From the late 1950's, Mancunians have had a passion for creating and following great music. Be it live or via recordings, the city centre has been a magnet for generations of locals - and in recent years music fans from all over the country and beyond - to enjoy. Whilst cities such as Liverpool and Memphis turned their musical heritage into a tourist attractions, Manchester kept looking forward, developing new scenes and tastes. Yet the 2002 film "Twenty-Four Hour Party People" was probably the point at which Manchester music fans started to look back at the rich musical history of their city. This coincided with the publication of the book "Morrissey's Manchester" by Phill Gatenby, also in 2002 and numerous other publications penned by luminaries of the Manchester scene. Following the success of "Morrissey's Manchester", a guide book dedicated to locations associated with The Smiths, author Phill Gatenby has put together several tours featuring other world famous Manchester bands from the Buzzcocks via Joy Division to Oasis, Elbow and Doves as well as the various scenes from beat to acid house or even lo-fi. An interesting guide for anyone with an interest in British music, the guide documents the various clubs and venues that have influenced Manchester based musicians over the last 50 years.

The founding in 1777 of the Journal de Paris, France's first daily and distinctly commercial paper, represents an early use of disinformation as a tool for political gain, profit, and societal division. To attract a large readership and bar competition for C.W. Gluck's works at the Paris Opera, it launched a prolonged campaign of anonymous lies, mockery, and defamation against two prominent members of the Academie Francaise who wished the Opera to be open to all deserving composers but lacked a comparable daily forum with which to defend themselves. In this unique episode, music served as a smokescreen for nefarious activity. No musical knowledge is necessary to follow this purely political drama.

For the Beatles, 1967 marks a signal crossroads that would both transform the group's career and place them on a trajectory towards their eventual disbandment. It was a year in which they exploded prevailing rock music demographics through the global onslaught and international success of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band beginning in June 1967. Yet it was also a period that saw them in a precarious state of flux throughout the summer and fall months, as the band attempted to recapture their artistic direction in the wake of Sgt. Pepper and the untimely death of manager Brian Epstein. The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love draws readers into that pivotal year in the life of the band. For the Fab Four, 1967 would see the band members part ways with psychedelia and the avant-garde through the trials and tribulations of the Magical Mystery Tour, a project that resulted in a series of classic recordings, while at the same time revealing the bandmates' aesthetic vulnerabilities and failings as would-be filmmakers and auteurs.

Over the 100 years since Benny Goodman's birth, interest in his life and music remains as intense as ever-yet there has been no new discographical information since 1996. Benny Goodman: A Supplemental Discography fills that gap, gathering materials uncovered since the last bio-discography of Goodman in 1996. The annotated discography, presented chronologically, updates some previously known information and adds nearly 100 new discoveries, including over 65 previously unknown radio broadcasts, airchecks, and films. Jessup presents new details about live appearances ranging from the mid-1980s back to the 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert, including an analysis of the controversial 1999 Sony reissue of that concert. Jessup also offers an essay detailing some of the difficulties of finding recordings in a digitally progressive age, as "new technology" can assist with-or hinder-collecting and evaluating this vintage music. An additional exploratory discography of smaller, collector-oriented labels describes nearly 400 reissues and collectible LPs, tapes, and CDs personally audited by Jessup and his associates. All 182 shows of the famous "Camel Caravan" radio series (1936-1939) are offered in print for the first time in an authoritative list. The volume concludes with a necrology of those associated personally or professionally with Benny Goodman who have passed away since 1996, and indexes by song title and musician make the material more accessible.

Igor Stravinsky left behind a complex heritage of music and ideas. There are many examples of discrepancies between his literate statements about music and musicians and his musical compositions and activity. Per Dahl presents a model of communication that unveils a clear and logical understanding of Stravinsky's heritage, based on the extant material available. From this, Dahl argues the case for Stravinsky's music and his ideas as separate entities, representing different modes of communication. As well as describing a triangular model of communication, based on a tilted and extended version of Ogden's triangle, Dahl presents an empirical investigation of Stravinsky's vocabulary of signs and expressions in his published scores - his communicative mode towards musicians. In addition to simple statistics, Dahl compares the notation practice in the composer's different stylistic epochs as well as his writing for different sizes of ensembles. Dahl also considers Stravinsky's performances and recordings as modes of communication to investigate whether the multi-layered model can soften the discrepancies between Stravinsky the literary and Stravinsky the musician.

Neither Spem in alium, the widely acclaimed 'songe of fortie partes' by Thomas Tallis, nor Alessandro Striggio's forty-part Mass is the largest-scale counterpoint work in Western music. The actual winner is Gregorio Ballabene, a relatively unknown Roman maestro di cappella, a contemporary of Giovanni Paisiello, Joseph Haydn and Luigi Boccherini, who composed in forty-eight parts for twelve choirs. Ballabene's Mass has remained completely unstudied until today, even though the score survives in prominent collections. This study offers, for the first time, a historical and analytical perspective on this overlooked manifestation of a very individual musical intelligence.

This selective annotated bibliography places Alma Mahler with three other female composers of her time, covering the first generation of active female composers in the twentieth century. It uncovers the wealth of resources available on the lives and music of Mahler, Florence Price, Yuliya Lazarevna Veysberg, and Maria Teresa Prieto and supports emerging scholarship and inquiry on four women who experienced both entrenched sexual discrimination and political upheaval, which affected their lives and influenced composers of subsequent generations.

Fanny Hensel: A Research and Information Guide provides scholars in Hensel studies with a resource to navigate the research surrounding the composer's over 450 musical works. As part of the larger blossoming of women's music history, new research in the 1980s and 1990s promoted an awareness of Hensel's output, in particular in the genres of the lied and the solo piano work. This research guide includes an introductory chapter, a summary paragraph at the beginning of each chapter, and annotations for more than 500 entries, focusing on scholarly works as well as selected articles from trade publications, catalogs, and Internet resources.

Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Research and Information Guide presents the most extensive annotated bibliography of its subject yet produced. It offers comprehensive coverage of the English composer's prose works and accounts for over 1,000 secondary sources from all critical and scholarly eras. A single-numbering format and substantial indexes facilitate efficient searches of what is the most complete bibliography of Ralph Vaughan Williams since Neil Butterworth's guide to research was published by Garland in 1990.

Florence + the Machine is the recording name of English musician Florence Welch and a collaboration of other artists who provide music for her voice. Florence + the Machine's sound has been described as a combination of various genres, including rock and soul. The Sunday Times described Welch as "the most peculiar and most highly acclaimed female singer of the moment" Tells the story of her upbringing in South London to her thrilling rise to international fame as a singer and also a highly individual fashion icon. Her collaborations and working relationships with Chanel Creative Director Karl Lagerfeld, her manager Mairead Nash and her friend Isabella Summers who to this day forms part of 'the machine'. How her sense of style has captured the imaginations of fans and fashion editors the world over. The stories behind the glittering award ceremonies, TV appearances and international tours.

'No musician or music lover should be without it.' BBC Music Magazine Robert Schumann was far ahead of his time: his music anticipated a multitude of trends that would spread in the 150 years after his death, and almost every major composer who followed him acknowledged his influence. He was also revolutionary in his attitude to young people; in 1848 he wrote his famous Advice to Young Musicians, a book that is still deeply relevant today. In this volume, celebrated cellist Steven Isserlis has taken Schumann's words of wisdom and set them in a modern context with his own extensive commentary. By turns practical, humorous and profound, this book is a must for aspiring musicians and music-lovers of all ages.

This volume makes available Rodrigo's writings to English-speaking readers throughout the world. The generous selection reveals an outstanding critical mind, equally illuminating on the main developments in the history of classical music and its most important composers, from Bach and Mozart to Verdi and Puccini, as well as Rodrigo's contemporaries. Rodrigo's writings also cover many aspects of the culture and music of Spain and the country's major composers, as well as being an invaluable guide to an understanding and appreciation of Rodrigo's own works. The composer's style of writing is extremely varied: by turns incisive, eloquent, poetic, or delightfully humorous. Given the world-wide fame and popularity of his music, the availability in English of a large number of the composer's many articles and critical reviews will be of the greatest interest to musicians, scholars, music critics, and music-lovers alike.

"Everybody has to start somewhere. Businessmen start on the ground floor and try to work their way up the corporate ladder. Baseball players bide their time in the minor leagues wishing for an opportunity to move up and play in the majors. Musical compositions aren't very different-some songs just don't climb the charts the first time they're recorded. However, with perseverance, the ideal singer, the right chemistry, impeccable timing, vigorous promotion, and a little luck, these songs can become very famous." So writes Bob Leszczak in the opening pages of Who Did It First? Great Pop Cover Songs and Their Original Artists. In this second volume in the Who Did It First? series, Leszczak explores the hidden history of the most famous, indeed legendary, pop songs and standards. As he points out, the version you purchased, swayed to, sang to, and grew up with is often not the first version recorded. Like wine and cheese, some tunes do get better with age, and behind each there is a story. Included are little-known facts and amusing anecdotes, often gathered through Leszczak's vast archive of personal interviews with the singers and songwriters, record producers and label owners, who wrote, sang, recorded, and distributed either the original first cut or one of its classic covers. The second in a series of titles devoted to the story of great songs and their revival as great covers, Who Did It First? Great Pop Cover Songs and Their Original Artists is the perfect playlist builder. So whether quizzing friends at a party, answering a radio station contest, or just satisfying an insatiable curiosity to know who really did do it first, this work is a must-have.

In Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831): A Bio-Bibliography, Anna E. Kijas examines the career of the highly-influential Polish pianist and composer. Kijas focuses on Szymanowska's life from her days as a young artist to her public concert tours between 1822 and 1828 to the last three years of her life in St. Petersburg. Kijas examines the daily aspects of touring, including organizing concerts, securing transportation and lodging, and managing finances, and she reviews Szymanowska's reception in the cities in which she performed, paying attention to her repertoire, the critic's remarks, ticket prices, and other artists on the program. Separated into Works, Discography, and Literature, the bibliography lists more than 100 compositions for piano, voice, and chamber ensemble. The discography provides details for CD, LP, and cassette recordings between 1960 and the present, and the literature section examines more than 120 primary source documents such as 19th-century reviews and advertisements, personal correspondence, journals, and scrapbooks. Secondary sources include articles, books, and essays about Szymanowska as a composer and pianist. Complete with a list of sources and an index, this comprehensive reference provides insight into the struggles and accomplishments related to concert life for a professional woman in early 19th-century Europe.

Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, modern composers living in Vienna near the turn of the 20th century, are examined in a broad artistic context illustrating how their works grew from earlier Viennese musical developments. Presenting a coherent analysis of a central school of modern musical composition, the essays compare the artists' music to that in the nonmusical arts in Vienna at the time. A prominent musical phenomenon during the period, the Second Viennese School of Music would exert a profound impact on European and American composers in the decades following World War II. The recent discoveries and critical perspectives on the composers discussed in these essays detail new information on central aspects of their work, including the origins of atonal composition, the 12-tone method, and the literary models that often inspired their works. Coherent and current, this collection of essays offers unique insight into the personalities and artistic accomplishments of these three major figures who intoduced modernism to music.

Contributing to the continuing fascination with the modern culture produced in Vienna and other European cities near the turn of the century, these clear, accessible writings on the Second Viennese School will appeal to musicians and scholars alike. Each chapter, written by a different specialist, focuses on the artistic milieu of these three composers, avoiding a particular hypothesis and offering instead a broad, multifaceted discussion. This selection of new knowledge about aspects of the composers' work complements the valuable information also detailed about their music.

For 40 years, Bruce Springsteen has held center stage as the quintessential American rock and roll artist, expressing the hopes and dreams of the American everyman and every woman through his vast array of insightful and inspirational songs. In Counting Down Bruce Springsteen: His 100 Finest Songs, rock writer Jim Beviglia dares to rank his finest songs in descending order from the 100th to his no. 1 greatest song. In this unique book, Beviglia reflects not only on why each song has earned its place on list but lays out the story behind each of the 100, supplying fresh insights on the musical and lyrical content of Springsteen's remarkable body of work. Counting Down Bruce Springsteen brings together critical historical and biographical information to explain the making and importance of each song to its listeners, painting a fascinating portrait of Springsteen as a major American songwriter and consummate recording artist. Counting Down Bruce Springsteen is the perfect playlist builder, whether it is for the diehard fan or the newbie just getting acquainted with the work of the Boss!

Maria Callas was, perhaps, the greatest opera singer of the 20th century. Hers was a life lived on the world stage, and her fame extended to the public consciousness of many parts of the world. Even after her mysterious death in 1977, her singing and acting continue to thrill new generations of opera fans thanks to her many recordings and her fascinating life. This new biography of Callas tells her story from difficult beginnings as the daughter of Greek immigrants to New York City in 1923 to her wonderful performances at La Scala, Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera. Callas was quite a diva and a master at creating a captivating public image. She also became notorious because of her very public affair with Aristotle Onassis, the wealthy ship-owner who left Callas to marry Jacqueline Kennedy.

The Original Portrayal of Mozart's Don Giovanni offers an original reading of Mozart's and Da Ponte's opera Don Giovanni, using as a lens the portrayal of the title role by its creator, the baritone Luigi Bassi (1766-1825). Although Bassi was coached in the role by the composer himself, his portrayal has never been studied in depth before, and this book presents a large number of new sources (first- and second-hand accounts), which allows us to reconstruct his performance scene by scene. The book confronts Bassi's portrayal with a study of the opera's early German reception and performance history, demonstrating how Don Giovanni as we know it today was not only created by Mozart, Da Ponte and Luigi Bassi but also by the early German adapters, translators, critics and performers who turned the title character into the arrogant and violent villain we still encounter in most of today's stage productions. Incorporating discussion of dramaturgical thinking of the late Enlightenment and the difficult moral problems that the opera raises, this is an important study for scholars and researchers from opera studies, theatre and performance studies, music history as well as conductors, directors and singers.

Titles in The Listener s Companion: A Scarecrow Press Music Series provide readers with a deeper understanding of key musical genres and the work of major artists and composers. Aimed at nonspecialists, each volume explains in clear and accessible language how to listen to works from particular artists, composers, and genres. Looking at the context in which the music appeared as well as its form, authors explore with readers the environments in which key musical works were written and performed from a 1950s bebop concert at the Village Vanguard to a performance of Handel s Messiah in eighteenth-century Germany. Along with his contemporaries Chopin and Wagner, Verdi is among the few composers whose place in the musical pantheon is based almost entirely upon the mastery of a single genre. This is largely owing to his staggering output in a career that lasted over fifty years. Several of his operas occupy the nucleus of the modern repertoire, and Verdi almost single-handedly maintained the Italian lyric tradition against the tide of Wagnerian music drama. In his final years, he virtually reinvented Italian opera. Indeed, Verdi s life and music came to be so intimately associated with the Italian unification movement known as the Risorgimento that he is still revered as a great national figure in his homeland. In Experiencing Verdi: A Listener s Companion, Donald Sanders combines biography with simple, concise musical analysis. Summarizing the evolution of Italian opera and the bel canto tradition that prevailed at the beginning of Verdi s career, Sanders takes readers on a leisurely tour of eleven of Verdi s most important operas and of the Manzoni Requiem and concludes with a look at Verdi s influence on later composers like Giacomo Puccini, his place in the modern repertoire, and his role as an Italian patriot. With a timeline, glossary of basic musical terms, and selected reading and listening recommendations, Experiencing Verdi will engage opera lovers at all levels, from those just starting to listen, learn, and enjoy to musical devotees."

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.

Since 1963 Eric Clapton has contributed to two hundred albums by other artists: from very famous to the obscure and the unexpected: Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Sting, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, all four of the Beatles, Martha Velez, Jonathan Kelly, Corey Hart, Stephen Bishop, Hawkwind, Ray Charles, Kate Bush, The Tony Rich Project, Toots and the Maytals and Mary J. Blige. If you've never heard (for instance) 'Beat of the Night' by Bob Geldof, 'Sexual Revolution' by Roger Waters or 'I Wish It Would Rain Down' by Phil Collins, this book tells you about Eric's part in those recordings and many more, as well as his more notorious collaborations with the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan - and Ed Sheeran! Indeed, this book puts these into context across nearly sixty years of documented sessions. If you've never delved into Eric's contributions to other artist's recordings, then this is a handy guide to help the reader find his way into such a lengthy and successful second career. If his own albums are the main story, then these recordings run alongside: an alternative history of one of rock's most prolific musicians

In Uniting Music and Poetry in Twentieth-Century Spain, Nelson R. Orringer uses both literary and musical analysis to study sung poems in twentieth-century Spain. In nine chapters, each focusing on an individual sung poem, song cycle, or various poems set by the same composer, Orringer enriches and deepens interpretations of the art-songs by comparing the poet's vision to the composer's. In examining composers such as Falla, Turina, Mompou, Toldra, Rodrigo, Montsalvatge, and Rodolfo Halffter, Orringer shows that Spanish art-song is an exceptional product of Spain's Silver Age and reveals a new way to understand and appreciate poems set to music in twentieth-century Spain.

Jan Berry, leader of the music duo Jan & Dean from the late 1950s to mid-1960s, was an intense character who experienced more in his first 25 years than many do in a lifetime. As an architect of the West Coast sound, he was one of rock 'n' roll's original rebels-brilliant, charismatic, reckless, and flawed. As a songwriter, music arranger, and record producer for Nevin-Kirshner Associates and Screen Gems-Columbia Music, Berry was one of the pioneering self-produced artists of his era in Hollywood. He lived a dual life, reaching the top of the charts with Jan & Dean while transitioning from college student to medical student, until an automobile accident ended his seemingly charmed existence in 1966. Suffering from brain damage and partial paralysis, Jan spent the rest of his life trying to come back from dead man's curve. His story is told here in-depth for the first time, based on extensive primary source documentation and supplemented by the stories and memories of Jan's family members, friends, music industry colleagues, and contemporaries. From the birth of rock to the bitter end, Berry's life story is thrilling, humorous, unsettling, and disturbing, yet ultimately uplifting.

Traces Eisler's art songs through the political crises of the twentieth century, presenting them as a way to intervene in the nationalist appropriation of aesthetic material. Best known for his collaborations with Bertolt Brecht, composer Hanns Eisler also set nineteenth-century German poetry to music that both absorbs and disturbs the Lieder tradition. This book traces Eisler's art songs (German: Kunstlieder) through twentieth-century political crises from World War I to Nazi-era exile and from Eisler's postwar deportation from the US to the ideological pressures he faced in the early German Democratic Republic. His artsongs are presented not as an escape from the "dark times" Brecht lamented but rather as a way to intervene in the nationalist appropriation of aesthetic material. The book follows a chronological arc from Eisler's early Morgenstern songs to his Lied-like setting of Brecht's 1939 "To Those Who Come After" and his treatment of Hoelderlin's poetry in the 1940s Hollywood Songbook; the final two chapters focus on Eisler's Goethe settings in the early GDR, followed by his late Serious Songs recalling Brahms in their reflective approach. In its combination of textual and musicological analysis, this book balances technical and lay vocabulary to reach readers with or without musical background. The author's practical perspective as a singer also informs the book, as she addresses not only what Eisler asks of the voice but also the challenge of evoking both intimacy and distance in his politically fraught art songs. Heidi Hart holds a PhD in German Studies from Duke University. She is an instructor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Utah State University.

So this is permanence, edited by Jon Savage with a foreword by Deborah Curtis, presents the intensely personal writings of one of the most enigmatic and influential songwriters and performers of the late twentieth century, Joy Division's Ian Curtis. The songs of Joy Division, infused with the energy of punk but steeped in a resigned longing, were born of Manchester in the late seventies - a once flourishing industrial city in decline. They were the songs too of Ian Curtis's inner tragedies, as he battled depression, epilepsy and debilitating stage fright. Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980, on the eve of the band's first American tour. Interspersed with the lyrics are previously unpublished facsimile pages of Ian's notebooks, which throw his highly emotive lyrics into fascinating relief and cast light on the creative process of this singularly poetic songwriter.