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Books > Music > Composers & musicians
This book is a comprehensive filmography of biographical films
featuring the lives of the great classical composers, including any
figures whose music is likely to be performed in the concert hall
or opera stage. A few of the performances analyzed are Richard
Burton as Richard Wagner, Cornel Wilde as Frederic Chopin, Gary
Oldman as Ludwig van Beethoven, Tom Hulce as Mozart, and Katharine
Hepburn as Clara Schumann. Arranged in alphabetical order by
composer's name, each section begins with a brief evaluation of the
individual and then analyzes the feature films portraying the
composer. Emphasis is given to the factual accuracy of the
screenplay, the validity of the portrayal, and the film's
presentation of the composer's music. The work also includes full
film credits and recommended documentaries about each composer. Two
appendices support the text, one listing films about fictional
composers and the other listing composers on series television. The
work is illustrated with stills and posters and concludes with a
full index.
Hans Keller's text and Milein Cosman's vibrant illustrations
combine to produce a unique and enlightening book on Stravinsky.
Stravinsky the Music-Maker is the third incarnation of a book that
has been greeted with superlatives on each previous appearance.
Hans Keller and Milein Cosman collaborated down the decades of
their married life, Keller'spen analysing music, Cosman's catching
its makers at work. Stravinsky was a source of fascination for them
both, and their Stravinsky at Rehearsal appeared in 1962, to be
expanded, two decades later, as Stravinsky Seen and Heard.
Stravinsky the Music-Maker offers the most generous compilation of
their work yet: it includes Keller's complete articles on
Stravinsky, written between 1954 and 1980, and augments Cosman's
celebrated prints and drawings with a number not previously
published. The introduction, by the composer Hugh Wood, sites the
Keller-Cosman partnership in the framework of the British musical
life they enriched. HANS KELLER (1919-85) fled Austria in1938 and
became a commanding critical voice in British music journalism and
on the BBC from the end of the war until his death. He is the
author of numerous books, many illustrated by his wife Milein
Cosman, including Criticism (Faber), The Great Haydn String
Quartets (Dent), Essays on Music (CUP), Jerusalem Diary, Film Music
and Beyond and Music and Psychology (all Plumbago). A critic of
insight and integrity throughout his life, he remains a powerful
influence to this day.
The life of jazz trumpeter Roland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan
(1908-1942) resembles nothing less than an ancient Greek tragedy: a
heroic figure who rises from obscurity to dizzying heights, touches
greatness, becomes ensnared by circumstances, and comes to a
disastrous early end. Berigan was intimately involved in the
commercial music business of the 1930s and 1940s in New York City.
Berigan was a charismatic performer, one of the few musicians in
the history of jazz to advance the art. His trumpet artistry made a
deep and lasting impression on almost everyone who heard him play,
while the body of recorded work he left continues to evoke a wide
range of emotions in those who hear it. Too often writings about
the Swing Era skip over the interrelationship between the music
business and the music that the giants of jazz created. In Mr.
Trumpet: The Trials, Tribulations, and Triumph of Bunny Berigan,
Michael Zirpolo takes on this difficult task, exploring connections
between the business of music and contemporary music makers and the
culture of social dancing that drove it all. Through detailed
research and insightful analysis, Zirpolo rectifies many heretofore
misunderstood events in Berigan's life and in the Swing Era more
generally. In this panoramic examination of Berigan's personal and
professional lives, Mr. Trumpet maps the great musician's role in
what was a truly golden age of American popular music and jazz,
offering close looks at some of his greatest performances and film
work, comprehensive listings of all known broadcast recordings made
by Berigan and his bands, as well as numerous previously
unpublished photos of the great jazz artist.
This book features the images from Pink Floyd's album sleeves and
promotional material designed for the group. It features almost all
Pink Floyd's iconic album covers, posters, singles bags, a
selection of band photos, booklet pages and rough artwork that
developed into iconic designs. This new edition incorporates an
additional 32 pages of material used in re-issues created since
2007. Storm Thorgerson, who died in 2013, was a world-famous
designer whose memoirs of his time spent with Pink Floyd are
combined with all the artwork he created to represent the band at
each stage of their career. Storm revisited the work he created for
the albums and offers insights into the work that went into the
creation of this legendary album art. Designers who worked with
Storm have all contributed to this new edition of Mind Over Matter.
Amongst the new material is artwork from the Oh By The Way box set,
the Atom Heart Mother 40th Anniversary 'Wire Cow' sculpture, the
Why Pink Floyd? Campaign and the Dark Side Of The Moon 40th
Anniversary images and stickers.
This title was first published in 2003. From 1821 until his death,
Schubert compiled or specially composed for publication 42 song
sets, yet during his own lifetime, and until now, their integrity
and importance as sets have been virtually ignored. In this book,
Michael Hall asserts that these songs sets are not arbitrary
collections, as so often assumed, but highly integrated works in
their own right. Approaching these songs as sets the book throws
light on Schubert's largely undiscussed intellectual
preoccupations. They reveal that he was au fait with most of the
philosophical concerns of his time, especially those which touched
on Romanticism. But although the sets reflect Romanticism in their
topics, Hall maintains that they are the epitome of classical
balance. In encouraging students and performers to approach these
songs as sets, this study aims to alter perceptions of this
important repertory.
This annotated bibliography uncovers the wealth of resources
available on the life and music of John Cage, one of the most
influential and fascinating composers of the twentieth-century. The
guide will focus on documentary studies, archival resources,
scholarly research, and autobiographical materials, and place the
composer and his work in a larger context of postmodern philosophy,
art and theater movements, and contemporary politics. It will
support emerging scholarship and inquiry for future research on
Cage, with carefully selected sources and useful annotations.
Pepper Adams' Joy Road is more than a compendium of sessions and
gigs done by the greatest baritone saxophone soloist in history.
It's a fascinating overview of Adams' life and times, thanks to
colorful interview vignettes, drawn from the author's unpublished
conversations with Adams and other musicians. These candid
observations from jazz greats about Adams and his colleagues reveal
previously unknown, behind-the-scenes drama about legendary
recordings made by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk,
Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Pearson, Thad Jones, David Amram, Elvin
Jones, and many others. All types of sound material-studio
recordings, private tapes and broadcasts, film scores, audience
tapes, and even jingles-are listed, and Adams' oeuvre is pushed
back from 1956 to 1947, when Adams was 16 years old, before he
played baritone saxophone. Because of Carner's access to Adams'
estate, just prior to its disposition in 1987, much new
discographical material is included, now verified by Adams' date
books and correspondence. Since Adams worked in so many of the
great bands of his era, Pepper Adams' Joy Road is a refreshing,
sometimes irreverent walk through a large swath of jazz history.
This work also functions as a nearly complete band discography of
the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, the most influential big band
of its time. Adams was a founding member and stayed with the band
until a year before Jones left to relocate in Denmark. Finally,
Carner charts the ascent of Adams as an original yet still
underappreciated composer, one who wrote 43 unique works, nearly
half of them after August, 1977, when he left Jones-Lewis to tour
the world as a soloist. Pepper Adams' Joy Road, the first book ever
published about Pepper Adams, is a companion to the author's
forthcoming biography on Adams.
Terry Gibbs, legendary jazz vibraphonist and bandleader, was 12
years old when he kicked off his career as a professional musician,
winning first place in an amateur performance. Born and raised in
the heart of Brooklyn and possessing tremendous musical talent,
Gibbs learned the ins and outs of bebop from pioneers like Dizzy
Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Bud Powell. In 1959 his ensemble,
later dubbed The Dream Band, became the toast of Hollywood. Four
decades, 65 albums, and 300 compositions later, his story is one of
great substance-his foot tapping music, revolutionary. Good Vibes
is a rollicking autobiography that tracks jazz from the turbulent
post-war years through the rise of bebop, traversing its changes
through the eyes of one of its greatest practitioners. Gibbs's
hilarious, poignant, and always fascinating anecdotes reveal
little-known attributes and quirks about legendary personalities
such as Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Steve Allen, Frank Sinatra, Don
Rickles, Billie Holiday, and many more. A foreword by Chubby
Jackson, a discography, and an index round out this work."
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75) was one of the greatest composers of
the 20th century, as well as the first major Soviet composer. In
the fourth edition of Dmitri Shostakovich Catalogue: The First
Hundred Years and Beyond, Derek C. Hulme names and describes all
known musical compositions of the Russian composer. More than 175
major works are annotated and discussed, including such
comprehensive details as titles and subtitles, dates of
composition, instrumentation, and duration; information on
dedications and premieres; arrangements by the composer and others;
publication details; notes on bibliographical references and the
location of the autograph score; and comprehensive chronological
lists of vinyl, compact disc, and visual recordings. The entries
are presented chronologically and by opus number, while indexes of
names and compositions provide full accessibility. Several
appendixes supplement the volume, guiding readers to further
information in published sources and providing information on the
composer's film, radio, television, and theatre productions; his
abandoned projects and obscure works; and his recordings, including
box sets and special USSR recordings. An appendix also discusses
the monogram DSCH, a musical motif based on his name that permeates
his compositions. This new edition also includes a comprehensive
chronological chart of Shostakovich's works and historical events
and several plates of memorabilia.
Leoncavallo: Life and Works is the first fully documented biography
of the beloved and popular composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo
(1857-1919), whose credits include Pagliacci and the operatic works
Chatterton, Der Roland von Berlin, Zaza, Maia, Zingari, La boheme,
and the incomplete trilogy Crepusculum. Author Konrad Dryden has
amassed material from hundreds of unpublished letters and
photographs, creating the most complete portrait of the composer to
date. This book examines various facets of Leoncavallo's history:
from his youth as the son of the Naples' judge who presided over
the murder trial on which Pagliacci was based to his studies with
the poet Giosue Carducci, and from his sojourn in France as a
cafe-chantant pianist to his appointment in Egypt as music
instructor to the Khedive. Careful documentation and plot synopses
of Leoncavallo's numerous works are provided and his two U.S. tours
are discussed. The biography also sheds new light on Leoncavallo's
colleagues and contemporaries, including composers Mahler,
Massenet, Puccini, Verdi, and Mascagni; singers Caruso, Ruffo,
Tetrazzini, and Sanderson; and historical personalities like
Toscanini, Hugo, Carducci, Wilhelm II, and Queen Victoria. A
foreword by Placido Domingo, a photo spread featuring more than 25
photos, and an appendix offering the complete list of the
composer's opus add to the bibliography and index, making this the
ultimate reference on this important figure in music and opera
history.
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
Jazz has had a peculiar and fascinating history in Germany. The
influential but controversial German writer, broadcaster, and
record producer, Joachim-Ernst Berendt (1922-2000), author of the
world's best-selling jazz book, labored to legitimize jazz in West
Germany after its ideological renunciation during the Nazi era.
German musicians began, in a highly productive way, to question
their all-too-eager adoption of American culture and how they
sought to make valid artistic statements reflecting their identity
as Europeans. This book explores the significance of some of
Berendt's most important writings and record productions.
Particular attention is given to the "Jazz Meets the World"
encounters that he engineered with musicians from Japan, Tunisia,
Brazil, Indonesia, and India. This proto-"world music" demonstrates
how some West Germans went about creating a post-nationalist
identity after the Third Reich. Berendt's powerful role as the West
German "Jazz Pope" is explored, as is the groundswell of criticism
directed at him in the wake of 1968.
Nominated for three Academy Awards in 1974, including Best Picture
and Best Sound, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation is regarded
as the archetypal achievement in weaving together a balanced blend
of dialogue, cinematography, sound effects, and music. For the
film, composer David Shire created a score that challenged
preconceptions of the music's function within film. Featuring a
jazz-infused piano score with pioneering excursions into
electroacoustic techniques, Shire's music provides depth and
meaning to the soundtrack by establishing a musical/narrative
metaphorical correlation that traces the main character's
psychological journey. In David Shire's The Conversation: A Film
Score Guide, Juan Chattah draws on extensive interviews with the
composer and includes numerous examples from his manuscripts to
provide aesthetic and critical insights into the compositional
process. The book fleshes out a multifaceted framework that reveals
layers of meaning that permeate the score, delving into David
Shire's life and musical upbringing to trace the development of his
compositional techniques. The author also investigates the film's
critical and historical contexts and ultimately presents a detailed
analysis of the complete soundtrack to the film. Proposing an
innovative analytical methodology that intersects semiotics and
cognitive psychology, this volume offers a unique insight into the
film and its music. As such, David Shire's The Conversation: A Film
Score Guide will be of interest to film scholars, music scholars,
and fans of the composer's work.
The Rolling Stones: Sociological Perspectives, edited by Helmut
Staubmann, draws from a broad spectrum of sociological perspectives
to contribute both to the understanding of the phenomenon Rolling
Stones and to an in-depth analysis of contemporary society and
culture that takes The Stones a starting point. Contributors
approach The Rolling Stones from a range of social science
perspectives including cultural studies, communication and film
studies, gender studies, and the sociology of popular music. The
essays in this volume focus on the question of how the worldwide
success of The Rolling Stones over the course of more than half a
century reflects society and the transformation of popular culture.
Johana Harris was a musical prodigy who began her education in her
native Canada, then moved to New York at the age of 12. The
youngest student ever admitted to the Juilliard Graduate School of
Music, Harris was destined for greatness on the world stage.
However, exploitation by her mother and then by her husband Roy
Harris, coupled with the prejudice shown women during the mid-20th
century kept her from achieving that pinnacle. Johana Harris: A
Biography brings to light the life of an unheralded musical genius,
as well as providing new information on her husband Roy Harris,
about whom very little is known. This revealing look at the lives
of two important musicians who were referred to in the middle years
of the last century as "Mr. and Mrs. American Music" is the first
book published about these two people.
The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach provides an introduction to and
comprehensive discussion of all the music for harpsichord and other
stringed keyboard instruments by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
Often played today on the modern piano, these works are central not
only to the Western concert repertory but to musical pedagogy and
study throughout the world.
Intended as both a practical guide and an interpretive study, the
book consists of three introductory chapters on general matters of
historical context, style, and performance practice, followed by
fifteen chapters on the individual works, treated in roughly
chronological order. The works discussed include all of Bach's
individual keyboard compositions as well as those comprising his
famous collections, such as the Well-Tempered Clavier, the English
and French Suites, and the Art of Fugue.
Serge Chaloff (1923-1957) is most widely remembered as the
flamboyant baritone saxophone star with Woody Herman's 2nd Herd
whose problems with drugs extended to erratic personal behavior.
Nevertheless, there were many brilliant sessions featuring his work
before and after his stint with Herman. This work attempts to bring
them the recognition they deserve. Simosko details the life and
music of Serge Chaloff in an engaging style, from his childhood in
Boston, Massachusetts, through his untimely death in 1957. He also
provides a discography of Chaloff's recorded output, much of which
has been made available by the 1993 Mosaic Records release of The
Complete Serge Chaloff Sessions.
John Dowland: A Research and Information Guide offers the first
comprehensive guide to the musical works and literature on one of
the major composers of the English Renaissance. Including a catalog
of works, discography of recordings, extensive annotated
bibliography of secondary sources, and substantial indexes, this
volume is a major reference tool for all those interested in
Dowland's works and place in music history, and a valuable resource
for researchers of Renaissance and English music.
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Demystifying Scriabin
(Hardcover)
Vasilis Kallis, Kenneth Smith; Contributions by Vasilis Kallis, Kenneth Smith, Simon Morrison, …
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R3,785
R2,770
Discovery Miles 27 700
Save R1,015 (27%)
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An innovative contribution to Scriabin studies, covering aspects of
Scriabin's life, personality, beliefs, training, creative output,
and interaction with contemporary Russian culture. This book is an
innovative contribution to Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) studies,
covering aspects of Scriabin's life, personality, beliefs,
training, creative output, as well as his interaction with
contemporary Russian culture. It offers new and original research
from leading and upcoming Russian music scholars. Key Scriabin
topics such as mysticism, philosophy, music theory, contemporary
aesthetics, and composition processes are covered. Musical coverage
spans the composer's early, middle and late period. All main
repertoire is being discussed: the piano miniatures and sonatas as
well as the symphonies. In more detail, chapters consider:
Scriabin's part in early twentieth-century Russia's cultural
climate; how Scriabin moved from early pastiche to a style much
more original; the influence of music theory on Scriabin's
idiosyncratic style; the changing contexts of Scriabin
performances; new aspects of reception studies. Further chapters
offer: a critical understanding of how Scriabin's writings sit
within the traditions of Mysticism as well as French and Russian
Symbolism; a new investigation into his creative compositional
process; miniaturism and its wider context; a new reading of the
composer's mysticism and synaesthesia. Analytical chapters reach
out of the score to offer an interpretative framework; accepting
new approaches from disability studies; investigating the complex
interaction of rhythm and metre and modal interactions, the latent
diatonic 'tonal function' of Scriabin's late works, as well as
self-regulating structures in the composer's music.
As featured in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The A.V. Club,
Consequence, Mashable, Mental Floss, Book Riot and more! "Weird Al"
Yankovic continues as one of our most beloved comedians, actors,
and musicians. A skilled accordion player and lyricist, the
California native not only crafts meticulous parodies, but also
creates hilarious originals and pop culture-themed polkas. Now in
his fifth decade of recording and performing, Al has maintained a
career that has outlasted many of the artists that he has
lampooned. Since 1980, Al's drummer Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz has been
by his side, photographing and documenting his career. Jon has
taken more than 20,000 images of Al in his element: on tour, in the
studio, on video sets, and backstage. Lights, Camera, Accordion!
presents over 300 images of Al, culled from Jon's personal
collection of color photography, all restored from the original
negatives. This exhaustive volume represents the 25 years that Jon
shot Al on 35mm color film, from 1981 to 2006, before switching to
digital photography. Jon additionally provides previously unheard
stories and anecdotes throughout. From "Eat It" and "Like a
Surgeon" to later classics such as "Smells Like Nirvana," "Amish
Paradise," and the Star Wars parody "The Saga Begins," Lights,
Camera, Accordion! showcases a body of work that spans ten albums,
five Grammys, and nearly 2,000 concerts to millions of fans - and
is packed with the weirdness and fun that always surrounds the
undisputed king of comedic music.
The first study to explore the crucial influence of Kurt Weill on
operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein.
Theodor Adorno famously proclaimed that the model of Kurt Weill
could not be repeated. Yet Weill's stage works set an inescapable
precedent for composers on both sides of the Atlantic. Rebecca
Schmid explores how Weill's formal innovations in particular laid
the groundwork for operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and
Leonard Bernstein, although both composers resisted or downplayed
his aesthetic contribution to American tradition. Comparative
analysis based on Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence and other
modes of intertextuality reveals that the principles of Weill's
opera reform would catalyze an indigenous movement in
sophisticated, socially engaged music theatre. Weill, Blitzstein,
and Bernstein: A Study of Influence focuses on works that represent
different phases of Weill's mission to renew the genre of opera,
evolving from Die Dreigroschenoper to the musical play Lady in the
Dark and the Broadway Opera Street Scene. Blitzstein and Bernstein
in turn defied formal boundaries with The Cradle Will Rock, Regina,
Trouble in Tahiti, Candide, and West Side Story - part of a
short-lived movement in mid-twentieth century America that
coincided with a renaissance for Weill's German-period works
following the premiere of Blitzstein's translation, The Threepenny
Opera, under Bernstein's baton. The unpublished A Pray by Blecht,
for which Bernstein rejoined Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins,
his collaborators on West Side Story, deepens the connection of
Bernstein's aesthetic to Weill.
Ten chapters, chronicling Cliff's journey in music from getting
kicked off "American Idol" to finding success with his hit song
"Confident". It tells people how to start doing more passion
projects while continuing to work their day job. It describes a
detailed and realistic approach, unlike those which promise that
you can become a multi-millionaire with minimal effort. Rather than
setting lofty, unobtainable goals, Cliff embodies the "every man",
taking slow and strategic, methodical steps to my version of
success, which the readers can also aspire to and achieve in their
own right. Most of the books in the genre are written by white men
and women and being a person of color, minority readers will find
it refreshing to hear about Cliff's journey through that lens. That
said, it is universal for all who enjoy self-help, biographies,
autobiographies, memoirs, business and psychology books. Side
Hustle & Flow tells Cliff's unique, inspirational and
motivational, grassroots, artistic story.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) is now rightly recognized as one of the
greatest and most original composers of the nineteenth century. His
keen understanding of poetry and his uncanny ability to translate
his profound understanding of human nature into remarkably balanced
compositions marks him out from other contemporaries in the field
of song. Schubert was one of the first major composers to devote so
much time to song and his awareness that this genre was not rated
highly in the musical hierarchy did not deter him, throughout a
short but resolute and hard-working career, from producing songs
that invariably arrest attention and frequently strike a deeply
poetic note. Schubert did not emerge as a composer until after his
death, but during his short lifetime his genius flowered
prolifically and diversely. His reputation was first established
among the aristocracy who took the art music of Vienna into their
homes, which became places of refuge from the musical mediocrity of
popular performance. More than any other composer, Schubert
steadily graced Viennese musical life with his songs, piano music
and chamber compositions. Throughout his career he experimented
constantly with technique and in his final years began experiments
with form. The resultant fascinating works were never performed in
his lifetime, and only in recent years have the nature of his
experiments found scholarly favor. In The Unknown Schubert
contributors explore Schubert's radical modernity from a number of
perspectives by examining both popular and neglected works.
Chapters by renowned scholars describe the historical context of
his work, its relation to the dominant artistic discourses of the
early nineteenth century, and Schubert's role in the paradigmatic
shift to a new perception of song. This valuable book seeks to
bring Franz Schubert to life, exploring his early years as a
composer of opera, his later years of ill-health when he composed
in the shadow of death, and his efforts to reflect in his music his
own profound inner experience.
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