In the music of Stuart Saunders Smith (b. 1948), jazz, the avant-garde, and sound-text poetry coalesce. Through the years he has concentrated on certain kinds of composition--open form, radio music, trans-media systems, and sound-text poetry. Although Smith considers himself a jazz composer and drummer, his work has been absorbed into a wider range of contemporary musical efforts, both in the United States and Europe.

This study of Smith contains six critical analyses, an interview, and bibliographic information containing a list of compositions, a discography, Smith's publications, and research currently available on his music. As Milton Babbitt notes, All of his music is to be reckoned with... and, as such, this volume will be of interest to all students and scholars of contemporary composition.

Populism and nationalism in classical music held a significant place between the world wars with composers such as George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein creating a soundtrack to the lives of everyday Americans. While biographies of these individual composers exist, no single book has taken on this period as a direct contradiction to the modernist dichotomy between the music of Stravinsky and Schoenberg. In Nationalist and Populist Composers: Voices of the American People, Steve Schwartz offers an overdue correction to this distortion of the American classical music tradition by showing that not all composers of this era fall into either the Stravinsky or Schoenberg camps. Exploring the rise and decline of musical populism in the United States, Schwartz examines the major works of George Gershwin, Randall Thompson, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Kurt Weill, Morton Gould, and Leonard Bernstein. Organized chronologically, chapters cover each composer's life and career and then reveal how key works participated in populist and nationalist themes. Written for the both the scholar and amateur enthusiast interested in modern classical music and American social history, Nationalist and Populist Composers creates a contextual frame through which all audiences can better understand such works as Rhapsody in Blue, Appalachian Spring, and West Side Story.

This book assesses the influence and reception of many different forms of guitar playing upon the classical guitar and more specifically through the prism of John Williams. Beginning with an examination of Andres Segovia and his influence upon Williams' life's work, a further three incisive chapters cover key areas such as performance, perception, education and construction, considering social and cultural contexts of the guitar over the past century. A final chapter on new directions in classical guitar examines the change in reception of the instrument from the mid-1970s to the present day, and Williams' impact upon what might be termed 'standard classical guitar repertoire'. With in-depth discussion of the cultural and perceptual impact of Williams' more daring crossover projects and numerous musical examples, this is an informative reference for all classical guitar practitioners, as well as scholars and researchers of guitar studies, reception studies, cultural musicology and performance studies. An online lecture by the author and a transcript of the author's interview with John Williams are also available as e-resources.

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.

Originally published in 2003, Edvard Grieg and his Songs examines the lifetime of Edvard Grieg. His songs were among his most popular and well-known works and both historians and critics have seen in them, Grieg at his most sophisticated and innovative. Important in and of themselves, the songs also illuminate critical aspects of his other works such as his musical impressionism, his use of folk music as a source of inspiration, and his novel approach towards harmony. Fifty of Grieg's most important songs form the focus of this book. Each song is discussed individually and within the wider context of the composer's output. The book provides a translation of the lyrics, and analysis of the poem and a description of the song's form, melody, tessitura, harmony, rhythm and accompaniment, together with suggestions for interpretation. In addition to this, the book gives a brief biography of Grieg, with a chapter that analyses his approach to song writing.

Paul Simon: An American Tune is the first full-scale survey of the career of one of the most honored musicians and songwriters in American history. Starting out as a teeny-bopper rocker in the late 1950s, Paul Simon went on to form the most influential pop duo of the 1960s-Simon & Garfunkel-and after their break-up in 1970, launch one of the most successful, varied, and surprising solo careers of our time. In Paul Simon: An American Tune, Cornel Bonca considers Simon's vast trove of songs in the biographical and cultural context in which he wrote them: from the pop cultural revolution of the 1960s which Simon himself helped to create, the singer-songwriter movement of the 1970s, the turn toward world music in the 1980s that gave the world the monumental Graceland, to the intimate personal turn his music took in the millennial era. Analyzing Simon's albums one by one, often song by song, Bonca provides a deep and artful exploration of the work of one of today's major songwriters. Offering a lucid and vivid portrait of an astonishing decades-long career, Paul Simon: An American Tune will interest a wide audience, from Simon fans to students and scholars of American popular culture.

Since ascending onto the world stage in the 1990s as one of the premier bassists and composers of his generation, William Parker has perpetually toured around the world and released over forty albums as a leader. He is one of the most influential jazz artists alive today. In Universal Tonality historian and critic Cisco Bradley tells the story of Parker's life and music. Drawing on interviews with Parker and his collaborators, Bradley traces Parker's ancestral roots in West Africa via the Carolinas to his childhood in the South Bronx, and illustrates his rise from the 1970s jazz lofts and extended work with pianist Cecil Taylor to the present day. He outlines how Parker's early influences-Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and writers of the Black Arts Movement-grounded Parker's aesthetic and musical practice in a commitment to community and the struggle for justice and freedom. Throughout, Bradley foregrounds Parker's understanding of music, the role of the artist, and the relationship between art, politics, and social transformation. Intimate and capacious, Universal Tonality is the definitive work on Parker's life and music.

Adopting a two-books-in-one format. The Shostakovich Companion combines a full-length, single-author examination of the life and compositional evolution of the Soviet Union's most famous composer; and a symposium in which a variety of analytical techniques is applied to selected Shostakovich works and genres. This is the first comprehensive English-language book in twenty-five years in which the primary emphasis is on musical issues, and the secondary emphasis is on the biographical and much-debated political issues. The The Shostakovich Companion is divided into four parts. Part I considers the hermeneutic techniques that have been applied to Shostakovich's music, along with the various controversies surrounding his life and his relationship to Soviet politics. Part II comprises the book's central life-and-works discussion, uniting a comprehensive examination of Shostakovich's compositional evolution with a full account of his life. Coming from a variety of authors, the chapters in Part III demonstrate a cross-section of analytical techniques that may usefully be brought to bear upon Shostakovich's music. These range from literary and cinematically-based methods to the more traditional types of musical analysis. Part IV considers three independent but crucial aspects of Shostakovich's life: his contributions to the Soviet film industry, his career as a pianist, and his legacy and influence as a teacher.

Bringing together well-known writers with composers and performers, this volume gives a complete overview of Holt's creative work up to 2015. British composer Simon Holt (b. 1958) has been a leading presence in contemporary music since the early 1980s and Kites. His output is diverse, comprising chamber music, concertos for diverse instruments, songs, piano musicand opera. Holt is a composer who demands unusual commitment from his interpreters - the intricate sound-worlds he creates often contain complex, rich textures, offset by 'still centres' - for the purpose of making music which speaks with extraordinary power. Bringing together well-known writers with composers and performers, this volume gives a complete overview of Holt's creative work up to 2015 and Fool is hurt. It uses a variety of approaches to help readers, listeners and players to find ways into the pieces and to understand the influence of visual art and poetry on Holt's work. Colour illustrations, music examples, tables and sketch facsimiles offer a rounded impression of Holt's inspiration and thought to date. Also included are a wide-ranging conversation between Simon Holt and the artist Julia Bardsley, and a text by the conductor Thierry Fischer. The volume also offers the first detailed catalogue of Holt's compositions, drawn up together with the composer. It reveals that the last twenty years have seen no slowing-up in his rate of creative production, notwithstanding that the nature of his writing has changed during this time. DAVID CHARLTON is Professor Emeritus of Music History, Royal Holloway, University of London. Contributors: JULIA BARDSLEY, DAVID BEARD, DAVID CHARLTON, THIERRY FISCHER, ANTHONY GILBERT, STEPHEN GUTMAN, MELINDA MAXWELL, RICHARD MCGREGOR, STEPH POWER, PHILIP RUPPRECHT, SIMON SPEARE, REBECCA THUMPSTON, EDWARD VENN

The first systematic assessment of the symphonic style of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu [1890-1959], tracing the evolution of his musical language and including detailed analyses of all six symphonies. Over the past few decades the music of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) has enjoyed a slow but steady rise in popularity, and his six symphonies, written between 1942 and 1953, have now been recorded many times; concert performances are on the increase, too. But Martinu and the Symphony is not only the first book in English intended to help the music-lover to a deeper understanding of these glorious works - it is by far the most comprehensive work on the subject in any language. Each Symphony is examined in turn, the analyses revealing what makes each creation so individual yet also so clearly part of a close-knit family of works and identifying the elements of his melodic, harmonic and instrumental style which produce Martinu's very personal vibrant and organic symphonic manner. Martinu and the Symphony is illustrated with almost 200 musical examples, taken not only fromthe Symphonies but also from his other works for large orchestra. His path to symphonic mastery is examined in unprecedented detail: attention is at last paid to the early orchestral works which, although largely unperformed andunpublished even now, afford fascinating glimpses of the composer to come. A study of the late triptychs The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca and The Parables rounds out this appraisal of Martinus enthralling symphonic and orchestral legacy.

From his birth in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1947, to his 2020 album featuring the music of Lee Hammons, Wayne Howard has lived an exceptionally creative life. Howard seems to be eternally present at fiddle festivals, on the margins of old-time music gatherings, and ensconced in the circles of creative forces working to preserve and disseminate this archaic southern mountain music. In 1969, he relocated to West Virginia and, after being introduced to the Hammons family by Dwight Diller, Howard befriended the family and recorded Lee, Sherman, Burl, and Maggie Hammons playing music and telling stories. From there, Howard carved out a place for himself as a professional computer programmer, a vintage book collector and seller, and woodworker before turning his attention to writing about the Hammons family, and producing CDs from his reel-to-reel tapes of their stories and music for the Field Recorders' Collective. This biography follows the threads of music and folklore through Howard's life, celebrating his profound knowledge of the songs and songsters that does much to sustain the interest of those who seek out Appalachian tunes, songs, and stories.

The ultimate pick-me-up to save you from the nine-to-five heartbreak blues. The Little Guide to Dolly Parton is your bible of devastating Dolly-isms. Yes, that's right, the most iconic and acclaimed female country singer in the history of music is so inventive and brilliant with her clever wisecracks and sage advice that popular culture has crowned her with an -ism after her name. No one else is as worthy. For more than five decades, Dolly has been laying down her own brand of whip-smart wit and wisdom to the world, with many quotes and quips becoming as famous as her lyrical genius, for which she has won too many song writing awards and honours to mention. Stacked to the rafters with more than 150 bite-size bon-mots, one-liners and ripostes - as well profound and sincere observations - The Little Guide to Dolly Parton is your new favourite life companion. 'I never think of myself as a star because, as somebody once said, "A star is nothing but a big ball of gas" - and I don't want to be that.' Reflecting on stardom during an interview with Billboard, 2014. 'I'm proud of my hillbilly, white trash background. To me that keeps you humble; that keeps you good. And it doesn't matter how hard you try to outrun it - if that's who you are, that's who you are. It'll show up once in a while.' Discussing her background, during an interview with Southern Living, 2014.

Arthur Schwartz (1900-1984), a premier composer of American Popular Song during the mid-20th century, has been overlooked by historians. This first full-length biography covers his work on Broadway and in Hollywood, where he was known as the "master of the intimate revue" for his songs in the 1930s with Howard Dietz. Other lyricists over Schwartz's career included Dorothy Fields, Oscar Hammerstein II, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer and Leo Robin. Schwartz wrote music for films in the 1940s--with Academy Award nominations for They're Either Too Young or Too Old and A Gal in Calico--produced two popular movie musicals--Cover Girl and Night and Day--and was among the first songwriters to work in the new medium of television. The author describes his creative process and includes behind-the-scenes stories of each of his major musicals.

Georgia's music history is diverse in that it covers gospel singer Thomas Dorsey, soul singer James Brown, opera singer Jessye Norman, country singer Alan Jackson, folk singer Hedy West and symphony and choral conductors Robert Shaw and Yoel Levi. They Heard Georgia Singing provides brief musical biographies of the men and women who have made major contributions to Georgia musical history either as natives or as personalities within the context of Georgia music.

Wilbur C. Sweatman (1882-1961) is one of the most important, yet unheralded, African American musicians involved in the transition of ragtime into jazz in the early twentieth century. In "That's Got 'Em ," Mark Berresford tracks this energetic pioneer over a seven-decade career. His talent transformed every genre of black music before the advent of rock and roll--"pickaninny" bands, minstrelsy, circus sideshows, vaudeville (both black and white), night clubs, and cabarets. Sweatman was the first African American musician to be offered a long-term recording contract, and he dazzled listeners with jazz clarinet solos before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's so-called "first jazz records."

Sweatman toured the vaudeville circuit for over twenty years and presented African American music to white music lovers without resorting to the hitherto obligatory "plantation" costumes and blackface makeup. His bands were a fertile breeding ground of young jazz talent, featuring such future stars as Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmie Lunceford. Sweatman subsequently played pioneering roles in radio and recording production. His high profile and sterling reputation in both the black and white entertainment communities made him a natural choice for administering the estate of Scott Joplin and other notable black performers and composers.

"That's Got 'Em " is the first full-length biography of this pivotal figure in black popular culture, providing a compelling account of his life and times.

First study of Juan Esquivel, a highly significant figure in Spanish musical life in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Juan Esquivel was a cathedral choirmaster and composer, active in Spain during the period c.1580-c .1623 in which all aspects of the arts flourished, and one of the few peninsular composers of his generation to see his works published. He is known to have produced three large volumes of sacred polyphony - masses, motets, hymns, psalms, magnificats, and Marian antiphons - under the titles Liber primus missarum, Motecta festorum([both published 1608)and Tomus secondus, psalmorum, hymnorum... et missarum (published 1613); they reveal him to be a highly skilled craftsman. This first full-length study of his life and works presents a critical assessment of the man and his music, setting him within the social and religious context of the so-called Counter-Reformation. Beginning by outlining the facts of his life, the book goes on to offer an analysis and assessment of his output. Clive Walkley was until his retirement a lecturer in music and music education at Lancaster University.

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 Opéra, it launched a prolonged campaign of anonymous lies, mockery, and defamation against two prominent members of the Académie Française who wished the Opéra 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.

Double Lives: Film Composers in the Concert Hall is a collection of fifteen essays dealing with 'iconic' film composers who, perhaps to the surprise of many fans of film music, nevertheless maintained lifelong careers as composers for the concert hall. Featured composers include Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, Miklos Rozsa, Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, Leonard Rosenman, and Ennio Morricone. Progressing in chronological order, the chapters offer accounts of the various composers' concert-hall careers and descriptions of their concert-hall styles. Each chapter compares the composer's music for films with his or her music for the concert hall, and speculates as to how music in one arena might have affected music in the other. For each composer discussed in the book, complete filmographies and complete works lists are included as appendices. Double Lives: Film Composers in the Concert Hall is accessible for scholars, researchers, and general readers with an interest in film music and concert music.

The first book-length study in English of composer Mathias Spahlinger, one of Germany's leading practitioners of contemporary music. One of the most stimulating and provocative figures on the new music scene on Germany, he has long been a touchstone for leftist, 'critical' composition there, yet his work has received very little attention in Anglophone scholarship until now. Born in 1944, Spahlinger has risen only gradually to prominence in his native Germany and for many years was considered an outsider within the contemporary music scene. Yet, his position as one of the most venerable exponents of post-WWII modernism in his homeland is now undeniable: his music is regularly performed, he has received commissions from many of the major orchestras and new music groups in Germany, and in 2014 he received the Grossen Berliner Kunstpreis (Berlin Art Prize - Grand Prize) from the city's Akademie der Kunste (Academy of Arts). Spahlinger is, however, becoming increasingly known as a significant figure within later twentieth-century music - in 2015, a festival in Chicago focused exclusively on his music, and he was a keynote speaker at a conference on Compositional Aesthetics and the Political at Goldsmiths, University of London. This new book provides an essential reference for scholars of new music and twentieth-century modernism. There are no other book-length studies of Spahlinger in English, though there is a monograph and a book of essays in German, and books of interviews. This original work promises a more critical perspective upon the composer and his aesthetics and political ideas compared to previous publications. The illustrations include musical examples. Its primary market will be a specialist musicological readership, including academics, researchers and composers, but the writing style such that it could be accessible also to undergraduates interested in the field. The discussion of aesthetic debates in post-war Germany, and the interesting reading of the work of Jacques Ranciere, means that it could also have significant appeal across the disciplines of philosophy and critical theory.

This first volume of a projected two volume study of the music of John Jenkins concentrates exclusively on his consorts for viols. John Jenkins (1592-1678) was both the most prolific and most esteemed of English composers between the death of Byrd and the rise of Purcell. During his long life he was employed as a resident musician in East Anglian noble households and became a court musician to Charles II in his later years. This is the first in a two-volume study of Jenkins and his music. It presents a biographical introduction to the composer then concerns itself exclusively with the superb consorts for viols which dominate the early part of the composer's career. It is profusely illustrated with music examples and discusses virtually every work in this form. ANDREW ASHBEE is an internationally renowned expert on C17th English instrumental music, has edited a number of volumes of music from the period, and is an author, broadcaster and lecturer.

Tangle of Matter & Ghost: Leonard Cohen's Post-Secular Songbook of Mysticism(s) Jewish & beyond analyzes the lyrical poetry of Leonard Cohen through a post-secular lens. The volume fuses sophisticated theory and popular culture with critical analysis that is lacking in most of the rock n' roll biographies about Leonard Cohen. How does this mystical maestro's songbook emerge to illuminate questions of meaning making in a post-secular context when correlated with thinkers like Charles Taylor, Edward S. Casey, Jurgen Habermas, Slavoj Zizek, Jeffrey Kripal and Harold Bloom along with others. Cohen's mysticism is also analyzed in relationship to Kabbalah, Hasidism and Rinzai Buddhism. Tangle of Matter & Ghost presents a unique inter-disciplinary approach to Jewish philosophy and literary studies with wide appeal for diverse audiences and readership.

Identity and Diversity in New Music: The New Complexities aims to enrich the discussion of how musicians and educators can best engage with audiences, by addressing issues of diversity and identity that have played a vital role in the reception of new music, but have been little-considered to date. Marilyn Nonken offers an innovative theoretical approach that considers how the environments surrounding new music performances influence listeners' experiences, drawing on work in ecological psychology. Using four case studies of influential new music ensembles from across the twentieth century, she considers how diversity arises in the musical environment, its impact on artists and creativity, and the events and engagement it makes possible. Ultimately, she connects theory to practice with suggestions for how musicians and educators can make innovative music environments inclusive.

This title was first published in 2002. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is one of Britain's most distinguished composers. This source book documents as much of the material on his music as is available to 2001. As Richard McGregor points out in his foreword to the volume, Stewart Craggs has made valuable advances in sorting out the origins of many unknown works and gleaning details of many private compositions. The book also supplies details of those unknown works which haven't appeared in any previous catalogues, including broadcasts of early works from the BBC Archives. With information given on first performances, manuscript locations and recordings, in addition to details of composition dates, authors/librettists, durations, commissions and dedications amongst much else, this book is a key reference source for all those interested in Peter Maxwell Davies and his music.

In The Art of Listening, Anthony Arnone interviews 13 of the top cello teachers of our time, sharing valuable insights about performing, teaching, music, and life. While almost every other aspect of twenty-first-century life has been changed by technological advancements, the art of playing and teaching the cello has largely remained the same. Our instruments are still made exactly the same way and much of what we learn is passed on by demonstration and word of mouth from generation to generation. We are as much historians of music as we are teachers of the instrument. The teaching lineage in the classical music world has formed a family tree of sorts with a select number of iconic names at the top of the tree, such as Pablo Casals, Gregor Piatigorsky, and Leonard Rose. A large percentage of professional cellists working today studied with these giants of the cello world, or with their students. In addition to discussing the impact of these masters and their personal experience as their students, the renowned cellists interviewed in this book touch on a variety of topics from teaching philosophies to how technology has changed classical music.