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Books > Music > Composers & musicians
Austrian conductor Hans Rosbaud was a leading figure in European musical life from the late 1920s until his death in 1962. Internationally respected as a conductor of Mozart and Haydn, Bruckner and Mahler, his posthumous reputation rests primarily on his standard-setting performances of modern music. In this complete research tool, musicologist Joan Evans brings together all the materials vital for a full assessment of his career. The eminent composer and conductor Pierre Boulez presents his personal recollections of Rosbaud in a foreword. Because Rosbaud's primary sphere of activity was radio, he made relatively few commercial recordings, but his broadcast recordings number in the hundreds. Evans carefully documents all commercial and private recordings, also providing a biography of the conductor, a section of first performances and an annotated bibliography comprising books, articles, record and concert reviews, radio interviews, and documentary broadcasts. A career chronology appears as an appendix, and a description of his musical compositions and other papers, as well as a list of the works he conducted at the annual Donaueschingen Festival, comprise further appendixes. All sections are fully cross referenced and indexed, thereby providing ready access to this wealth of data.
By bringing together the most recent scholarship, this book sheds new light on Berg's life and music. The three main sections are each devoted to a particular genre. The first essay in each section surveys Berg's development within the genre concerned, whilst the subsequent chapters discuss particular works in more detail. An introductory section to the book sets Berg's music in the context of other artistic and musical developments of the period from 1890 to the 1930s.
"The writing of 'The Courage Machine, ' which covers ten years, was retarded by illness. For a long time I lived beside death. But I had a presentiment that something essential -- something foreseen in New York -- would develop for me during these last years. I was not mistaken. "This book follows an evolution which, for me, is not a curve but an ascending line. There is a beginning and an end; a new beginning, an advance, and a new search; then again an advance -- but this time on an essential plane, where the great events are inner ones." Georgette Leblanc's first encounter with the celebrated mystic, teacher and philosopher, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, was the turning point of her life. Impressed by his vast knowledge and "unknown doctrine," she attended his Institute at the Chateau du Prieure in Fontainebleau-Avon for two years. From then on, she continued to live according to his principles, absorbing his doctrine more and more deeply. Her effort to incorporate what she had assimilated during her years with Gurdjieff is recorded in the last part of the book.
Stephen Morris has had a distinguished career, spanning nearly forty years, as a pivotal member of Joy Division and New Order with his trademark machine-like drumming. After the death of Joy Division's singer, Ian Curtis, in 1980, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Morris and his wife Gillian formed New Order, one of the most critically acclaimed and influential bands of the late twentieth century. New Order became the flagship band for Tony Wilson's Factory Records and, alongside him, opened the infamous Hacienda nightclub, the centre of the acid house movement. In 2015, after a ten-year hiatus, New Order released Music Complete; which charted at #2 in its first week of release (the band's highest position in over twenty years). Stephen's book won't be that typical music autobiography, which tends to be high on mischief and low on the music. Part memoir, part visual scrapbook, part aural history, it will be a hybrid memoir in Stephen's wry and witty voice. Stephen will weave a dual narrative of growing up in the North West during the 1970s with how the music actually works. It will also explore what it is to be part of a mythologised band and the idea of what you do becoming who you are.
Selected and arranged by the author, How To Be Invisible presents the lyrics of Kate Bush in a beautiful new paperback edition featuring a new cover by illustrator Jim Kay. 'The greatest singer-songwriter of the past 40 years, whose work is complex, ethereal and filled with so many secrets that one can listen to the albums for decades and still discover new delights every time [. . .] There's not a spare word anywhere in Bush's work. Everything means something.' Irish Times
In this first comprehensive examination of the music of the most prolific Bach son, David Schulenberg offers new perspectives on the career, style, and originality of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Of Bach's four sons who became composers, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-88) was the most prolific, the most original, and the most influential both during and after his lifetime. This is the first comprehensive study of his music, examining not only the famous keyboard sonatas and concertos but also the songs, the chamber music, and the sacred works, many of which resurfaced only recently and have not previously been evaluated. A compositional biography,the book surveys C. P. E. Bach's extensive output of nearly a thousand works while tracing his musical development-from his student days at Leipzig and Frankfurt (Oder), through his nearly three decades as court musician to Prussian King Frederick "the Great," to his final twenty years as cantor and music director at Hamburg. David Schulenberg, author of important books on the music of J. S. Bach and his first son, W. F. Bach, here considers the legacy of the second son from a compelling new perspective. Focusing on C. P. E. Bach's compositional choices within his social and historical context, Schulenberg shows how C. P. E. Bach deliberately avoided his father's style whileborrowing from the manner of his Berlin colleagues, who were themselves inspired by Italian opera. Schulenberg also shows how C. P. E. Bach, now best known for his virtuoso keyboard works, responded to changing cultural and aesthetic trends by refashioning himself as a writer of vocal music and popular chamber compositions. Audio versions of the book's musical examples, as well as further examples and supplementary tables and texts, are available on a companion website. David Schulenberg is professor of music at Wagner College and teaches historical performance at the Juilliard School. He is the author of The Music of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (University of Rochester Press, 2010).
John Lenwood McLean - sugar free saxophonist from Sugar Hill, Harlem - is widely known as one of the finest, most consistent soloists in jazz history. From early in his career Jackie's powerful, unsentimental, sometimes astringent sound and inventive style made audiences and critics sit up and listen. Steeped in - but eventually moving well beyond - the influence of his mentor and friend Charlie Parker, he built an attractive, instantly recognisable musical personality. As author Derek Ansell says, his career trajectory is far from the typical jazz story of the tragic artist in which early brilliance leads to later decline. McLean's story is one of glorious triumph over the drug addiction that affected so many of his friends and might have destroyed him. Able to produce uniformly fine recordings through the darkest periods of his personal life, he saw his reputation as a musician steadily grow and became not only a living legend as an improviser but a much respected educator whose students carry on his legacy. Fortunately, McLean's discography is large and Derek Ansell is a surefooted guide through the recordings, presenting them in the context in which they were made and indicating the special gems among a vast body of recorded work that is one of jazz's greatest treasures.
This book, first published in 1934, contains the recollections of the varied and coloured life of a great pianist and composer, who is one of the most striking figures of the musical world. Rachmaninoff dictated his memoires to the author of this book, and much of the story is therefore told in the first person. The final chapter is Riesemann's own contribution. It is an estimate of Rachmaninoff's qualities as composer; it shows knowledge of all his more important works; and it shows discrimination. The whole book is an authoritative and interesting study of a popular artist.
This book is the authorized chronicle of the Atlanta Rhythm Section, the legendary southern rock band that created such memorable hits as "Champagne Jam," "So Into You," "Imaginary Lover," "Spooky," and "Doraville." Already seasoned studio professionals when they formed in 1970, the A.R.S. forged a new direction in southern rock by focusing on the integrity of their music onstage and in the studio. Through platinum and gold albums-A Rock and Roll Alternative, Champagne Jam, and Underdog-as well as international tours, huge outdoor concerts, and personnel changes, the band has staunchly maintained its dedication to its craft over the decades. This story contains recollections from original and current band members, producers, technicians, other musicians, and fans, as well as more than 120 photos of band members from the early days as backup musicians for Roy Orbison and other iconic artists to the present day.
A brief, detailed biography of the composer/architect, student and protege of Honegger, Milhaud, Messiaen, Le Corbusier. Xenakis himself is a major proponent of advancing the boundaries of musical possibilities.
Carole King's early compositional work in the 1970s paved the way for many women songwriters of popular music. Among her best-known compositions are You've Got a Friend, Up on the Roof, Will You Love Me Tomorrow? and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman. This reference encompasses Carole King's musical career from her compositions in the early 1960s through the 1990s, including her recently composed My One True Friend for the film "One True Thing" and Anyone at All for the film "You've Got Mail." A brief biography of Carole King, which includes a critical analysis of her music, precedes an extensive discography of 1,275 recording entries and bibliography sections. Popular music scholars, along with Carole King fans, will appreciate this detailed source of available research materials on Carole King. The discography is divided into three sections: a performance discography, a miscellaneous discography, and a composition discography. Separate bibliographies cover writings, such as reviews, that focus on King's recordings, a general bibliography, and a brief bibliography of electronic resources. A filmography and videography are also included.
With "Thank You Music Lovers," Greenwood Press continues to expand its excellent series of discographies. Meticulously researched and exhaustively detailed, this volume chronicles the career of Spike Jones and his City Slickers from 1941 to 1965. Although subtitled a biodiscography, Mirtle's book is primarily a chronology of recordings, playdates, and radio and television shows. . . . Mirtle's book has a selective bibliography, indexes to the band's personnel, tunes played and recorded, and LP issues. Three appendixes contain further miscellaneous information. . . . "Choice"
After a string of commercial disappointments, in 1986 Australian rock band The Church were simultaneously dropped by Warner Brothers in the US and EMI in Australasia. The future looked bleak. Seemingly from nowhere, their next record, Starfish, became an unlikely global hit. Its alluring and pensive lead single, 'Under the Milky Way', stood in stark contrast to the synth pop and hair metal dominating the 1980s. A high watermark of intelligent rock, Starfish musically anticipated alternative revolutions to come. Yet in making Starfish, The Church struggled with their internal contradictions. Seeking both commercial and artistic success, they were seduced by fame and drugs but cynical towards the music industry. Domiciled in Australia but with a European literary worldview, they relocated to Los Angeles to record under strained circumstances in the heart of the West Coast hit machine. This book traces the story of Starfish, its background, composition, production and reception. To the task, Gibson brings an unusual perspective as both a musician and a geographer. Drawing upon four decades of media coverage as well as fresh interviews between the author and band members, this book delves into the mysteries of this mercurial classic, tracing both its slippery cultural geography and its sumptuous songcraft. Situating Starfish in time and space, Gibson transports the reader to a key album and moment in popular music history when the structure and politics of the record industry was set to forever change.
A pathbreaking study of the Parisian press's attempts to claim Richard Wagner's place in French history and imagination during the unstable and conflict-ridden years of the Third Reich. Richard Wagner was a polarizing figure in France from the time that he first entered French musical life in the mid nineteenth century. Critics employed him to symbolize everything from democratic revolution to authoritarian antisemitism. During periods of Franco-German conflict, such as the Franco-Prussian War and World War I, Wagner was associated in France with German nationalism and chauvinism. This association has led to the assumption that, with the advent of the Third Reich, the French once again rejected Wagner. Drawing on hundreds of press sources and employing close readings, this book seeks to explain a paradox: as the German threat grew more tangible from 1933, the Parisian press insisted on seeing in Wagner a universality that transcended his Germanness. Repudiating the notion that Wagner stood for Germany, French critics attempted to reclaim his role in their own national history and imagination. Claiming Wagner for France: Music and Politics in the Parisian Press, 1933-1944 reveals how the concept of a universal Wagner, which was used to challenge the Nazis in the 1930s, was gradually transformed into the infamous collaborationist rhetoric promoted by the Vichy government and exploited by the Nazis between 1940 and 1944. Rachel Orzech's study offers a close examination of Wagner's place in France's cultural landscape at this time, contributing to our understanding of how the French grappled with one of the most challenging periods in their history.
Despite his premature death in 1982, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould remains extraordinarily influential in contemporary music. Known especially for his interpretations of Bach and a wide range of classical, romantic, and twentieth-century composers, Gould was also an accomplished composer and conductor, as well as provocative lecturer, writer, and critic. His music remains vital on recordings, and his published writings, and taped radio documentaries and television specials are available for archival research. Canning's A Glenn Gould Catalog provides a detailed roadmap to his career as performer, conductor, composer, host, guest, narrator, writer, and producer. The volume's main catalog, organized by composer, documents Gould's commercial discography and Canadian public radio and television recordings with detailed information, including: recording dates and location, release or broadcast date, commercial catalog and internal matrix numbers, album or broadcast name, producer(s), and various notes. The Musical Repertoire and Recording Chronicle sections provide access to the recordings by composition and opus number and by recording data respectively. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Archives section lists Gould's radio and television programs by date, and other chronologies are included for his Sony Catalog, Other Commercial Releases, and Unreleased Recordings. A bibliography of Gould's published writings and a bibliographical note on writings about Gould complete the volume. Carefully documented, cross-referenced, and indexed, the Glenn Gould Catalog constitutes an autobiographical outline of Gould's career through his works. It is an important resource for research and a valuableadjunct to published biographies and critical studies. The compiler's lively introductory material is augmented by photographs and interview commentary from Gould's colleagues.
Offering a unique glimpse into the Gram Parsons legend that has never been offered before this book is the inside story by his bandmate and travelling partner from the The International Submarine Band. Set between September 1965 and June 1968 it follows Gram Parsons as he begins to create country rock and he and the band embark upon an exasperating upstream journey, swimming against a tide of opposition, rejection and astonishment from the establishment. With a cast of characters including Gram Parsons, David Crosby, Peter Fonda, Denis Hopper, Arthur Lee, and Hugh Masekela this is more than a music book, it's a vivid swirling trip across a vanished America.
Music scholarship has been rethinking its understanding of Franz Schubert and his work. How might our modern aesthetic values and historical knowledge of Schubert's life affect how we interpret his music? Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation demonstrates how updated analysis of Schubert and his instrumental works reveals expressive meaning. In six chapters, each devoted to one or two of Schubert's pieces, René Rusch explores alternate forms of unity and coherence, offers critical assessments of biographical and intertextual influence, investigates narrative, and addresses the gendering of the composer and his music. Rusch's comparative analyses and interpretations address four significant areas of scholarly focus in Schubert studies, including his use of chromaticism, his unique forms, the impact of events in his own life, and the influence of Beethoven. Drawing from a range of philosophical, hermeneutic, historical, biographical, theoretical, and analytical sources, Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation offers readers a unique and innovative foray into the poetics of contemporary analysis of Schubert's instrumental music and develops new ways to engage with his repertoire.
Jimi Hendrix has been for sure a unique guitarist and a master of rock music, who, with his early death, aged 27, entered the Rock'n'roll Hall of Fame with all the glory it takes. The never-heard-before result of his continuous improvement was contained in just three albums "Are You Experienced?", "Axis: Bold as Love" and "Electric Ladyland". A deep focus on the three most important years of Hendrix's career, closely followed by Assante, skilled author and real expert on rock music. Unedited photos, quotes, legendary interviews and deep research to outline the iconic figure of this rock legend.
In this companion volume to Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff contextualises his famous subject by delving deeply into the composer's rich collection of music. Emerging from this complex and massive oeuvre, Bach's Musical Universe is a focused discussion of a meaningful selection of compositions. Unlike any previous study, this book details Bach's creative process across the various instrumental and vocal genres, and centres on what the composer himself judiciously presented in carefully designed benchmark collections and individual works-all consequential to Bach's musical art. Tracing Bach's evolution as a composer, Wolff compellingly illuminates the ideals and legacy of this giant of classical music in a new, refreshing light for everyone, from the amateur to the virtuoso.
To mark the first issue of this exciting new journal, Liverpool University Press are publishing a commemorative paperback edition of The Journal of Beatles Studies which will be available alongside the Open Access Journal edition. The Journal of Beatles Studies is the first journal to establish The Beatles as an object of academic research, and will publish original, rigorously researched essays, notes, as well as book and media reviews. The journal aims are; to provide a voice to new and emerging research locating the Beatles in new contexts, groups and communities from within and beyond academic institutions; to inaugurate, innovate, interrogate and challenge narrative, cultural historical and musicological tropes about the Beatles as both subject and object of study; to publish original and critical research from Beatles scholars around the globe and across disciplines. The Journal of Beatles Studies establishes a scholarly focal point for critique, dialogue and exchange on the nature, scope and value of The Beatles as an object of academic enquiry and seeks to examine and assess the continued economic value and cultural values generated by and around The Beatles, for policy makers, creative industries and consumers. The journal also seeks to approach The Beatles as a prism for accessing insight into wider historical, social and cultural issues.
The Jam - Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler - were the ultimate 'angry young men' of pop. Leading the Mod Revival of the 1970s in thrilling new directions, their tight live shows, razor-sharp style and perfectly crafted songs earned them a devoted following and a string of number one hits. By 1982 The Jam were bigger than ever, but the pressure of success was taking its toll. At the peak of their powers, Paul Weller made the shock decision that was far from welcomed by the rest of the group, let alone the fans: The Jam were to split up and go their separate ways. This richly illustrated and revealing oral history of their final year, led principally by the voice of drummer Rick Buckler, contains a number of previously unseen images and untold stories, taking us from the recording and release of their final studio album, The Gift, to The Jam's last appearances together. In addition to Buckler's memories of the time, The Jam 1982 also brings together testimonies from Gary Crowley, producer Peter Wilson, A&R manager Dennis Munday, photographer Neil ‘Twink’ Tinning, Eddie Piller, Paolo Hewitt, Mat Osman, Belle Stars singer Jennie Matthias (‘The Bitterest Pill’), touring musicians Jamie Telford and Steve Nichol and others, to tell the tale of a single, fateful year: the year The Jam, for better or worse, went out at the very top of their game.
(Amadeus). This first, authorized biography of one of the 20th century's greatest violinists chronicles the life of Michael Rabin from his young boyhood to his premature death at the age of 35. By his teen years in the 1950s, he had already joined the ranks of violin greats and he was being compared to Heifetz, Milstein, Stern, and Francescatti. Lovingly detailed, rich in music history and drama, this biography documents the many forces that shaped Rabin's extraordinary life and career, from his meteoric rise to his surprising decline. Feinstein charts Rabin's many artistic successes, as well as his struggles to make the transition from wunderkind to adult virtuoso, and sheds light on the true reasons for his fall from grace, debunking the many rumors that surrounded him during that time. Feinstein also clarifies the facts relating to Rabin's sudden death. What emerges is a unique profile of a prodiginous talent and a tragic life.
The book comprises a selection of some 750 letters of the composer,
Ralph Vaughan Williams, selected from an extant corpus of about
3,300. The letters are arranged chronologically and have been
chosen to provide a cumulative pen-picture of the composer in his
own words. In general the letters reflect VW's major
preoccupations: musical, personal and political. It was not VW's
way to discuss his inner creative processes but he does discuss his
music, once it had been written: for example there is much to
illustrate the process of 'washing the face' of his major pieces
before, and after, they had reached the concert platform. There is
correspondence with collaborators such as Gilbert Murray, Harold
Child and Evelyn Sharpe who provided texts; with his publishers
(mainly OUP) about printing scores and parts; with conductors such
as Adrian Boult and John Barbirolli about performances. He was in
regular correspondence with fellow composers such as Gustav Holst,
George Butterworth, Gerald Finzi, Herbert Howells, John Ireland,
Alan Bush and Rutland Boughton. There were his pupils: Elizabeth
Maconchy and Cedric Thorpe Davie amongst others. A series of close
personal friendships is well represented: his Cambridge
contemporary and cousin Ralph Wedgwood, Edward Dent, and latterly
Michael Kennedy. Above all there are insights on his lifelong
devotion to his first wife, Adeline, and his growing friendship
with Ursula Wood, who was to become his second wife. |
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