In this major biography, the late Timothy White explores both the career and the troubled personal journey of the legendary singer-songwriter. Rich with insights from Paul McCartney, Carly Simon, Sting, Danny 'Kootch' Kortchmar, the entire Taylor family and many other key figures around James Taylor and his music. Dispelling myth and rumour, Long Ago and Far Away examines the roots of Taylor's mental anguish and his recurring battles with heroin and alcohol. This is an epic family history, an exploration of the real stories behind Fire and Rain and the rest of the songs, as well as a frank account of Taylor's days on the Apple record label, the financial disaster of his Greatest Hits album deal and the deaths and divorces that have haunted his life. This edition has been updated by his friend and former Rolling Stone comrade Mitch Glazer and includes an epilogue about the memorial concerts for Timothy that James Taylor helped organise. The book includes many rare photos and an extensive discography and bibliography.

‘Whatever I did, at least I meant it . . .’ Gary Moore White Knuckles chronicles the personal and professional journey of one of rock’s most influential musicians: Gary Moore. Born in Belfast and rising to conquer some of the world’s biggest stages, the guitarist-singer-songwriter enjoyed spells with the likes of rock giants Thin Lizzy before becoming a successful solo artist in his own right. Moore’s solo career spanned three decades and millions of album sales until his untimely passing in 2011. Balancing biography with a critical analysis of Moore’s songs and guitar style, White Knuckles explores the evolution of Gary Moore’s music, from progressive rock and jazz fusion to metal and pure blues. It also examines his friendships and artistic collaborations with the likes of George Harrison, Philip Lynott, Peter Green, Rory Gallagher, Cream’s Jack Bruce and many more. Based on interviews with Moore’s friends, colleagues and fellow musicians, this definitive work catalogues the life and oeuvre of a true legend.

A screenplay to the dramatized documentary about the eccentric Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.

Mina (Anna Maria Mazzini, born Lombardy, 1940) is an Italian popular music icon who throughout her sixty-year-long career has come to represent a range of diverse meanings. She is one of the best-loved popular music stars in Italy and abroad, with a large fan base across Europe, Asia, and South America. Her career began in the late 1950s and reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite having retired from public appearances at the end of the 1970s, Mina remains popular and successful today, and continues to release new albums that consistently debut in the number one spot of the Italian charts. As an Italian popular music star, she is exemplary of the way in which stardom is constructed by different media and has come to represent different local and global identities, values, ideologies, and ways of behaving. This is because whilst Mina is first and foremost a popular music star, she has also been a film star and a television personality during different phases of her career. She has advertised successful Italian brands on television, and she has been a magazine writer and agony aunt. Her star persona is the product of her work in many different areas, as well as of the promotional materials and commentaries that are produced in response to her work. This book explores these different 'mediums' that Mina has been involved in and which have shaped her career and significance. It traces the process by which she has come to embody a diverse range of meanings that reveal something of the values and ideals at work within contemporary Italian society. Rachel Haworth is a researcher of Italian popular music and culture of the twentieth century, and Senior Lecturer in Italian at the University of Hull, UK. The primary market for this book is students and academics in the following subject areas: Italian Studies; Popular Music Studies; Stardom and Celebrity Studies; Media Studies; Cultural History. Also scholars and researchers working on music divas. The book is suitable for use on courses and modules at all undergraduate and postgraduate levels, which deal with Italian cultural studies, Italy's post-war history, and the role of women in Italy, as well as the wider study of popular music and the construction of stardom and celebrity. The secondary audience for this book will be fans of Mina around the world, accessibly written, this will appeal to fans in Italy who are able to read in English.

The first critical study of the life and distinctive artistic vision of Heinrich Neuhaus, a legendary pianist-pedagogue widely considered one of the leading shapers of the renowned Russian piano tradition. Heinrich Neuhaus (1888-1964) was one of the most charismatic and sought after pianist-pedagogues of the twentieth century, earning a formidable reputation in the West as one of the pillars of Russian pianism through the success ofhis star pupils Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter, and his book About the Art of Piano Playing. Maria Razumovskaya's Heinrich Neuhaus: A Life beyond Music is the first critical study of this masterful artist. It explores what went on in his teaching studio but also seeks to understand the vibrant circumstances that underpinned Neuhaus's unique outlook and approach. These circumstances include his formative years of study in Europealongside Karol Szymanowski (his cousin) and the renowned pianist Artur Rubinstein, the turbulence of life during the Russian Civil War, Neuhaus's meteoric rise to fame in Moscow, and his lifelong friendship with the poet Boris Pasternak. Razumovskaya's book draws on previously unseen documents relating to Neuhaus's arrest and imprisonment in the infamous Lubyanka for criticizing the Soviet regime. By revealing how these influences helped form Neuhaus's distinct vision of a performer's subjectivity -- what he called an artist's "autopsychography" -- the book emphasizes important aesthetic principles and practices that were adopted by creative artists eager to escape the banality and limitations imposed by Socialist Realism. MARIA RAZUMOVSKAYA, a recital pianist and researcher, teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Franco Alfano: Transcending Turandot is the first fully documented biography in any language of Italy's last verismo composer, Franco Alfano (1875-1954), the composer chosen to complete Giacomo Puccini's swansong, Turandot, in 1924. Alfano remains one of the most undervalued composers, despite arguably representing the best of Puccini's contemporaries. His ability and prowess and his intimate friendship with Puccini, led to his selection for Turandot's completion: a daunting, enervating, and ultimately thankless task, which nearly robbed him of sight. This biography finally sheds light on Alfano's view of the events, as opposed to the all-too customary Toscanini/Puccini perspective, thereby revealing a largely unknown facet of one of the most important operatic works of the 20th-century. Konrad Dryden, a friend of the composer's late daughter, Nina Alfano, sets out to unravel and organize the facts of Alfano's life, offering a chronological presentation of the composer's vita as well as an examination of his major operas and their literary origins, providing the most complete portrait of the composer to date. Based on unpublished correspondence from international archives freshly translated by Dryden, the book also sheds light on such colleagues and contemporaries as Puccini, Toscanini, Mary Garden, Edward Johnson, Giordano, Rostand, Mascagni, and Mussolini. A selection of previously unpublished photographs is included, as well as plot synopses of Alfano's operatic works. A foreword by the legendary soprano Magda Olivero-his preferred interpreter and Liu in the world premiere recording of Turandot-and an appendix listing the composer's opus round out this important reference."

Examines the decline and resurgence of Haydn's reputation in an effort to better understand the forces that shape critical reception on a broad scale. By the 1840s Joseph Haydn, who died in 1809 as the most celebrated composer of his generation, had degenerated into the bewigged "Papa Haydn," a shallow placeholder in music history who merely invented the forms used by Beethoven.In a remarkable reversal, Haydn swiftly regained his former stature within the opening decades of the twentieth century. Reviving Haydn: New Appreciations in the Twentieth Century examines both the decline and the subsequent resurgence of Haydn's reputation in an effort to better understand the forces that shape critical reception on a broad scale. No single person or event marked the turning point for Haydn's reputation. Instead a broad resurgence reshaped opinion in Europe and the United States in short order. The Haydn revival engaged many of the music world's leading figures -- composers (Vincent d'Indy and Arnold Schoenberg), conductors (Arturo Toscanini), performers (Wanda Landowska), critics (Lawrence Gilman), and scholars (Heinrich Schenker and Donald Tovey) -- each of whom valued Haydn's music for specific reasons and used it to advance particular goals. Yet each advocated for a rehearing and rereading of the composer's works, calling for a new appreciation of Haydn's music. Bryan Proksch is Assistant Professor of Music History at Lamar University.

Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) was one of the leading international composers of the post-war period as well as one of the most productive. Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) was one of the leading international composers of the post-war period as well as one of the most productive. This book provides a global view of his music, integrating a number of resonant themes in the composer's work while covering a representative cross-section of his vast output - his work list encompasses nearly 550 compositions in every established genre. Each chapter focuses on specific major works and offers generaldiscussion of other selected works connected to the main themes. These themes include compositional technique and process; genre; form and architecture; tonality and texture; allusion, quotation and musical critique; and place and landscape. Throughout, the book contends that Davies's works are not created in a vacuum but are intimately connected to, and are a reflection of, 'the past'. This deep engagement occurs on a number of levels, fluctuating and interacting with the composer's own predominantly modernist idiom and evoking a chain of historical resonances. Making sustained reference to Davies's own words, articles and programme notes as well as privileged access to primary source material from his estate, the book illuminates the composer's practices and approaches while shaping a discourse around his music.

In the summer of 2016 musician Joanna Wallfisch released her third album, but was feeling jaded about the prospect of a conventional tour to promote it. Seeking to reconnect with her most adventurous and fearless self, she decided to do something radically different: a solo tour down the West Coast of America - by bicycle. Across six weeks and 1,850 kilometres, she would pedal from Portland to Los Angeles, performing concerts in every town along the way. It would be The Great Song Cycle, an experience unlike any other. Filled with humour, wonder and joy, The Great Song Cycle is a beautifully narrated story of adventure, a journey of discovery and, above all, a celebration of the artist's spirit.

Johannes Brahms was a consummate professional musician, and a successful pianist, conductor, music director, editor and composer. Yet he also faithfully championed the world of private music-making, creating many works and arrangements for enjoyment in the home by amateurs. This collection explores Brahms' public and private musical identities from various angles: the original works he wrote with amateurs in mind; his approach to creating piano arrangements of not only his own, but also other composers' works; his relationships with his arrangers; the deeper symbolism and lasting legacy of private music-making in his day; and a hitherto unpublished memoir which evokes his Viennese social world. Using Brahms as their focus point, the contributors trace the overlapping worlds of public and private music-making in the nineteenth century, discussing the boundaries between the composer's professional identity and his lifelong engagement with amateur music-making.

Lady Gaga represents both the height of celebrity and a disruption of the norms surrounding the social position. This book charts the way the pop star manages the celebrity persona in her relationships with her fans, the development of her gender identity, her parodying of other celebrities, and her navigation of the legal and economic system that make up the music industry. Much of Gaga's ability to maintain ownership of her identity comes from her early decisions to characterise herself as a performance artist. For Gaga, treating celebrity as performance art means living the persona 24 hours a day. That includes sleeping in wigs and making a commitment to never letting anyone see her in sweatpants. Lady Gaga mimicks celebrity life in a self-conscious way that makes the mimicry apparent. Her performance of celebrity is an on-going project - despite what she may claim, she was not born this way. The excess of her celebrity is magnified by her title: Mother Monster. Historically, media narratives of celebrities, monsters, and mothers have centered around uncontrolled excesses that must be contained. Lady Gaga adopts these personas, but refuses to submit to the containment that comes with each of these social positions.

Birth School Metallica Death is the definitive story of the most significant rock band since Led Zeppelin, covering the band's formation up to their breakthrough eponymous fifth album, aka The Black Album. The intense and sometimes fraught relationship between aloof-yet-simmering singer, chief lyricist, and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and the outspoken and ambitious drummer Lars Ulrich is the saga's emotional core. Their earliest years saw the release of three unimpeachable classics (Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets), but it was the breakthrough of ...And Justice for All that rent the fabric of the mainstream, hitting the top of the charts without benefit of radio airplay or the then-crucial presence on MTV. And in 1991, with the release of The Black Album, Metallica finally hit the next level with five hit singles and their first album atop the Billboard charts. Veteran music journalists and Metallica confidants Paul Brannigan and Ian Winwood detail this meteoric rise to international fame in an epic saga of family, community, self-belief, the pursuit of dreams, and music that rocks. Told through first-hand interviews with the band and those closest to them, the story of Metallica's rise to the mainstream has never been so vividly documented.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WORLD'S MOST-LOVED COMPOSER; Musical history is full of tormented geniuses, tortured despite - or because of - their enormous talent. Yet perhaps the greatest musical virtuoso the world has ever known cannot be counted among them. Though he faced great hardships, Mozart was surely the happiest composer who ever lived.; In Mozart: The Man Revealed, John Suchet breathes new life into the story of the 'boy genius', revealing a complex character, yet one who always remained comfortable with himself and at ease with his gift. His musical legacy may be immortal, but the man behind the music was gloriously human.

Now available in paperback to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his death, this biography corrects many of the myths surrounding the often controversial Thomas Beecham. Thomas Beecham was one of Britain's greatest conductors of orchestral music and opera as well as an entrepreneur and impresario of exceptional energy and brilliant wit. This acclaimed biography places him - musically, politicallyand socially - in the troubled times in which he lived and corrects the stories and myths, many of them Beecham's own making, that have grown up around this uniquely gifted and controversial figure. Drawing upon extensive research, Lucas presents new material on his early years, his complicated private life, his father's catastrophic attempt to buy a large part of Covent Garden - which brought the family to its knees financially - and the orchestras andopera companies that Beecham founded. New light is shed on his visits to Nazi Germany and his view of its leaders, as well as the much misunderstood and previously unchronicled years of the Second World War, which he spent in Australia and America. Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music will remain the standard biography for years to come. JOHN LUCAS was on the staff of the Observer for 25 years, completed Peter Heyworth's monumentalbiography of Otto Klemperer, wrote Genius of Valhalla, the biography of Reginald Goodall, and is responsible for the current entries on Beecham and Klemperer in the New Grove .

Modernity between Wagner and Nietzsche analyzes the operas and writings of Wagner in order to prove that the ideas on which they are based contradict and falsify the values that are fundamental to modernity. This book also analyzes the ideas that are central to the philosophy of Nietzsche, demonstrating that the values on the basis of which he breaks with Wagner and repudiates their common mentor, Schopenhauer, are those fundamental to modernity. Brayton Polka makes use of the critical distinction that Kierkegaard draws between Christianity and Christendom. Christianity represents what Nietzsche calls the faith that is presupposed in unconditionally willing the truth in saying yes to life. Christendom, in contrast, represents the bad faith of nihilism in saying no to life. Polka then shows that Wagner, in following Schopenhauer, represents Christendom with the demonstration in his operas that life is nothing but death and death is nothing but life. In other words, the purpose of the will for Wagner is to annihilate the will, since it is only in and through death that human beings are liberated from life as willfully sinful. Nietzsche, in contrast, is consistent with the biblical concept that existence is created from nothing, from nothing that is not made in the image of God, that any claim that the will can will not to will is contradictory and hence false. For not to will is, in truth, still to will nothing. There is then, Nietzsche shows, no escape from the will. Either human beings will the truth in saying yes to life as created from nothing, or in truly willing nothing, they say no to life in worshiping the God of Christendom who is dead.

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.

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.

American composer George Gershwin, an icon of the American Jazz Age, indelibly marked 20th-century music, with many of his works becoming standards in the popular and jazz music repertory, not to mention his world-famous classical works such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Porgy and Bess (1935). This major bibliography includes a brief biography, which examines Gershwin's influence and situates him within the cultural context of his time, a complete cross-reference list of all his compositions, a discography of more than 1,150 items, and a descriptive filmography. The extensive bibliography includes writings by both George and his brother Ira, and more than 2,100 entries about George's compositions.

As an exhaustive research tool, this up-to-date bibliographic reference compiles information on George Gershwin from numerous, disparate sources and should appeal to music and theater scholars, cultural historians, and Gershwin enthusiasts alike. The work is divided among seven sections that cross-reference one another. A separate appendix lists itineraries for the Paul Whiteman tours of 1924-1925, and the Leo Reisman tour of 1934, at which Gershwin's music figured prominently, and a comprehensive index completes the volume.

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.

Following his bestselling memoir, It's a Long Story,?Willie Nelson now delivers his most intimate thoughts and stories in Willie Nelson's Letters to America. From his opening letter "Dear America" to his "Dear Willie" epilogue, Willie digs deep into his heart and soul--and his music catalog--to lift us up in difficult times, and to remind us of the endless promise and continuous obligations of all Americans--to themselves, to one another, and to their nation. In a series of letters straight from the heart, Willie sends his thanks and his thoughts to: Americans past, present, and future, his closest family members,?andhis parents, sister, and children, his?other family members his guitar "Trigger", his hero Gene Autry, and the US founding fathers. He also pens notes to his personal heroes, from our founding fathers to the leaders of future generations and to young songwriters as well?as leaders of our future generations. Willie's letters are rounded out with the moving lyrics to some of his most famous and insightful songs, including "Let Me Be a Man," "Family Bible," "Summer of Roses," "Me and Paul," "A Horse called Music," "Healing Hands of Time," and "Yesterday's Wine."

Michael Christoforidis is widely recognized as a leading expert on one of Spain's most important composers, Manuel de Falla. This volume brings together both new chapters and revised versions of previously published work, some of which is made available here in English for the first time. The introductory chapter provides a biographical outline of the composer and characterisations of both Falla and his music during his lifetime. The sections that follow explore different facets of Falla's mature works and musical identity. Part II traces the evolution of his flamenco-inspired Spanish style through contacts with Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky, while Part III explores the impact of post-World War I modernities on Falla's musical nationalism. The final part reflects on aspects of Falla's music and the politics of Spain in the 1930s and 1940s. Situating his discussion of these aspects of Falla's music within a broader context, including currents in literature and the visual arts, Christoforidis provides a distinctive and original contribution to the study of Falla as well as to the wider fields of musical modernism, exoticism, and music and politics.

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.

Claudio Monteverdi: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography that navigates the vast scholarly resources on the composer with the most updated compilation since 1989. Claudio Monteverdi transformed and mastered the principal genres of his day and his works influenced generations of musicians and other artists. He initiated one of the most important aesthetic debates of the era by proposing a new relationship between poetry and harmony. In addition to scholarship by musicologists and music theorists, Monteverdi's music has attracted attention from literary scholars, cultural historians, and critical theorists. Research into Monteverdi and Renaissance and early baroque studies has expanded greatly, with the field becoming more complex as scholars address such issues as gender theory, feminist criticism, cultural theory, new criticism, new historicism, and artistic and popular cultures. The guide serves both as a foundational starting point and as a gateway for future inquiry in such fields as court culture, opera, patronage, and Italian poetry.

Anton Webern: A Research and Information Guide offers carefully selected and annotated sources regarding Webern from 1975 to present day, including sources on Webern's life, his music, and the interpretation and reception of his music. Along with this comprehensive annotated listing of print and online sources, the book discusses the history of research on Webern and includes a brief chronology of his life. It is a major reference tool for those interested in Webern and his music and valuable for researchers of 20th century music and the Second Viennese School.

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.