This detailed exploration looks at the musical works of recording artist Billy Joel and his impact on popular culture. Billy Joel skyrocketed to popularity in 1977 with his fifth album, The Stranger, and he has been a major American artist ever since. His songs are timeless and appreciated by generations of fans. The Words and Music of Billy Joel examines this influential musician's songs in detail, exploring the meaning of the lyrics and placing Joel's artistry in a regional and cultural context. Covering work that ranges from Joel's recordings with the Lost Souls to his classical compositions, the book focuses on the dozen studio albums of popular music released between 1971 and 1993. A bibliographic essay is included, as are both a discography and a filmography. There is also a special focus on the interpretation of Joel's songs by other recording artists. Photographs A discography of Joel's recordings including albums and singles A selected discography of cover versions of Joel's songs by other recording artists A filmography A bibliography of significant books and articles about Billy Joel and his work A bibliographic essay

Liszt's Final Decade reveals in the composer's own words to his confidantes Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein and Olga von Meyendorff how he resolved his conflicted self-image as a celebrated performer but underappreciated composer. Toward the end of his life Franz Liszt maintained extensive correspondence with two women who were at the time his closest confidantes, Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein and Olga von Meyendorff. Liszt wrote to them regularly, expressing his intimate feelings about personal and career events and his conflicted self-image as a celebrated performer but underappreciated composer. Absent a diary, the letters offer the most direct avenue into Liszt's psyche in hisfinal years. Liszt's Final Decade explores through these letters the mind and music of one of the nineteenth century's most popular musicians, providing insight into Liszt's melancholia in his last years and his struggle to gain recognition for his music yet avoid criticism. The exchange indicates that Liszt ultimately resolved his inner conflict through a personally constructed Christian moral philosophy that embraced positive resignation to suffering, compassionate love, and trust in a just reward to come. The book also examines how Liszt's late sacred compositions affirm the yielding of suffering to joy and hope. Significantly, Liszt viewed these works, commonly overlooked today, as a major part of his compositional legacy. This volume thus challenges the idea of a single "late" Lisztian style and the notion that despair overwhelmed the composer in his final years. We are pleased to announce that Liszt's Final Decade is the winner of the 2017 Alan Walker Book Award, given by the American Liszt Society. Dolores Pesce is the Avis Blewett Professor of Music in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

A TAROT DECK FOR MUSIC LOVERS with the biggest stars representing the cards' meanings AN ACCESSIBLE ENTRY TO TAROT or an exciting new addition to a card collection CULT FAVOURITES AND BIG STARS: there's something for fans of every genre STUNNING ILLUSTRATIONS with more to find on every reading INCLUDES A BOOKLET that unpacks the meanings of the cards and explains how to conduct your own readings Tune into your inner wisdom with this unique tarot deck inspired by cult music icons. Inside you'll find musicians who perfectly encapsulate the tarot card meanings: Lorde is the Fool, Prince is the Emperor and David Byrne is the Hermit. The 78 cards work as a fully functional tarot deck, and the kit also includes a booklet with more information about the musicians, as well as information on how to interpret the cards and conduct your own readings.

This is a guide to research on the great composer, Maurice Ravel. It includes over 2000 annotated entries of the scholarly literature on Ravel, including catalogues, facsimilies of autographs, music editions, textual criticism, bibliographies, monographs, articles, and dissertations covering his life and music.

A complete biographical reference work covering all aspects of the classical music world.
* Over 8,000 detailed biographical entries
* Coverage of the classical and light classical fields
* Entries range from composers to conductors and managers
* Up-and-coming musicians as well as well-established names.
Key features include:
* Profiles composers, musicians, singers, arrangers, writers, conductors, soloists and managers throughout the world
* Includes listings of orchestras and festivals
* Lists music libraries, conservatoires, music organizations and opera companies
* Details major competitions and awards
* Lists Masters of the King's/Queen's music.

This book is the first biography of 20th-century pianist Rudolf Serkin, providing a narrative of Serkin's life with emphasis on his European roots and the impact of his move to America. With the help of interviews, the authors focus on three key aspects of Serkin's work, particularly as it unfolded in America: his art and career as a pianist, his activities as a pedagogue, including his long association with the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and his key role in institutionalizing a redefinition of musical values in America through his work as artistic director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Vermont. The book concludes with a discography by Paul Farber that documents an essential part of Serkin's achievement.

Robert Plant is one of the few genuine living rock legends. Frontman of Led Zeppelin, musical innovator and seller of millions of records, Plant has had a profound influence on music for over four decades. But the full account of his life has barely been told ... until now. Robert Plant: A Life is the first complete and comprehensive telling of Plant's story. From his earliest performances in folk clubs in the early 1960s, to the world's biggest stages as Led Zeppelin's self-styled 'Golden God', and on to his emergence as an emboldened solo star. The sheer scale of Zeppelin's success is extraordinary: in the US alone they sold 70 million records, a figure surpassed only by the Beatles. But their success was marred by tragedy. These pages contain first-hand accounts of Plant's greatest highs and deepest lows: the tragic deaths of his son Karac and his friend, Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Told in vivid detail, this is the definitive story of a man of great talent, remarkable fortitude and extraordinary conviction.

The first full-length volume on the life work of one of the most well-known and prolific masters of our time, "William Thomas McKinley: A Bio-Bibliography" provides both musicologists and performers with a guide toward further exploration of the composer and his music. Included within are a complete biography on McKinley, the man and performer; a discography of both McKinley's compositions and his performances; and an in-depth catalog of his works. Each entry of the catalog contains a complete manuscript description, a detailed listing of any sketches or drafts which exist, a piece-specific bibliography, a complete performance history, and editorial notes. Also included are the composer's own writings about his works in the form of his program notes. Program notes by other authors are included as well, as they are the product of interviews with the composer.

The book has been organized with easy access and a larger audience of performers, musicologists, and other interested parties firmly in mind. The works numbering system has been completely restructured from previous bio-bibliographies in order to provide performers with quicker access to works for their particular instrument or group of instruments. Works are cross-listed in several ways and the book is thoroughly indexed, making for easy information access.

Indispensable reading for historians and musicologists as well as those interested in Wagner's philosophy and the aesthetics of music. Despite the enormous and accelerating worldwide interest in Wagner leading to the bicentenary of his birth in 2013, his prose writings have received scant scholarly attention. Wagner's book-length essay on Beethoven, written to celebrate the centenary of Beethoven's birth in 1870, is really about Wagner himself rather than Beethoven. It is generally regarded as the principal aesthetic statement of the composer's later years, representing a reassessment ofthe ideas of the earlier Zurich writings, especially Oper und Drama, in the light of the experience gained through the composition of Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg and the greater part of DerRing des Nibelungen. It contains Wagner's most complete exegesis of his understanding of Schopenhauer's philosophy and its perceived influence on the compositional practice of his later works. The essay also influenced the young Nietzsche. It is an essential text in the teaching of not only Wagnerian thought but also late nineteenth-century musical aesthetics in general. Until now the English reader with no access to the German original has been obliged to work from two Victorian translations. This brand new edition gives the German original and the newly translated English text on facing pages. It comes along with a substantial introduction placing the essay not onlywithin the wider historical and intellectual context of Wagner's later thought but also in the political context of the establishment of the German Empire in the 1870s. The translation is annotated throughout with a full bibliography. Richard Wagner's Beethoven will be indispensable reading for historians and musicologists as well as those interested in Wagner's philosophy and the aesthetics of music. ROGER ALLEN is Fellow and Tutor in Music at St Peter's College, Oxford.

This lavishly illustrated hard back book tells the incredible story of Francis Albert Frank Sinatra and begins in Hoboken New Jersey on December 12th 1915 where Frank is born the only child of Italian immigrants. Beginning his musical career in the swing era as a boy singer with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra found success as a solo artist from the early 1940s after being signed by Columbia Records in 1943. Sinatra became one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide including the hits New York New York, My Way and Strangers in the Night. He was a founding member of the Rat Pack with Sammy Davis Junior and Dean Martin. Sinatra won an Academy Award for his performance in From Here to Eternity. He starred in a number of musicals including On the Town, Guys and Dolls and High Society. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. One of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century, Sinatra had a popularity that was later matched only by Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Michael Jackson. He has been called the greatest singer of the 20th Century.

A complete biographical reference work covering all aspects of the classical music world.
* Over 8,000 detailed biographical entries
* Covers the classical and light classical fields
* Entries range from composers to conductors and managers
* Includes up-and-coming musicians as well as well-established names
Contents include:
* Profiles of composers, musicians, singers, arrangers, writers, conductors, soloists and managers throughout the world
* Listings of orchestras and festivals
* Lists of music libraries, conservatoires, music organizations and opera companies
* Details of major competitions and awards
* Lists of Masters of the King's/Queen's music

Daphne Oram (1925-2003) was one of the central figures in the development of British experimental electronic music. Having declined a place at the Royal College of Music to become a music balancer at the BBC, she went on to become the co-founder and first director of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Oram left the BBC in 1959 to pursue commercial work in television, advertising, film and theatre, to make her own music for recording and performance, and to continue her personal research into sound technology - a passion she had had since her childhood in rural Wiltshire. Her home, a former oasthouse in Kent, became an unorthodox studio and workshop in which, mostly on a shoestring budget, she developed her pioneering equipment, sounds and ideas. A significant part of her personal research was the invention of a machine that offered a new form of sound synthesis - the Oramics machine. Oram's contribution to electronic music is receiving considerable attention from new generations of composers, sound engineers, musicians, musicologists and music lovers around the world. Following her death, the Daphne Oram Trust was established to preserve and promote her work, life and legacy, and an archive created in the Special Collections Library at Goldsmiths, University of London. One of the Trust's ambitions has been to publish a new edition of Oram's one and only book, An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics, which was originally published in 1972. With support from the Daphne Oram Archive, the Trust has now been able to realize this ambition. An Individual Note is both curious and remarkable. When commissioned to write a book, she was keen to avoid it becoming a manual or how-to guide, preferring instead to use the opportunity to muse on the subjects of music, sound and electronics, and the relationships between them. At a time when the world was just starting to engage with electronic music and the technology was still primarily in the hands of music studios, universities, and corporations, her approach was both innovative and inspiring, encouraging anyone with an interest in music to think about the nature, capabilities and possibilities that the new sounds could bring. And her thinking was not limited to just the future of the orchestra, synthesizer, computer and home studio, but ventured, with great spirit and wit, into other realms of science, technology, culture and thought. An Individual Note is a playful yet compelling manifesto for the dawn of electronic music and for our individual capacity to use, experience and enjoy it. This new edition of An Individual Note features a specially commissioned introduction from the British composer, performer, roboticist and sound historian Sarah Angliss.

The desire to voice the artistic revelation of the truth of a precarious, multi-faceted, yet integrated self lies behind much of Szymanowski's work. This self is projected through the voices of deities who speak languages of love. The unifying figure is Eros, who may be embodied as Dionysus, Christ, Narcissus or Orpheus, and the gospel he proclaims tells of the resurrection and freedom of the desiring subject. This book examines Szymanowski's exploration of the relationship between the authorial voice, mythology and eroticism within the context of the crisis of the modern subject in Western culture. Stephen Downes analyses mythological and erotic aspects of selected songs from the composer's early career, moving to an interpretation of the voice of the homoerotic lover, embodied as a mad muezzin, in terms of heroic notions of Orphic elegy. Discussing the encounters of King Roger with the voices of Narcissus, the Siren and Dionysus, Downes shows how the composer uses the unifying Christ/Eros figure as a means of indicating that the King might be transformed from anguished despot to loving expressive subject. The book ends with an examination of Szymanowski's desire to fuse Slavonic and Middle-Eastern mythological inspirations in an attempt to fulfil a utopian vision of a pan-European culture bound together by the spirit of Eros.

Provides biographical details on some of the most talented, influential and up-and-coming artists and individuals from the world of popular music.
Now in its fully-updated and revised fifth edition, this title includes over 5,000 biographies charting the achievements and careers of pop, rock, folk, jazz, dance, world and country artists throughout the world.
Features include:
* Over 5,000 alphabetically arranged entries containing full biographical information: major career details, concerts, recordings and compositions, honours and contact address
* Full contact details for companies and organizations throughout the popular music industry - including record companies, management agencies, agents and promoters
* Lists of key festivals and musical events worldwide, with relevant contact details.

A complete biographical reference work covering all aspects of the classical music world.
* Over 8,000 detailed biographical entries
* Covers the Classical and Light Classical fields
* Entries range from composers to conductors and managers
* Includes up-and-coming musicians as well as well- established names.
Contents
* Profiles composers, musicians, singers, arrangers, writers, conductors, soloists and managers throughout the world
* Includes listings of orchestras and festivals
* Lists music libraries, conservatoires, music organizations and opera companies
* Details major competitions and awards
* Lists Masters of the King's/Queen's music.

The album examined in this book transformed the singer John Farnham from a faded teen pop star into the most popular solo rock performer in Australia, in a career that has lasted for more than 30 years. Whispering Jack remains the top-selling album by an Australian artist in Australia, and constitutes the turning point in Farnham’s bid to achieve credibility as an adult contemporary musician. The first single from the album, ‘You’re the Voice,’ has achieved such iconic status that it is routinely referred to as Australia’s unofficial national anthem. The book examines the album, its context and that history in order to recover a crucial conjuncture in the development of Australian rock and popular music, one that has previously been ignored in Australian popular music studies.

'One of the most rewarding pieces of hip-hop criticism ever written' Jeff Chang 'Brilliant' Giles Peterson 'Will Ashon's dazzling study gets to the heart of hip hop, pop culture and the history of contemporary America. Essential' Matt Thorne 'Each of these chambers contains wonders of history, destiny and mythology' Margo Jefferson Will Ashon tells, in 36 interlinked 'chambers', the story of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and how it changed the world. As unexpected and complex as the album itself, Chamber Music ranges from provocative essays to semi-comic skits, from deep scholarly analysis to satirical celebration, seeking to contextualise, reveal and honour this singularly composite work of art. From the FBI's war on drugs to the porn theatres of 42nd street, from the history of jazz to the future of politics, Chamber Music is an explosive and revelatory new way of writing about music and culture.

Shortly after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death, his widow Constanze sent a manuscript copy of one of his most beloved operas, Die Zauberfloete, to the court of the Elector of Cologne. It was eventually published by Nicolaus Simrock in 1814 as the first full-score edition. However, the question still remains as to why this early copy in her possession diverges from Mozart's autograph in so many libretto details. The Authentic Magic Flute Libretto: Mozart's Autograph or the First Full-Score Edition? investigates the origin and claim to authenticity of the first full-score edition of Die Zauberfloete, drawing attention to the close bond between words and music. Michael Freyhan brings the subtlety of the first edition word setting to the attention of scholars, musicians, and opera-lovers, setting out the evidence for its authenticity and detailing the quest, pursued in 15 countries, for the earliest possible historical sources. Freyhan examines the differences between the first edition and the autograph, discussing the quality of the word-setting-supported by 32 musical examples-and evaluating the relationship of the two texts in terms of language and literature. The following chapters discuss the early history of the autograph, focusing on four alleged owners, its market value, and the misleading catalogue numbering systems seen on the first page. Details of the performance and publication history of the first edition text are followed by a new perspective on the disputed authorship of the libretto, in light of the possible existence of two authentic texts. A concluding chapter discusses Mozart's sketches and working methods, while an appendix traces the character and career of Karl Ludwig Giesecke, one of the writers who claimed ownership of the opera's libretto. The book also includes several photos and the complete first edition libretto, in German and with literal English translation, providing a side-by-side text comparison with the autograph text.

George Gershwin is at once one of America's most popular and least appreciated composers. In this important new work, some of America's leading experts on popular music have contributed articles about Gershwin and the rediscovery of both his songs and his concert music.

Almost fifty years since his passing, the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams continues to captivate audiences around the world, evoking the sound and spirit of folksong, and the image of rural landscape. In Vaughan Williams on Music, we read the composer in his own words, as he pursues two related ambitions: to create his own musical language, and to make early twentieth-century England a musical nation. Music lovers, students, and researchers alike will find in this volume a substantial collection of the composer's writings which either went unpublished or have been unavailable since their initial publication. The book contains 102 items written by the composer between 1897 and the year of his death, 1958, including articles for musical magazines, transcripts of broadcasts, obituary notices, and program notes. This wide-ranging material illuminates Vaughan Williams's work as a composer, and highlights his numerous other roles as an active supporter of amateur music-makers, a leader in the folksong revival, educator, performer, campaigner for English music, and polemicist. By addressing a variety of topics, Vaughan Williams reveals the complex and volatile political, musical, and cultural contexts in which he worked over a period of six decades. In these circumstances, Vaughan Williams demonstrates the breadth of his knowledge and the depth of his understanding, and his commitment to communicating with a wide audience. His writings are purposely accessible to reach this audience, permeated with central themes of originality, folksong, a sense of history, and the importance of self-expression. Moreover, the collection reveals the emergence of Vaughan Williams's aesthetics of music during the early 1900s, as he came to terms with the legacy of Brahms and Wagner in order to develop his personal musical idiom. Vaughan Williams on Music is a significant resource for scholars of both British music and the history of British culture, as well as an enjoyable read for all who love Vaughan Williams's music.

Visionary composer, theorist, and creator of musical instruments, Harry Partch (1901-1974) was a leading figure in the development of an indigenously American contemporary music. A pioneer in his explorations of new instruments and new tunings, Partch created multimedia theater works that combine sight and sound in a compelling synthesis. He is acknowledged as a major inspiration to postwar experimental composers as diverse as Gyoergy Ligeti, Lou Harrison, Philip Glass, and Laurie Anderson, and his book Genesis of a Music, first published in 1949, is now considered a classic. This book is the first to tell the complete story of Partch's life and work. Drawing on interviews with many of Partch's associates and on the complete archives of the Harry Partch Estate, Bob Gilmore provides a full and sympathetic portrait of this extraordinary creative artist. He describes Partch's complicated relationships with friends, patrons, the musical establishment, and the world at large. He traces Partch's upbringing in the remote desert towns of the Southwest, his explosive encounter with formal music education in Los Angeles, and his revolutionary course as a composer that began with an interest in the musicality of speech patterns. After immersing himself in hobo subculture during the Depression, Partch came to occupy a lonely and uncompromising position as a cultural outsider. Richly fascinating in themselves, Partch's compositions, writings, and life also have much to reveal about American society and the creative impulses of the artistic avant-garde.

Notation in Johannes Brahms's sonata scores tells violinists and pianists far more than merely what pitches to play and how long to play them-if read carefully, these scores reveal an immense amount of expression, both of musical and human essences. Joel Lester's Brahms's Violin Sonatas magnifies key passages from these scores, revealing in clear and accessible language how the composer built his themes and musical narratives and how, ultimately, Brahms's music came to sound Brahmsian. Through close readings and annotated musical examples, Brahms's Violin Sonatas guides practitioners to read scores with care and to develop their own informed interpretation of the pieces, eschewing the notion of a single "correct" interpretation of the historical score. By exploring not only the sonatas' musical elements, but also their relationship to important events in the composer's life, Lester shows how subtle components can communicate the gestures, moods, personalities, and emotions that make Brahms's music so compelling. A companion volume to the author's award-winning 1999 study Bach's Works for Solo Violin: Style, Structure, and Performance (OUP), Brahms's Violin Sonatas is a clear and practical guide to understanding and performing Brahms's music in the present.

How does musical harmony engage listeners in relations of desire? Where does this desire come from? Author Kenneth Smith seeks to answer these questions by analyzing works from the turn of the twentieth- century that are both harmonically enriched and psychologically complex. Desire in Chromatic Harmony yields a new theory of how chromatic chord progressions direct the listener on intricate journeys through harmonic space, mirroring the tensions of the psyche found in Schopenhauer, Freud, Lacan, Lyotard, and Deleuze. Smith extends this mode of enquiry into sophisticated music theory, while exploring philosophically engaged European and American composers such as Richard Strauss, Alexander Skryabin, Josef Suk, Charles Ives, and Aaron Copland. Focusing on harmony and chord progression, the book drills down into the diatonic undercurrent beneath densely chromatic and dissonant surfaces. From the obsession with death and mourning in Suk's asrael Symphony to an exploration of "perversion" in Strauss's elektra; from the Sufi mysticism of Szymanowski's Song of the Night to the failed fantasy of the American dream in Copland's The Tender Land, Desire in Chromatic Harmony cuts a path through the dense forests of chromatic complexity, revealing the psychological make-up of post-Wagnerian psychodynamic music.