrait that goes well beyond the habitual cliches of repression and suffering. Featuring quotations from previously unpublished letters as well as rarely-seen photographs, Fairclough provides a fresh insight into the music and life of a composer whose legacy, above all, was to have written some of the greatest and most cherished music of the last century.
Environmental Sound Artists: In Their Own Words is an incisive and imaginative look at the international environmental sound art movement, which emerged in the late 1960s. The term environmental sound art is generally applied to the work of sound artists who incorporate processes in which the artist actively engages with the environment. While the field of environmental sound art is diverse and includes a variety of approaches, the art form diverges from traditional contemporary music by the conscious and strategic integration of environmental impulses and natural processes. This book presents a current perspective on the environmental sound art movement through a collection of personal writings by important environmental sound artists. Dismayed by the limitations and gradual breakdown of contemporary compositional strategies, environmental sound artists have sought alternate venues, genres, technologies, and delivery methods for their creative expression. Environmental sound art is especially relevant because it addresses political, social, economic, scientific, and aesthetic issues. As a result, it has attracted the participation of artists internationally. Awareness and concern for the environment has connected and unified artists across the globe and has achieved a solidarity and clarity of purpose that is singularly unique and optimistic. The environmental sound art movement is borderless and thriving.
Mahler in Context explores the institutions, artists, thinkers, cultural movements, socio-political conditions, and personal relationships that shaped Mahler's creative output. Focusing on the contexts surrounding the artist, the collection provides a sense of the complex crosscurrents against which Mahler was reacting as conductor, composer, and human being. Topics explored include his youth and training, performing career, creative activity, spiritual and philosophical influences, and his reception after his death. Together, this collection of specially commissioned essays offers a wide-ranging investigation of the ecology surrounding Mahler as a composer and a fuller appreciation of the topics that occupied his mind as he conceived his works. Readers will benefit from engagement with lesser known dimensions of Mahler's life. Through this broader contextual approach, this book will serve as a valuable and unique resource for students, scholars, and a general readership.
(Piano Solo Personality). 18 Fab Four favorites masterfully arranged for solo piano by Phillip Keveren: All You Need Is Love * And I Love Her * A Day in the Life * The Fool on the Hill * Here Comes the Sun * Here, There and Everywhere * Hey Jude * I Will * In My Life * Julia * Let It Be * Michelle * Norwegian Wood * Penny Lane * She's Leaving Home * Something * With a Little Help from My Friends * Yesterday.
Digital technology has changed the ways in which music is perceived, stored, distributed, mediated and created. The world of music is now a vast and complex jungle, teeming with CDs, MP3s, concerts, clubs, festivals, conferences, exhibitions, installations, websites, software programmes, scenes, Ideas and competing theories. In the eye of the storm stands David Toop, shedding light on the most interesting music now being made - on laptops, In downtown bars in Tokyo, wherever he finds it. Haunted Weather is part personal memoir and part travel journal, as well as an intensive survey of recent developments in digital technology, sonic theory and musical practice. Along the way Toop probes into the meaning of sound (and silence), offering fascinating insights into how computers can be used for improvisation. His wealth of musical knowledge provides inspiration for anyone interested in music.
An exploration of avant-garde music and operatic form in Weimar Germany Weimar Germany -- the age of Bauhaus and Brecht -- was a time of significant activity in all areas of the artistic avant-garde. Musicologist Susan Cook explores this intriguing period in a look at Zeitoper (topical opera)and its primary exponents, Ernst Krenek, Kurt Weill and Paul Hindemith. Zeitoper has proved to be of importance as an experimental form that broadened the definition of modern opera and musical theatre, incorporating elements previously thought unsuitable. Celebrating modern life in its libretti, its scores borrowed heavily from American dance music and jazz. Opera for a New Republic is the first book to provide a broad historical,cultural and artistic context for the development of this operatic genre. Through it we learn that Zeitoper, although short-lived, has proved to be a vital component in the development of twentieth-century operatic style. Susan Cook is Professor of Musicology at the University of Wisconsin.
The first historical and critical study of neoclassicism from the genesis of the concept in fin de siecleFrance in the 1870s through the Schoenberg/Stravinsky polemic. By the end of the nineteenth century the traits of "classicism" in music had become clearly established. This codification cast long shadows over contemporary artists, encouraging a movement away from order, continuity and tradition towards freedom, innovation and novelty - and the term neoclassicism made its first appearance. This study, the first ever critical examination of "neoclassicism" in music, provides a broad cultural context for the investigation of its origins, then looks in turn at Wagner and the French reaction to him; Saint-Saens, d'Indy, Debussy, Ravel and their French contemporaries; Germany and France in the decade which includes the First World War, with special reference to Thomas Mann and Ferrucio Busoni, and to Jean Cocteau and the "New Simplicity"; and Igor Stravinsky, the composer most frequently cited in connection with this term. Reprint; first published 1988.
This is an illustrated biography of the American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Despite international fame and success, he was a man constantly struggling with inner conflicts. The best loved and most successful conductor of his generation, also a virtuoso pianist, he was adored by an international public, but suffered years of hostile criticism from the New York press. An inspiration to fellow American musicians, he was the first native American to direct a major American orchestra, and the first to conquer Europe (conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and at La Scala, Milan). His conducting style was famously flamboyant, yet he possessed a rare ability to communicate his music to the listener, who was often held spellbound. But Bernstein often dismissed conducting for its temporary character, and declared himself to be primarily a composer. Among other musicals, Bernstein wrote the world-famous West Side Story (1957), and the moving score to the film On the Waterfront, but he never enjoyed unanimous critical acclaim for his serious classical works, such as Chichester Psalms and Mass. In later years he feared that he would be remembered solely for his musicals.
Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture, Sixth Edition, presents an extensive history of electronic music—from its historical beginnings in the late nineteenth century to its everchanging present—recounting the musical ideas that arose in parallel with technological progress. In four parts, the author details the fundamentals of electronic music, its history, the major synthesizer innovators, and contemporary practices. This examination of the music’s experimental roots covers the key composers, genres, and techniques used in analog and digital synthesis, including both art and popular music, Western and non-Western.
A new narrative for the emergence of human music, drawing from archaeology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary theory. What is the origin of music? In the last few decades this centuries-old puzzle has been reinvigorated by new archaeological evidence and developments in the fields of cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary theory. In this path-breaking book, renowned musicologist Gary Tomlinson draws from these areas to construct a new narrative for the emergence of human music. Starting at a period of human prehistory long before Homo sapiens or music existed, Tomlinson describes the incremental attainments that, by changing the communication and society of prehumen species, laid the foundation for musical behaviors in more recent times. He traces in Neandertals and early sapiens the accumulation and development of these capacities, and he details their coalescence into modern musical behavior across the last hundred millennia. But A Million Years of Music is not about music alone. Tomlinson builds a model of human evolution that revises our understanding of the interaction of biology and culture across evolutionary time-scales, challenging and enriching current models of our deep history. As he tells his story, he draws in other emerging human traits: language, symbolism, a metaphysical imagination and the ritual it gives rise to, complex social structure, and the use of advanced technologies. Tomlinson's model of evolution allows him to account for much of what makes us a unique species in the world today and provides a new way of understanding the appearance of humanity in its modern form.
The French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 92) is a musician about whom most remains to be discovered. More than a decade after his death our knowledge of Messiaen is largely conditioned by what he said about himself - in lectures and interviews, in his work as a teacher, and in the monumental seven-volume treatise that encompassed the whole of his composing world. But Messiaen's public documents conceal as much as they reveal, seldom explaining why a work was written, or what complexities went into its making. Almost nothing has been known about Messiaen's working practices. Indeed, the composer became fanatically secretive about any work in progress, and was similarly reticent about his private life. This is the first book to explore the world that Messiaen was at pains to keep hidden. It has been made possible by the unprecedented access to Messiaen's private archive granted to the authors by the composer's widow, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen. The archive includes musical sketches, correspondence, lecture notes, diaries, as well as hundreds of photographs, many of which are published here for the first time. Messiaen's greatest works, and place them in the context of his life, from his years at the Paris Conservatoire, his passionate first marriage to Claire Delbos, through to the immense achievements of his final decades.
Pianoworks: Popular Styles is a superb one-stop introduction to key musical styles of the last 100 years. Through 18 original pieces it captures the essential ingredients of blues, gospel, rock, jazz, and Latin, as well as neo-classicism, minimalism, and other popular classical styles. The pieces are carefully tailored for students of the Pianoworks series, covering technically Book 2 and the final section of Book 1, and the collection works equally well as a stand-alone repertoire resource.
A fresh appreciation of the great musical figure that gives him his due as composer as well as conductor Leonard Bernstein stood at the epicenter of twentieth-century American musical life. His creative gifts knew no boundaries as he moved easily from the podium, to the piano, to television with his nationally celebrated Young People's Concerts, which introduced an entire generation to the joy of classical music. In this fascinating new biography, the breadth of Bernstein's musical composition is explored, through the spectacular range of music he composed-from West Side Story to Kaddish to A Quiet Place and beyond-and through his intensely public role as an internationally celebrated conductor. For the first time, the composer's life and work receive a fully integrated analysis, offering a comprehensive appreciation of a multi-faceted musician who continued to grow as an artist well into his final days. |
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