As both composer and critic, Peggy Glanville-Hicks contributed to the astonishing cultural ferment of the mid-twentieth century. Her forceful voice as a writer and commentator helped shape professional and public opinion on the state of American composing. The seventy musical works she composed ranged from celebrated operas like Nausicaa to intimate, jewel-like compositions created for friends. Her circle included figures like Virgil Thomson, Paul Bowles, John Cage, and Yehudi Menuhin. Drawing on interviews, archival research, and fifty-four years of extraordinary pocket diaries, Suzanne Robinson places Glanville-Hicks within the history of American music and composers. "P.G.H." forged alliances with power brokers and artists that gained her entrance to core American cultural entities such as the League of Composers, New York Herald Tribune, and the Harkness Ballet. Yet her impeccably cultivated public image concealed a private life marked by unhappy love affairs, stubborn poverty, and the painstaking creation of her artistic works. Evocative and intricate, Peggy Glanville-Hicks clears away decades of myth and storytelling to provide a portrait of a remarkable figure and her times.

Oxford's highly successful listener's guides--The Symphony, The Concerto, and Choral Masterworks--have been widely praised for their blend of captivating biography, crystal clear musical analysis, and delightful humor. Now James Keller follows these greatly admired volumes with Chamber Music. Approaching the tradition of chamber music with knowledge and passion, Keller here serves as the often-opinionated but always genial guide to 192 essential works by 56 composers, providing illuminating essays on what makes each piece distinctive and admirable. Keller spans the history of this intimate genre of music, from key works of the Baroque through the emotionally stirring "golden age" of the Classical and Romantic composers, to modern masterpieces rich in political, psychological, and sometimes comical overtones. For each piece, from Bach through to contemporary figures like George Crumb and Steve Reich, the author includes an astute musical analysis that casual music lovers can easily appreciate yet that more experienced listeners will find enriching. Keller shares the colorful, often surprising stories behind the compositions while revealing the delights of an art form once described by Goethe as the musical equivalent of "thoughtful people conversing."

Title: Symphony No. 2, Op. 27 Composer: Sergei Rachmaninoff Original Publisher: Gutheil Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony as arranged for Piano 4 Hands by Wladimir Wilschau and originally published by Gutheil in 1910. Performer's Reprints are produced in conjunction with the International Music Score Library Project. These are out of print or historical editions, which we clean, straighten, touch up, and digitally reprint. Due to the age of original documents, you may find occasional blemishes, damage, or skewing of print. While we do extensive cleaning and editing to improve the image quality, some items are not able to be repaired. A portion of each book sold is donated to small performing arts organizations to create jobs for performers and to encourage audience growth.

Title: Symphony No. 9, Op. 125 Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven Original Publisher: Peters Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the Choral Symphony, as arranged for 2 Pianos by Otto Singer II and originally published by Peters in 1905. Performer's Reprints are produced in conjunction with the International Music Score Library Project. These are out of print or historical editions, which we clean, straighten, touch up, and digitally reprint. Due to the age of original documents, you may find occasional blemishes, damage, or skewing of print. While we do extensive cleaning and editing to improve the image quality, some items are not able to be repaired. A portion of each book sold is donated to small performing arts organizations to create jobs for performers and to encourage audience growth.

Antony Hopkins was most instrumental in opening up classical music to a wider audience. To celebrate his 90th birthday in 2011 (21st March, same date as Bach but different year) we are republishing Volumes I and II of 'The Concertgoer's Companion'. Composers in Volume I are Bach, Bartok, Beethoven, Berg, Berlioz, Brahms, Britten, Chopin, Debussy, Dvorak, Elgar, Franck, Grieg and Haydn. We hope the title is self explanatory.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Walter Willson Cobbett (1847-1937), Businessman, Violinist and Author. This is volume two of a two-volume encyclopaedia of chamber music which was first published in 1929/1930 and is a comprehensive work on the subject.

Walter Willson Cobbett (1847-1937), Businessman, Violinist and Author. This is volume one of a two-volume encyclopaedia of chamber music which was first published in 1929/1930 and is a comprehensive work on the subject.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

The clarinetist Rebecca Rischin has written a captivating book.... Her research dispels several long-cherished myths about the 1941 premiere.... Rischin lovingly brings to life the other musicians-Etienne Pasquier, cellist; Henri Akoka, clarinetist; and Jean Le Boulaire, violinist-who played with Messiaen, the pianist at the premiere."-Alex Ross, The New Yorker "This book offers a wealth of new information about the circumstances under which the Quartet was created. Based on original interviews with the performers, witnesses to the premiere, and documents from the prison camp, this first comprehensive history of the Quartet's composition and premiere held my interest from beginning to end.... For the End of Time touches on many things: faith, friendship, creativity, grace in a time of despair, and the uncommon human alliances that wartime engenders."-Arnold Steinhardt, Chamber Music"The clarification of the order of composition of the movements is just one of the minor but cumulatively significant ways in which Rischin modifies the widely accepted account of the events at Stalag VIII A.... For the End of Time is a thorough and readable piece of investigative journalism that clarifies some important points about the Quartet's genesis."-Michael Downes, Times Literary Supplement The premiere of Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time on January 15, 1941, has been called one of the great stories of twentieth-century music. Composed while Messiaen (1908-1992) was imprisoned by the Nazis in Stalag VIII A, the work was performed under the most trying of circumstances: the temperature, inferior instruments, and the general conditions of life in a POW camp.Based on testimonies by the musicians and their families, witnesses to the premiere, former prisoners, and on documents from Stalag VIII A, For the End of Time examines the events that led to the Quartet's composition, the composer's interpretive preferences, and the musicians' problems in execution and how they affected the premiere and subsequent performances. Rebecca Rischin explores the musicians' life in the prison camp, their relationships with each other and with the German camp officials, and their intriguing fortunes before and after the momentous premiere. This paperback edition features supplementary texts and information previously unavailable to the author about the Quartet's premiere, Vichy and the composer, the Paris premiere, a recording featuring Messiaen as performer, and an updated bibliography and discography.

A monumental accomplishment from the age of Enlightenment, the string quartets of Joseph Haydn hold a central place not only in the composer's oeuvre, but also in our modern conception of form, style, and expression in the instrumental music of his day. Here, renowned music historians Floyd and Margaret Grave present a fresh perspective on a comprehensive survey of the works. This thorough and unique analysis offers new insights into the creation of the quartets, the wealth of musical customs and conventions on which they draw, the scope of their innovations, and their significance as reflections of Haydn's artistic personality. Each set of quartets is characterized in terms of its particular mix of structural conventions and novelties, stylistic allusions, and its special points of connection with other opus groups in the series. Throughout the book, the authors draw attention to the boundless supply of compositional strategies by which Haydn appears to be continually rethinking, reevaluating, and refining the quartet's potentials. They also lucidly describe Haydn's famous penchant for wit, humor, and compositional artifice, illuminating the unexpected connections he draws between seemingly unrelated ideas, his irony, and his lightning bolts of surprise and thwarted expectation. Approaching the quartets from a variety of vantage points, the authors correct many prevailing assumptions about convention, innovation, and developing compositional technique in the music of Haydn and his contemporaries.
Going beyond traditional modes of study, The String Quartets of Joseph Haydn blends historical analysis and factual information with critical appraisal in a way that will engage all Haydnenthusiasts.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

"This book is a substantial and timely contribution to Brahms studies. Its strategy is to focus on a single critical work, the C-Minor Piano Quartet, analyzing and interpreting it in great detail, but also using it as a stepping-stone to connect it to other central Brahms works in order to reach a new understanding of the composer s technical language and expressive intent. It is an original and worthy contribution on the music of a major composer." Patrick McCreless

Expressive Forms in Brahms s Instrumental Music integrates a wide variety of analytical methods into a broader study of theoretical approaches, using a single work by Brahms as a case study. On the basis of his findings, Smith considers how Brahms s approach in this piano quartet informs analyses of similar works by Brahms as well as by Beethoven and Mozart.

Musical Meaning and Interpretation Robert S. Hatten, editor"

The Guarneri Quartet is fabled for its unique longevity and high-spirited virtuosity. Here is its story from the inside--a story filled with drama, humor, danger, compassion, and, of course, glorious music.

A player who studies and performs the exalted string-quartet repertoire has opted for a very special life. Arnold Steinhardt, tracing his own development as a student, orchestra player, and budding young soloist, gives a touching account of how he and his intrepid colleagues were converted to chamber music despite the daunting odds against success. And he reveals, as no one has before, the intensely difficult process by which--on the battlefield of daily three-hour rehearsals--four individualists master and then overcome the confining demands of ensemble playing.

From the Renaissance to the Baroque, French noels joined sacred texts with profane music and dance. They relate tales of shepherds and shepherdesses along with stories of Mary and the Child. This performing edition contains sixteen noels that appeared in an anthology of popular tunes published in 1725, where they were arranged for two flutes by the instrument maker Jean-Jacques Rippert. Betty Bang Mather and Gail Gavin present them here in modern notation in a form that may also be sung. They provide the original lyrics - which had disappeared from song collections - and include all the verses for each piece as well as English translations of first verses. Part I discusses the meaning of the word Noel, the noel as sacred parody and rustic poetry, and its place in the church. It also explores the relationship between noels and dance, the musical notation and styles of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century noel settings, and the long-standing relationship between flutes, shepherds, angels, and song. The volume is enhanced by facsimiles from early collections of noels, including several pages from Rippert's publication. Mather and Gavin define the noel's place in history and encourage today's readers to play these charming pieces, sing them, and dance to their music.

This book examines two notable forms of chamber music involving piano and strings. Smallman surveys the development of these genres from their origins in the mid-eighteenth century to the present day.

Of the few composers who possessed an intrinsic mastery of the string quartet, Haydn was the first and, Hans Keller argues, the greatest. This seminal study of forty-five quartets by one of the leading music critics of his day provides an extraordinarily deep understanding of Haydn's methods and genius.

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"This practical, comprehesive, and well-organized book by an experienced conductor and educator is the very first to concentrate on this type of performing group and its special needs. . . . Valuable appendixes give IRS rulings, suggested auditioning material, addresses of publishers and rental libraries, and more." Library Journal

This book deals with all the well-know piano, violin, and cello concertos and is illustrated with a wealth of musical examples.

As both composer and critic, Peggy Glanville-Hicks contributed to the astonishing cultural ferment of the mid-twentieth century. Her forceful voice as a writer and commentator helped shape professional and public opinion on the state of American composing. The seventy musical works she composed ranged from celebrated operas like Nausicaa to intimate, jewel-like compositions created for friends. Her circle included figures like Virgil Thomson, Paul Bowles, John Cage, and Yehudi Menuhin. Drawing on interviews, archival research, and fifty-four years of extraordinary pocket diaries, Suzanne Robinson places Glanville-Hicks within the history of American music and composers. "P.G.H." forged alliances with power brokers and artists that gained her entrance to core American cultural entities such as the League of Composers, New York Herald Tribune, and the Harkness Ballet. Yet her impeccably cultivated public image concealed a private life marked by unhappy love affairs, stubborn poverty, and the painstaking creation of her artistic works. Evocative and intricate, Peggy Glanville-Hicks clears away decades of myth and storytelling to provide a portrait of a remarkable figure and her times.