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Books > Music > Composers & musicians
When the world's greatest pop band played their final public concert, in January 1969, there were no tickets or posters printed. When John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr emerged at lunchtime from the headquarters of their own company, Apple, five storeys above London's Savile Row, only a select group of people knew what the hell was happening.The rooftop concert was one of the Beatles' most spontaneous acts. Beatles on the Roof studies the rooftop concert in penetrating detail, uncovering new truths and debunking old myths about the event. Nobody knew it yet - not even the band - but this was the last time they would play live to the public.
This is the first full-length, published study of Beethoven's songs. All the composer's songs with piano are included, with full German texts and translations, together with comprehensive notes on the poetry and the music. The inclusion of unfinished songs gives a fascinating insight into Beethoven's compositional methods. An introductory essay considers reasons for the relative neglect of the songs, the significance of Beethoven's choice of texts, his crucial role in the development of German art-song and specific aspects such as choice of key. Throughout the book, poetic and musical texts are discussed in their historical context, and in the overall context of Beethoven's life and music. It is anticipated that this book, like its predecessor The Schubert Song Companion, will encourage the performance and study of an important but comparatively neglected aspect of the work of the world's most celebrated composer. -- .
When everything fell apart for Lynn Melnick, she went to Dollywood. It was perhaps an unusual refuge. The theme park, partly owned by and wholly named for Dolly Parton, celebrates a country music legend who grew up in church and in poverty in rural Tennessee. Yet Dollywood is exactly where Melnick—a poet, urbanite, and daughter of a middle-class Jewish family—needed to be. Because Melnick, like the musician she adores, is a survivor. In this bracing memoir, Melnick explores Parton’s dual identities as feminist icon and objectified sex symbol—identities that reflect the author’s own fraught history with rape culture and the grueling effort to reclaim her voice in the wake of loss and trauma. Each chapter engages with the artistry and cultural impact of one of Parton’s songs, as Melnick reckons with violence, creativity, parenting, abortion, sex work, love, and the consolations and cruelties of religion. Guided by Parton’s music, Melnick walks the slow path to recovery in the company of those who came before her and stand with her, as trauma is an experience both unique and universal. Candid and discerning, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive is at once a memoir and a love song—a story about one life and about an artist who has brought life to millions.
Sir Andrzej Panufnik was born in Warsaw and studied in the newly independent Poland in the 1930s, as well as in Vienna and Paris just before the outbreak of the Second World War. During the German occupation he formed a piano duo with his friend and fellow composer Witold LutosA'awski, and they performed in cafes around Warsaw. After the war, Panufnik quickly established himself as a leading Polish composer, and as a conductor he played a significant role in the re-establishment of first the KrakA(3)w and then the Warsaw Philharmonic. Although he was considered Poland's leading composer for some years after the war, Panufnik was subsequently put under intolerable pressure both musically and politically. Frustrated by the continuing rejection of his compositions and the unending political demands inflicted on him by the country's post-war Communist regime, he made a daring escape to England in 1954. He briefly became Principal Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a post he relinquished after two years to devote all his time to composition. His works were in demand by major figures such as Leopold Stokowski who conducted the first performances of Sinfonia Elegiaca, KatyA" Epitaph and Universal Prayer, Yehudi Menuhin who commissioned the Violin Concerto, Seiji Ozawa in Boston and Sir Georg Solti in Chicago who both commissioned symphonies for the centenaries of their famous orchestras; also Mstislav Rostropovich with the London Symphony Orchestra, who together commissioned the Cello Concerto. Beata BolesA'awska has written the first book on the life and artistic output of Panufnik, setting his significance alongside the political and cultural scene of twentieth-century Europe. The account of the composer's life is based on numerous archival documents, as well as the personal accounts contributed by his family and friends. Panufnik's compositional style and techniques are also analysed. This book will be of interest not only to those devoted
Where is the academic study of music today, and what paths should it take into the future? Should we be looking at how music relates to society and constructs meaning through it, rather than how it transcends the social? Can we 'remix' our discipline and attempt to address all musics on an equal basis, without splitting ourselves in advance into subgroups of 'musicologists', 'theorists', and 'ethnomusicologists'? These are some of the crucial issues that Nicholas Cook has raised since he emerged in the 1990s as one of the UK's leading and most widely read voices in critical musicology. In this book, collaborators and former students of Cook pursue these questions and others raised by his work-from notation, historiography, and performance to the place of music in multimedia forms such as virtual reality and video games, analysing both how it can bring people together and the ways in which it has failed to do so.
This book demonstrates that one is capable of achieving any goals, that one sets for him/herself. I hope it will be an inspiration to others, as they journey along the pathways of life. This book summarizes the achievements, the difficulties and sometimes struggles that were encountered along the way. It speaks of anxiety, fear, anticipation, but never apathy. There were times of restlessness, working and studying until the wee hours of the morning, just to meet the class assignments. Those were used as motivation to succeed. The vagaries of the weather in the UK and its unpredictability, played a part in my planning every move and decision. That too helped me to realize the nature of things and how essential it is to prepare, if possible, for the future. It is indeed a wonderful feeling, when one is able to look back over many years on a long journey and a productive life, and feel satisfied that something of note has been left behind. I trust this book will give food for thought and be of help to others
The voice of Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999), the “Queen of Fado†and Portugal’s most celebrated diva, was extraordinary for its interpretive power, soul wrenching timbre, and international reach. Amalia à l’Olympia (1957) is an album made from recordings of her first performances at the fabled Olympia Music Hall in Paris in 1956. This album, which was issued for multiple national markets (including: France; USA; Japan; Britain; the Netherlands) catapulted Amália Rodrigues into the international limelight. During its time, this album held the potential for international listeners, outside of Portugal, to represent Portugal, while also standing in for cosmopolitanism, the glamorous city of Paris, and to present a sonorous voyage in sound. This book introduces readers to the voice of Amália Rodrigues and to the genre of the Portuguese fado, offering a primer in how to listen to both. It unpacks this iconic album and the voice, sound, style, and celebrity of Amália Rodrigues. It situates this album within a historical context marked by cold war Atlanticist diplomacy, Portugal’s dictatorial regime, and the emergence of new forms of media, travel, and tourism.In so doing, it examines processes that shaped the internationalization of peripheral popular musics and the making of female vocal stardom in the mid-20th century.
John Antill (1904-1986) was one of the foremost composers of Australia's post-colonial period. Although a relatively prolific and much esteemed composer in Australia, Antill's wider reputation is sustained chiefly by his famous ballet Corroboree - a work which was perceived to bring an authentic Australian musical style before both a national and international audience for the first time. Through Sir Eugene Goossens' championship, the work was heard by enthusiastic audiences in Australia, Britain, Europe and the USA, and was, for many years, the best-known work of any Australian-born and resident composer. Indeed it has remained, for both Australian and overseas audiences, an Australian musical icon. David Symons traces Antill's development as a composer from his early, pre-Corroboree works, which display a late Romantic to post-impressionist style, through an analysis of the virile, dissonant, primitivist idiom of his magnum opus, to an examination of his later output of theatrical, orchestral and vocal/choral works. The book provides comprehensive and valuable insight into Antill's musical output, at the same time focussing on more detailed analyses of his major works which have reached public performances and/or recordings. In this way the book not only presents a developmental picture of Antill's works, but also demonstrates why they have made him one of Australia's most prominent musical creators of the post-colonial period.
Unaccountably, Percy Grainger has remained on the margins of both American music history and twentieth-century modernism. This volume reveals the well-known composer of popular gems to be a self-described 'hyper-modernist' who composed works of uncompromising dissonance, challenged the conventions of folk song collection and adaptation, re-visioned the modern orchestra, experimented with 'ego-less' composition and designed electronic machines intended to supersede human application. Grainger was far from being a self-sufficient maverick working in isolation. Through contact with innovators such as Ferrucio Busoni, Leon Theremin and Henry Cowell; promotion of the music of modern French and Spanish schools; appreciation of vernacular, jazz and folk musics; as well as with the study and transcription of non-Western music; he contested received ideas and proposed many radical new approaches. By reappraising Grainger's social and historical connectedness and exploring the variety of aspects of modernity seen in his activities in the British, American and Australian contexts, the authors create a profile of a composer, propagandist and visionary whose modernist aesthetic paralleled that of the most advanced composers of his day, and, in some cases, anticipated their practical experiments.
Eric Bogle has written many iconic songs that deal with the futility and waste of war. Two of these in particular, 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda' and 'No Man's Land (a.k.a. The Green Fields of France)', have been recorded numerous times in a dozen or more languages indicating the universality and power of their simple message. Bogle's other compositions about the First World War give a voice to the voiceless, prominence to the forgotten and personality to the anonymous as they interrogate the human experience, celebrate its spirit and empathise with its suffering. This book examines Eric Bogle's songs about the Great War within the geographies and socio-cultural contexts in which they were written and consumed. From Anzac Day in Australia and Turkey to the 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland and from small Aboriginal communities in the Coorong to the influence of prime ministers and rock stars on a world stage, we are urged to contemplate the nature and importance of popular culture in shaping contemporary notions of history and national identity. It is entirely appropriate that we do so through the words of an artist who Melody Maker described as 'the most important songwriter of our time'.
When Yes ran into problems recording their tenth album in Paris at the end of 1979, it was almost the end. Yet in the 80s, the band rallied, firstly as part of an unlikely collaboration with new wave duo The Buggles, then with 90125, the most successful album of their career, which spawned a number one hit in the USA with 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart'. The band failed to capitalise on this success, however, lingering too long over its successor Big Generator and by the end of the decade, Yes had effectively split into two versions of the same group. With most authors concentrating on the group's 1970s career, Yes in the 1980s looks in forensic detail at this relatively underexamined era of the band's history, featuring rarely seen photos researched by author David Watkinson. The book follows the careers of all nine significant members of the group during a turbulent decade which saw huge highs but also many lows. Not only does it consider the three albums the band itself made across the decade, but also the solo careers and other groups - including Asia, XYZ, The Buggles, Jon and Vangelis and GTR - formed by those musicians as the decade wound towards a reunion of sorts in the early 1990s
This first book in English on the French composer Andre Jolivet (1905-1974) investigates his music, life and influence. A pupil of Varese and colleague of Messiaen in La Jeune France, Jolivet is a major figure in French music of the twentieth century. His music combines innovative language with spirituality, summarised in his self-declared axiom to 'restore music's ancient original meaning when it was the magic and incantatory expression of the sacred in human communities'. The book's contextual introduction is followed by contributions, edited by Caroline Rae, from leading international scholars including the composer's daughter Christine Jolivet-Erlih. These assess Jolivet's output and activities from the 1920s through to his last works, exploring creative process, aesthetic, his relationship with the exotic and influences from literature. They also examine, for the first time, the significance of Jolivet's involvement with the visual arts and his activities as conductor, teacher and critic. A chronology of Jolivet's life and works with details of first performances provides valuable overview and reference. This fascinating and comprehensive volume is an indispensable source for research into French music and culture of the twentieth century.
The Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899-1944) is commonly positioned in the history of twentieth-century music as a representative of Leos Janacek's compositional school and as one of the Jewish composers imprisoned by the Nazis in the concentration camp of Terezin (Theresienstadt). However, the nature of Janacek's influence remains largely unexplained and the focus on the context of the Holocaust tends to yield a one-sided view of Haas's oeuvre. The existing scholarship offers limited insight into Haas's compositional idiom and does not sufficiently explain the composer's position with respect to broader aesthetic trends and artistic networks in inter-war Czechoslovakia and beyond. This book is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive (albeit necessarily selective) discussion of Haas's music since the publication of Lubomir Peduzzi's 'life and work' monograph in 1993. It provides the reader with an enhanced understanding of Haas's music through analytical and hermeneutical interpretation as well as cultural and aesthetic contextualisation, and thus reveal the rich nuances of Haas's multi-faceted work which have not been sufficiently recognised so far.
First published in 1998, Carley collates twelve essays by an international group of contributors reflects the truly cosmopolitan nature of Delius's life and his music. They reveal the manner in which he absorbed the culture of the nations he came to know, their music, art and literature, and the influences they brought to bare on his own work. Also discussed are some of the often mixed, but rarely equivocal reactions that performances of his music have reactions over the years, with Lionel Carley's in-depth study of the first production of Foleraadet in 1897, and a wide ranging analysis by Don Gillespie and Robert Beckhard of the critical reception of Delius's music in the United States between 1909 and 1920.
The central image of David Bowie's "Life on Mars?" could have been ripped from his own experience: a child sits "hooked to the silver screen," reliving fantastical scenes played out on film. Throughout his life, Bowie was similarly transfixed by the power of film. From his first film role in The Image to his final music video before his death, "Lazarus," Bowie's musical output has long been intrinsically linked to images. Analyzing Bowie's music videos, planned film projects, acting roles, and depictions in film, David Bowie and the Moving Image provides a comprehensive view of Bowie's work with film and informs our understanding of all areas of his work, from music to fashion to visual art. It enters the debate about Bowie's artistic legacy by addressing Bowie as musician, actor, and auteur.
When considered in a broader social context, The Clash stand as one of the most important musical acts in rock history. Original punks who transcended the music's minimalist origins, The Clash lived and breathed the idea that they could change the world with their art. In The Clash: The Only Band That Mattered, respected music critic Sean Egan examines The Clash's career and art through the prism of the uniquely interesting and fractious UK politics of the 1970s and '80s, without which they simply would not have existed. Tackling such subjects as The Clash's self-conscious tussles with their record label, the accusations of selling out that dogged their footsteps, their rivalry with the similarly leaning but less purist Jam, the paradoxical quality of their achieving multiplatinum success, and even whether their denunciations of Thatcherism were proven wrong, Egan has come up with new insights into a much discussed group. Clash fans, Clash haters, social historians, and political students will all find themselves entertained by his thought-provoking conclusions.
The first book-length study in English of composer Mathias Spahlinger, one of Germany’s leading practitioners of contemporary music. One of the most stimulating and provocative figures on the new music scene on Germany, he has long been a touchstone for leftist, ‘critical’ composition there, yet his work has received very little attention in Anglophone scholarship until now. Born in 1944, Spahlinger has risen only gradually to prominence in his native Germany and for many years was considered an outsider within the contemporary music scene. Yet, his position as one of the most venerable exponents of post-WWII modernism in his homeland is now undeniable: his music is regularly performed, he has received commissions from many of the major orchestras and new music groups in Germany, and in 2014 he received the Großen Berliner Kunstpreis (Berlin Art Prize – Grand Prize) from the city’s Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts). Spahlinger is, however, becoming increasingly known as a significant figure within later twentieth-century music – in 2015, a festival in Chicago focused exclusively on his music, and he was a keynote speaker at a conference on Compositional Aesthetics and the Political at Goldsmiths, University of London. This new book provides an essential reference for scholars of new music and twentieth-century modernism. There are no other book-length studies of Spahlinger in English, though there is a monograph and a book of essays in German, and books of interviews. This original work promises a more critical perspective upon the composer and his aesthetics and political ideas compared to previous publications. The illustrations include musical examples. Its primary market will be a specialist musicological readership, including academics, researchers and composers, but the writing style such that it could be accessible also to undergraduates interested in the field. The discussion of aesthetic debates in post-war Germany, and the interesting reading of the work of Jacques Rancière, means that it could also have significant appeal across the disciplines of philosophy and critical theory.
This set of six pieces is based on folk song melodies and dance forms from Transylvania which was annexed to Romania in 1920. The contrasting melodies were originally for violin or shepherd's flute, but the unusual harmonies are original with Bart?k. The performance time for the complete set of dances is approximately 4 minutes, 15 seconds. Included is an outstanding CD recording from the Naxos label.
(FAQ). A half-century after their first single release, "Surfin'," the Beach Boys continue to define California popular culture and the sunshine-infused sound that will forever be its living soundtrack. But beyond innocent harmonies touting the delights of catching waves and cruising to the drive-in, the Beach Boys are responsible for some of the most sophisticated pop/rock music ever made. Brian Wilson's acclaimed production, the 1966 LP Pet Sounds, was both a creative triumph that inspired The Beatles' best work, and a commercial disappointment that was widely misunderstood by the band's U.S. fans. The Beach Boys followed that with perhaps the greatest three-minute rock single ever, "Good Vibrations," which wowed the critics, was a worldwide number one hit, and ushered Brian Wilson down the path of substance abuse and mental illness. Brian then leapt into the abstract madness of Smile, his epic psychedelic masterpiece that was ultimately scrapped in a 1967 sea of paranoia that nearly drowned the Beach Boys as an act. As the 1970s dawned, the endless summer of nostalgia designated the Beach Boys as its favorite sons. They recorded a critically lauded string of albums even while coping with the knowledge that their creative leader, Brian Wilson, had become a semipermanent recluse and a casualty of his own excess. Still, the Beach Boys continued through controversy, conflict, and death, rising again and again to find more popularity and more commercial peaks into the 1980s and beyond. As the new millennium unfolds, the Beach Boys are still here and continue to be a popular concert attraction and one of rock's most compelling and important stories. In The Beach Boys FAQ, Jon Stebbins explains how the band impacted music and pop culture. This entertaining, fast-moving tome is accompanied by dozens of rare images, making this volume a must-have for fans.
Before we recorded Infernal Love, I didn t know if I was coming or going. I developed quite a healthy drug habit and was drinking a bottle of Absolut vodka every day. I thought that if I gave up drinking, I d spend the next two weeks lying in bed and feeling sick. I decided to keep going and see if inspiration would hit - Andy Cairns, Therapy? So Much For The 30 Year Plan is the first ever book to detail the life of Therapy?, one of rock s boldest and most idiosyncratic acts. Written with the full co-operation of the band s current members frontman Andy Cairns, bassist Michael McKeegan, and drummer Neil Cooper this official biography explores the dizzying highs and crushing lows they have experienced while navigating a three-decade-long career. Featuring extensive interviews with the band and key figures from throughout their career, So Much For The 30 Year Plan offers insights into the band s origins in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, the backlash they received from the underground scene after signing to a major label, the birth of their million-selling 1994 album Troublegum, the full story behind their split with founding member Fyfe Ewing, and much more. Published to coincide with the band s 30th anniversary tour, this is essential reading for all Therapy? fans and for anyone with an interest in the alternative music of the era.
In this autobiography Billy J. Kramer (born William Ashton) tells his rags to riches story, from his working class childhood in Liverpool to the racy world of international pop music. Managed by Brian Epstein, produced by George Martin, and friend, confidante and colleague of the Beatles, Kramer gives a definitive insider's account of the birth of the Liverpool sound and also the "British Invasion" of the USA. But there are dark secrets in the Kramer story. Before he reached his twenties, he was in the grip of drugs and alcohol, and there were constant tensions between him and his backing band, the Dakotas. When the screaming stopped, he reinvented himself as a cabaret performer, and some of his best records were made in the years he was out of the limelight. With a young family, drink and pills made his domestic life, and eventually his professional life, a struggle. In this no-holds-barred account, Kramer brings to life the vibrancy of the sixties. He then reveals how he exorcised his demons and forged a new career in the United States. He assembles his current band, shows a growing mastery of songwriting, and returns to national tours of Britain and the USA, keeping the flame of the Mersey sound alive. The lifetime of experience he brings to his new songs infuses every page of this enthralling read.
'A fine, intellectually sparkling and always engaging little book - a welcome addition to any Wagner library' Hans Vaget, Opera Quarterly. Whilst no one would dispute Wagner's ranking among the most significant composers in the history of Western music, his works have been more fiercely attacked than those of any other composer. His supposed personal defects have provoked intense hostility which has translated into a mistrust and abhorrence of his music. Tanner's fascination for the relationship between music, text and plot generates and illuminating discussion of the operas, in which he persuades us to see many of Wagner's best-know works afresh. His passionate and unconventional analyses are accessible to all lovers of music, be they listeners or performers.
From Gilbert and Sullivan to Andrew Lloyd Webber, from Julie Andrews to Hugh Jackman, from Half a Sixpence to Matilda, Pick a Pocket Or Two is the story of the British musical: where it began and how it developed. In Pick a Pocket Or Two, acclaimed author Ethan Mordden brings his wit and wisdom to bear in telling the full history of the British musical, from The Beggar's Opera (1728) to the present, with an interest in isolating the unique qualities of the form and its influence on the American model. To place a very broad generalization, the American musical is regarded as largely about ambition fulfilled, whereas the British musical is about social order. Oklahoma!'s Curly wins the heart of the farmer Laurey-or, in other words, the cowboy becomes a landowner, establishing a truce between the freelancers on horseback and the ruling class. Half a Sixpence, on the other hand, finds a working-class boy coming into a fortune and losing it to fancy Dans, whereupon he is reunited with his working-class sweetheart, his modest place in the social order affirmed. Anecdotal and evincing a strong point of view, the book covers not only the shows and their authors but the personalities as well-W. S. Gilbert trying out his stagings on a toy theatre, Ivor Novello going to jail for abusing wartime gas rationing during World War II, fabled producer C. B. Cochran coming to a most shocking demise for a man whose very name meant "classy, carefree entertainment." Unabashedly opinionated and an excellent stylist, author Ethan Mordden provokes as much as he pleases. Mordden is the preeminent historian of the form, and his book will be required reading for readers of all walks, from the most casual of musical theater goers to musical theater buffs to students and scholars of the form. |
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