![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Music > Composers & musicians
Fanny Hensel: A Research and Information Guide provides scholars in Hensel studies with a resource to navigate the research surrounding the composer's over 450 musical works. As part of the larger blossoming of women's music history, new research in the 1980s and 1990s promoted an awareness of Hensel's output, in particular in the genres of the lied and the solo piano work. This research guide includes an introductory chapter, a summary paragraph at the beginning of each chapter, and annotations for more than 500 entries, focusing on scholarly works as well as selected articles from trade publications, catalogs, and Internet resources.
Well before she married Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann was already an internationally renowned pianist, and she concertized extensively for several decades after her husband's death. Despite being tied professionally to Robert, Clara forged her own career and played an important role in forming what we now recognize as the culture of classical music. Becoming Clara Schumann guides readers through her entire career, including performance, composition, edits to her husband's music, and teaching. Alexander Stefaniak brings together the full run of Schumann's concert programs, detailed accounts of her performances and reception, and other previously unexplored primary source material to illuminate how she positioned herself within larger currents in concert life and musical aesthetics. He reveals that she was an accomplished strategist, having played roughly 1,300 concerts across western and central Europe over the course of her six-decade career, and she shaped the canonization of her husband's music. Extraordinary for her time, Schumann earned success and prestige by crafting her own playing style, selecting and composing her own concerts, and acting as her own manager. By highlighting Schumann's navigation of her musical culture's gendered boundaries, Becoming Clara Schumann details how she cultivated her public image in order to win over audiences and embody some of her field's most ambitious aspirations for musical performance.
For years, Todd Snider has been one of the most beloved country-folk singers in the United States, compared to Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, John Prine, and dozens of others. He's become not only a new-century Dylan but a modern-day Will Rogers, an everyman whose intelligence, self-deprecation, experience, and sense of humor make him a uniquely American character. In live performance, Snider's monologues are cheered as much as his songs. But never before has he told the whole story. Running the gamut from personal memoir to shaggy-dog comedy to rueful memories of his troubles and triumphs with drugs and alcohol to sharp-eyed observations from years on the road, "I Never Met a Story I Didn't Like" is for fans of Snider's music, but also for fans of America itself: the broad, wild country that has produced figures of folk wisdom like Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Tonya Harding, Garrison Keillor, and more. There are storytellers and there are performers and there are stand-up comedians. And then there's Todd Snider, who is all three in one, and something else entirely.
Clarinetist Kenny Davern ranked among the best jazz musicians for over 50 years. The unique and instantly recognizable sound of his clarinet, coupled with a wide ranging intellect and quick sense of humor drew praise and applause and endeared him to his fans and friends. The Life and Music of Kenny Davern tells the story of this fascinating musician who had a vision of how he wanted his music to sound and who persisted in the face of adversity until he achieved that vision. Edward N. Meyer conducted interviews with friends, family, colleagues, and critics of Kenny Davern, as well as the man himself, to gain a comprehensive and personal narrative of the artist's life. Beginning with the tragic events that shaped his early life, Meyer traces Davern's growth from a young boy raised in an atmosphere of conflict into an acclaimed, self-assured musician and a warm and loving husband and father. Meyer describes the state of the jazz music business in the last half of the 20th century and fully establishes Davern's status within that scene. Meyer also explores a side of Davern that the public never saw: Davern's hunger for reading made him a knowledgeable and well-respected person with experts outside the world of jazz. With more than 30 photos, a comprehensive discography, bibliography, and index, this volume will fascinate jazz students, fans, and scholars.
An investigation of the considerable influence of Wagner's stay in Zurich from 1849 to 1858 -- a period often discounted by scholars -- on his career. When the people of Dresden rose up against their king in May 1849, Richard Wagner went from Royal Kapellmeister to republican revolutionary overnight. He gambled everything, but the rebellion failed, and he lost all. Now a wantedman in Germany, he fled to Zurich. Years later, he wrote that the city was "devoid of any public art form" and full of "simple people who knew nothing of my work as an artist." But he lied: Zurich boasted arguably the world's greatest concentration of radical intellectuals and a vibrant music scene. Wagner was accepted with open arms. This book investigates Wagner's affect on the musical life of the city and the city's impact on him. Mathilde Wesendonck emerges not as Wagner's passive muse but as a self-assured woman who exploited gender expectations to her own benefit. In 1858, Wagner had to flee Zurich after again gambling everything -- this time on Mathilde -- and again losing.But it was in Zurich that Wagner wrote his major theoretical works; composed Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, and parts of Siegfried and Tristan und Isolde; first planned Parsifal; held the first festival of his music; and conceived of a theater to stage his own works. If Wagner had been free in 1849 to choose a city in which to seek heightened intellectual stimulation among the like-minded and the similarly gifted, he could have come to nomore perfect place. Chris Walton teaches music history at the Musikhochschule Basel 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.
Vladimir de Pachmann was perhaps history's most notorious pianist. Widely regarded as the greatest player of Chopin's works, Pachmann embedded comedic elements-be it fiddling with his piano bench or flirting with the audience-within his classic piano recitals to alleviate his own anxiety over performing. But this wunderkind, whose admirers included Franz Liszt and music critic James Gibbons Huneker (who cheekily nicknamed Pachmann the "Chopinzee"), would by the turn of the century find his antics on the concert stage scorned by critics and out of fashion with listeners, burying his pianistic legacy. In Chopin's Prophet: The Life of Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann, the first biography ever of this remarkable figure, Edward Blickstein and Gregor Benko explore the private and public lives of this master pianist, surveying his achievements within the context of contemporary critical opinion and preserving his legacy as one of the last great Romantic pianists of his time. Chopin's Prophet paints a colorful portrait of classical piano performance and celebrity at the turn of the 20th century while also documenting Pachmann's attraction to men, which ultimately ended his marriage but was overlooked by his audiences. As the authors illustrate, Pachmann lived in a radically different world of music making, one in which eccentric personality and behavior fit into a much more flexible, and sometimes mysterious, musical community, one where standards were set not by certified experts with degrees but by the musicians themselves. Detailing the evolution of concert piano playing style from the era of Chopin until World War I, Chopin's Prophet tells the fantastic and true story of an artist of and after his time.
The Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet is one of the seminal albums in rock history. Arguably it not only marks the advent of the 'mature' sound of the Rolling Stones but lays out a new blueprint for an approach to blues-based rock music that would endure for several decades. From its title to the dark themes that pervade some of its songs, Beggars Banquet reflected and helped define a moment marked by violence, decay, and upheaval. It marked a move away from the artistic sonic flourishes of psychedelic rock towards an embrace of foundational streams of American music - blues, country - that had always underpinned the music of the Stones but assumed new primacy in their music after 1968. This move coincided with, and anticipated, the 'roots' moves that many leading popular music artists made as the 1960s turned toward a new decade; but unlike many of their peers whose music grew more 'soft' and subdued as they embraced traditional styles, the music and attitude of the Stones only grew harder and more menacing, and their status as representatives of the dark underside of the 60s rock counterculture assumed new solidity. For the Rolling Stones, the 1960s ended and the 1970s began with the release of this album in 1968.
Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's most celebrated collaboration, the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, had its premiere at the Avignon Festival in 1976. During its initial European tour, Metropolitan Opera premiere, and revivals in 1984 and 1992, Einstein provoked opposed reactions from both audiences and critics. Today, Einstein is well on the way itself to becoming a canonized avant-garde work, and it is widely acknowledged as a profoundly significant moment in the history of opera or musical theater. Einstein created waves that for many years crashed against the shores of traditional thinking concerning the nature and creative potential of audiovisual expression. Reaching beyond opera, its influence was felt in audiovisual culture in general: in contemporary avant-garde music, performance art, avant-garde cinema, popular film, popular music, advertising, dance, theater, and many other expressive, commercial, and cultural spheres. Inspired by the 2012-2015 series of performances that re-contextualized this unique work as part of the present-day nexus of theoretical, political, and social concerns, the editors and contributors of this book take these new performances as a pretext for far-reaching interdisciplinary reflection and dialogue. Essays range from those that focus on the human scale and agencies involved in productions to the mechanical and post-human character of the opera's expressive substance. A further valuable dimension is the inclusion of material taken from several recent interviews with creative collaborators Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, and Lucinda Childs, each of these sections comprising knee plays, or short intermezzo sections resembling those found in the opera Einstein on the Beach itself. The book additionally features a foreword written by the influential musicologist and cultural theorist Susan McClary and an interview with film and theater luminary Peter Greenaway, as well as a short chapter of reminiscences written by the singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega.
Nicknamed the "Godmother of Punk," Patti Smith rose to fame during the 1970s New York counterculture movement where she welcomed a new breed of rock and roll. Smith sanctioned the presence of a strong-willed woman in the mainstream rock community by breaking not only the fragile glass ceiling, but also the "rules" about women on the rock stage. Smith pushed right up to the front of the punk scene, stripping down sexual, religious, and emotional barriers to create a raw, viscerally personal message. In Patti Smith: America's Punk Rock Rhapsodist, musician and historian Eric Wendell delves into the volatile mix of religious upbringing and musical and literary influences that gave shape to Smith's lyrics, music, and artistic output. Wendell explores how Smith's androgynous stage presence pulled the various societal triggers, adding a new layer of meaning to popular music performance. Songwriter and singer, performance artist and poet, Smith created work that drew together biography, history, and music into a powerful collage of an artist who shaped a generation of musicians. For poets and performers, as well as fans of Patti Smith and punk rock history, Patti Smith: America's Punk Rock Rhapsodist is the perfect introduction to Smith's achievements and the politics and art of a generation that is still felt.
This reference provides a new perspective on the work of music's great composers from Bach to Stravinsky, by compiling the comments and criticism offered by other composers, such as Mahler, Wagner, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, and many others. Holmes presents an assessment of composers and musical developments as seen not specifically by the critics but by the composers' peers. While acknowledging that not all composers were necessarily perceptive critics and that few were able to sufficiently distance themselves from their own and others' work to be objective, the book offers many insights in the comments made by composers. The book is organized into 78 short chapters, each focussing on one composer and relating the complimentary or caustic comments made about him by as many as 20 other composers. The chapters are arranged alphabetically by composer and presented in a narrative form, offering years of birth and death and an introductory sentence along with the quotations. The sources of all quotations are documented in a separate note section, and an index of the 85 composers quoted and their subjects is also included. More than just a book of musical anecdotes, this reference will be an important addition to both public and university libraries. It will also be of interest to scholars of music criticism and history, critics and writers who will find it a useful source of quotes, and the general reader interested in music.
Often compared to David Bowie and Mick Jagger, Doc Neeson was hailed as a 'messianic rock god'. He was thumping, pumping, sweaty hard rock. He commanded the stage. He was unstoppable. He was terrifying. He was wild. He was a legend. And as their front man, Doc propelled the Angels to become the highest paid band in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s. With massive album sales in Australia and a US record deal, global superstardom seemed assured . . . but then everything started to fall apart. This is Doc's story with the highs, the lows, the girls, the booze, the drugs, the tours, the good deeds, the crazy antics, the dark days and the great split that shattered the Angels. When he died in 2014 from a brain tumour, a black veil came down over a generation of Australian rock fans.
This volume is a journey through musics that emerged at the turn of the 20th Century and were neither exclusively tonal nor serial. They fall between these labels as they are metatonal, being both with and after tonality, in their reconstruction of external codes and gestures of Common Practice music in new and idiosyncratic ways. The composers and works considered are approached from analytic, cultural, creative, and performance angles by musicologists, performers and composers to enable a deeper reading of these musics by scholars and students alike. Works include those by Frank Bridge, Ferruccio Busoni, Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, Rebecca Clarke, John Foulds, Percy Grainger, Mary Howe, Carl Nielsen, Franz Schreker, Erwin Schulhoff, Cyril Scott and Alexander Scriabin. In the process of engaging with this book the reader, will find an enrichment to their own understanding of music at the turn of the 20th Century.
Reveals the great twentieth-century Italian composer's innovative handling of harmony, form, and text setting. Luigi Dallapiccola was one of twentieth century's most accomplished and admired composers. His music incorporated many of the twelve-tone techniques developed by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton von Webern, but blended their expressionistic impulses with an Italianate sense of lyricism. Brian Alegant's The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola traces the evolution of Dallapiccola's compositional technique over a thirty-year period (1942-74). Using both historical and music-analytical lenses, this book documents the influences of Webern and Schoenberg, highlights Dallapiccola's innovative handling of harmony, form, and text setting, and sheds light on several worksthat have been virtually ignored. Alegant's book will be a crucial source of insights for scholars and other readers interested in twentieth-century music. Brian Alegant is Professor of Music Theory at the Oberlin College Conservatory.
This is the stoy of The Teacher to The Beatles told in his own evocative words with the help of his boyhood friend and rock & roll fan turned author Alan Mann. The book was put together by Alan following a period of intense collaboration between the two men, which only came to a conclusion in 2011. Thereafter the book was delayed because of legal complications which thankfully no longer apply. Certainly, it is the nearest to an autobiography of Tony Sheridan, singer-songwriter and guitar genius, that is ever likely to appear. A hard musical taskmaster, he was worshipped by his fellow musicians, yet somehow still managed to remain an elusive and enigmatic figure unknown to the wider musical public. There was much more to the man than his brief time spent with The Beatles in Hamburg, and the reader will hopefully be inspired to seek out other recordings from a career that spanned well over 50 years. Shortly before the publication of this book, the sad news arrived that Tony Sheridan has passed away in Germany. It is therefore dedicated to his memory, and it is hoped will prove a lasting legacy to the man, his music, and the times in which he lived.
Actor performer musician entrepreneur winemaker athlete writer curious adventurer a Maynard James Keenan is the embodiment of the archetypal artist. Best known as the vocalist in award-winning groups Tool A Perfect Circle and Puscifer he has trusted the path he's followed and heeded his inner voice ever open to synchronicities and unexpected turnings along the way.THUntil now fans of Maynard James Keenan a or MJK as he is often called a have had access to only an abridged version of his story. In EA Perfect Union of Contrary ThingsE Keenan partners with his friend of 30 years Sarah Jensen to present a full account of his life and career. From his Midwest childhood to his years in the army to his time in art school a and from his stint at a Boston pet shop to his place in the international spotlight and his influence on contemporary music and regional winemaking a the book chronicles the events that led MJK to take one step after the next to change direction to explore sometimes surprising opportunities.THIncluded are sidebars in his own words often humorous anecdotes that illuminate the narrative as well as commentary by his family members friends instructors and industry colleagues. It also features a foreword by Alex Grey an American visionary artist and longtime friend of Keenan along with a bounty photos of Keenan from childhood to the present.THA comprehensive portrayal of a versatile and dedicated artist EA Perfect Union of Contrary ThingsE pays homage to the people and places that shaped the man and his art. A ENew York TimesE Bestseller in hardcover it is presented here for the first time in paperback.
Since 1963 Eric Clapton has contributed to two hundred albums by other artists: from very famous to the obscure and the unexpected: Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Sting, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, all four of the Beatles, Martha Velez, Jonathan Kelly, Corey Hart, Stephen Bishop, Hawkwind, Ray Charles, Kate Bush, The Tony Rich Project, Toots and the Maytals and Mary J. Blige. If you've never heard (for instance) 'Beat of the Night' by Bob Geldof, 'Sexual Revolution' by Roger Waters or 'I Wish It Would Rain Down' by Phil Collins, this book tells you about Eric's part in those recordings and many more, as well as his more notorious collaborations with the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan - and Ed Sheeran! Indeed, this book puts these into context across nearly sixty years of documented sessions. If you've never delved into Eric's contributions to other artist's recordings, then this is a handy guide to help the reader find his way into such a lengthy and successful second career. If his own albums are the main story, then these recordings run alongside: an alternative history of one of rock's most prolific musicians
'No musician or music lover should be without it.' BBC Music Magazine Robert Schumann was far ahead of his time: his music anticipated a multitude of trends that would spread in the 150 years after his death, and almost every major composer who followed him acknowledged his influence. He was also revolutionary in his attitude to young people; in 1848 he wrote his famous Advice to Young Musicians, a book that is still deeply relevant today. In this volume, celebrated cellist Steven Isserlis has taken Schumann's words of wisdom and set them in a modern context with his own extensive commentary. By turns practical, humorous and profound, this book is a must for aspiring musicians and music-lovers of all ages.
In 2007, the great Bach scholar Anne Leahy died at the age of 46. She was a leading light in Bach studies and lecturer at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) Conservatory of Music and Drama. Posthumously edited by renowned Bach scholar Robin A. Leaver, Leahy's dissertation research forms the basis for this original study of the preludes to Bach's Leipzig chorales. Originally composed in Weimar and later revised in Leipzig, Bach's compositions have been a source of some puzzlement. As Leahy notes, "the original intentions of Bach and the possible purpose of this collection might be regarded as speculative." Working from available sources, however, she argues that through the careful examination of the links among the music, hymn texts, and theological sources some answers may be had. From Bach's personal and deep interest in Lutheran theology to his enormous musical passion, Leahy considers closely a series of critical questions: does the original manuscript for the chorales simply reflect a random gathering of compositions or is there a common theme in setting? How critical is the order of the chorales and what is the theological significance of that order? Were the chorales a unified collection, and if so, which parts were to be included and which not? Indeed, were the chorales themselves part of a possibly larger corpus? As Leahy makes evident, there are no simple answers, which is why she considers critical the relationship the texts of the hymns to the chorales and to one another, outlining a theological pattern that is vital to fully grasping the guiding philosophy of these compositions. J. S. Bach's "Leipzig" Chorale Preludes: Music, Text, Theology is ideally suited for Bach scholars and those with a general interest in the intricate connections between text and music in the composition of religious music.
Frank Bello, bassist with the legendary New York thrash metal band Anthrax since 1984, has sold over ten million albums, travelled the globe more times than he cares to count, and enthralled audiences from the world’s biggest stages. His long-awaited memoir would be a gripping read even if its pages only contained stories about his life as a recording and touring musician. While those stories are indeed included—and will blow your mind—Bello also focuses on deeper subjects in Fathers, Brothers, and Sons. Once you’ve heard his life story, you’ll understand why. Born into a family of five, Frank grew up in difficult circumstances. His father abandoned his wife and children, and Frank’s mother moved heaven and earth to keep them fed and educated. Left with no male role model, Frank found inspiration in heavy metal bass players, following their example and forging a career with Anthrax from his early teens—first as a roadie, and then as the group’s bass player. International stardom came Frank’s way by the mid-to-late 1980s, when he was still in his early twenties, but tragedy struck in 1996 when his brother Anthony was murdered in New York. Although the case went to trial, the suspected killer was released without charge after a witness, intimidated by violent elements, withdrew his testimony. Two decades later, Frank is a father himself to a young son. Like many men who grew up without the guidance of a dad, he asks himself important questions about the meaning of fatherhood and how to do the job well. This is the wisdom which Fathers, Brothers, and Sons offers readers. Despite the emotive nature of these topics, Fathers, Brothers, and Sons is a funny, entertaining read. A man with a keen sense of humor and the perspective to know how surreal his story has been, Frank doesn’t preach or seek sympathy in his book. Instead, he simply passes on the wisdom gained from a lifetime of turbulence, paying tribute to his loved ones in a way that will resonate with us all.
For the Beatles, 1967 marks a signal crossroads that would both transform the group's career and place them on a trajectory towards their eventual disbandment. It was a year in which they exploded prevailing rock music demographics through the global onslaught and international success of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band beginning in June 1967. Yet it was also a period that saw them in a precarious state of flux throughout the summer and fall months, as the band attempted to recapture their artistic direction in the wake of Sgt. Pepper and the untimely death of manager Brian Epstein. The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love draws readers into that pivotal year in the life of the band. For the Fab Four, 1967 would see the band members part ways with psychedelia and the avant-garde through the trials and tribulations of the Magical Mystery Tour, a project that resulted in a series of classic recordings, while at the same time revealing the bandmates' aesthetic vulnerabilities and failings as would-be filmmakers and auteurs.
A track by track analysis of every song recorded on officially released albums by Cohen, from his 1968 Songs Of Leonard Cohen to his most recent studio and live sets from the 21st Century Features include...An up to date chronology of all the important events in Leonard Cohen's career. An album by album, track by track analysis...Special section on compilation albums...Photographs and CD cover art.
In Uniting Music and Poetry in Twentieth-Century Spain, Nelson R. Orringer uses both literary and musical analysis to study sung poems in twentieth-century Spain. In nine chapters, each focusing on an individual sung poem, song cycle, or various poems set by the same composer, Orringer enriches and deepens interpretations of the art-songs by comparing the poet's vision to the composer's. In examining composers such as Falla, Turina, Mompou, Toldra, Rodrigo, Montsalvatge, and Rodolfo Halffter, Orringer shows that Spanish art-song is an exceptional product of Spain's Silver Age and reveals a new way to understand and appreciate poems set to music in twentieth-century Spain.
A unique look at the career of a little-known contemporary of Haydn and Mozart, presented against a fascinating background of court musical life in late eighteenth-century Germany. Today the classical style is defined by the music of a handful of composers, Haydn and Mozart being the most prominent. As a result, the accomplishments of these masters have all but eclipsed the music of most of their contemporaries. In this book, Sterling Murray examines one of the most talented of this group, Antonio Rosetti. Born around 1750 and trained in Bohemia, Rosetti spent most of his creative life in Germany, where he served as music director to the Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein between 1773 and 1789 and then the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin until his death in 1792. The Career of an Eighteenth-Century Kapellmeister offers the first comprehensive study of Rosetti's life. The events of the composer's biography are unfolded against a vivid picture of musical life at the two small German courts where Rosetti was employed. The second half of the book is devoted to an examination of formand style in Rosetti's music, illustrated with full-score musical examples in the text and on a complementary website. What emerges from this investigation is a portrait of a composer who, having conquered the stylistic languageof his day, challenged those conventions to produce imaginative and highly creative works of great beauty. Sterling E. Murray is professor emeritus of the School of Music at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Over the 100 years since Benny Goodman's birth, interest in his life and music remains as intense as ever-yet there has been no new discographical information since 1996. Benny Goodman: A Supplemental Discography fills that gap, gathering materials uncovered since the last bio-discography of Goodman in 1996. The annotated discography, presented chronologically, updates some previously known information and adds nearly 100 new discoveries, including over 65 previously unknown radio broadcasts, airchecks, and films. Jessup presents new details about live appearances ranging from the mid-1980s back to the 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert, including an analysis of the controversial 1999 Sony reissue of that concert. Jessup also offers an essay detailing some of the difficulties of finding recordings in a digitally progressive age, as "new technology" can assist with-or hinder-collecting and evaluating this vintage music. An additional exploratory discography of smaller, collector-oriented labels describes nearly 400 reissues and collectible LPs, tapes, and CDs personally audited by Jessup and his associates. All 182 shows of the famous "Camel Caravan" radio series (1936-1939) are offered in print for the first time in an authoritative list. The volume concludes with a necrology of those associated personally or professionally with Benny Goodman who have passed away since 1996, and indexes by song title and musician make the material more accessible. |
You may like...
The Intrepid Patriot - Captain Jacob…
Scott Gabrielson
Hardcover
|