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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Composers & musicians
Richard Hageman (1881-1966) was celebrated during his lifetime as a conductor, pianist, vocal coach, and composer. His art songs put him solidly in the vanguard of mid-century composers and he was routinely referred to in the same context as Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, William Grant Still, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. His opera Caponsacchi was the first American opera to premiere in Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Vienna. A conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, Hageman knew the great singers of the age, conducting Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar, and accompanying Nellie Melba and Emmy Destinn. He wrote songs for John McCormack and Lotte Lehmann. By the late 1930s Hageman was composing in Hollywood, scoring westerns for John Ford and earning six Academy Award nominations. In Hollywood, he had drinks with John Wayne, rubbed shoulders with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and shared the screen with Louis Armstrong and Elizabeth Taylor. Richard Hageman: From Holland to Hollywood is the first critical biography to reconstruct Hageman's colorful life while recreating the cultural milieu in which he flourished: opera in America during the first half of the twentieth century and film scoring in Hollywood in the heyday of the studio system. Here Hageman's most important works are analyzed in depth for the first time, from his famous art song, "Do Not Go, My Love" and his opera Caponsacchi, to his film scores such as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and 3 Godfathers. This biography offers a compelling read for opera lovers, film fans, and American history enthusiasts alike.
Richard Hageman (1881-1966) was celebrated during his lifetime as a conductor, pianist, vocal coach, and composer. His art songs put him solidly in the vanguard of mid-century composers and he was routinely referred to in the same context as Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, William Grant Still, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. His opera Caponsacchi was the first American opera to premiere in Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Vienna. A conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, Hageman knew the great singers of the age, conducting Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar, and accompanying Nellie Melba and Emmy Destinn. He wrote songs for John McCormack and Lotte Lehmann. By the late 1930s Hageman was composing in Hollywood, scoring westerns for John Ford and earning six Academy Award nominations. In Hollywood, he had drinks with John Wayne, rubbed shoulders with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and shared the screen with Louis Armstrong and Elizabeth Taylor. Richard Hageman: From Holland to Hollywood is the first critical biography to reconstruct Hageman's colorful life while recreating the cultural milieu in which he flourished: opera in America during the first half of the twentieth century and film scoring in Hollywood in the heyday of the studio system. Here Hageman's most important works are analyzed in depth for the first time, from his famous art song, "Do Not Go, My Love" and his opera Caponsacchi, to his film scores such as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and 3 Godfathers. This biography offers a compelling read for opera lovers, film fans, and American history enthusiasts alike.
Vivaldi's celebrated Four Seasons are among the most popular works of all time and these, with the rest of the concertos in Op. 8, represent the composer's remarkable innovation in the field of the Baroque concerto. This detailed guide examines the work's origin and construction in a way that enables the reader to distinguish what is extraordinary about the Seasons, at the same time providing an ideal introduction to Vivaldi's music in general.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Pre-history of 'The Midsummer Marriage' examines the early collaborative phase (1943 to 1946) in the making of Michael Tippett's first mature opera and charts the developments that grew out of that phase. Drawing on a fascinating group of Tippett's sketchbooks and a lengthy sequence of his letters to Douglas Newton, it helps construct a narrative of the Tippett-Newton collaboration and provides insights into the devising of the opera's plot, both in that early phase and in the phase from 1946 onwards when Tippett went on with the project alone. The book asks: who was Newton, and what kind of collaboration did he have-then cease to have- with Tippett? What were the origins of and shaping factors behind the original scenario and libretto-drafts? How far did the narrative and controlling concepts of Midsummer Marriage in its final form tally with-and how far did they move away from-those that had been set up in the years of the two men's collaboration, the 'pre-historic' years? The book will be of particular interest to scholars and researchers in opera studies and twentieth-century music.
Glen Campbell began his musical career as a songwriter to many of the 1960's biggest stars. He transitioned to film with John Wayne in 1969's True Grit, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005, and was awarded a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in 2012. During his 50 years in show business, Campbell has released more than 70 albums selling more than 50 million copies. His hits include Galveston, and Rhinestone Cowboy. For the last twenty-four years, Debby has been by her father's side, as a part of his concert touring act, as well as a supportive part of his family. She has been with her dad through his four wives, through drug and alcohol addiction, and now through the shattering beginnings of Alzheimer's disease. Debby Campbell writes her story of a father and his devoted daughter from her heart, and from her diary. She has shared some of the most rewarding years in her father's life. And now, for the first time, she blows the lid off of all of Glen Campbell's family secrets. It is about a family bound together by Glen's talent. Debby discusses the marriages, the drink and the drugs, the illness and her sacking, as well as Glen Campbell's many successes. In her frank family memoir Debby Campbell sets the record straight on a daughter's love for her talented father, with the full knowledge that she is about to start burning some bridges of her own.
Over the course of his career, Billy Joel has released a series of remarkable albums that together chart his journey as an artist from relative obscurity to international success. In Experiencing Billy Joel, musician and writer Thomas MacFarlane explores that musical journey, from Joel's apprenticeship in the Long Island music scene to his experiences in both New York and Los Angeles writing and recording his own unique brand of piano rock and pop. After achieving a certain degree of musical success in the late 1960s, Joel embarked on a career as a singer-songwriter in the early 1970s. Although his initial albums demonstrated a precocious mastery that helped establish him in the field, his full potential as a recording artist blossomed on The Stranger (1977), created under the guidance of legendary producer Phil Ramone. Subsequent releases explored a variety of musical styles and helped solidify Joel's reputation as one of the most important pop composers of his era. Experiencing Billy Joel explores each of Joel's albums, laying out their appeal to musicians and non-musicians alike while also exploring the various production styles that have characterized Joel's development in the studio. Along the way, MacFarlane reveals how Billy Joel's recorded works as a whole serve as the foundation for a complex and enduring musical legacy.
The tercentenary of Henry Purcell's death fell in 1995, and this 1995 volume of specially commissioned essays was collected to celebrate Purcell's music in his tercentenary year. The essays are representative of the best research and deal mainly with the autograph manuscripts, Purcell's compositional technique, the relationship between Purcell and his teacher John Blow, a reassessment of Purcell court odes, performance practice and wordsetting, and eighteenth-century reception history, particularly regarding King Arthur. The volume is well illustrated with music examples and photographs of important manuscripts. It also analyses Purcell's compositional techniques through detailed study of his manuscripts and reports on the discovery of two important autograph manuscripts. The book opens with an assessment of Purcell's illusive personality.
Guns N' Roses emerged from Los Angeles in the 1980s to become a global rock'n'roll phenomenon, selling in total more than 100 million albums. Three decades on, Guns N' Roses are once again headline news around the world - with the return of iconic guitarist Slash marking the end of his bitter 20-year feud with singer Axl Rose. When Guns N' Roses' debut album Appetite For Destruction was released in 1987, the band were so out of control that their record company stated: "They'll make it - if they live." And yet, somehow, they did. Appetite For Destruction became the biggest selling debut in the history of American music, and songs such as "Sweet Child O' Mine", "Welcome To The Jungle" and "Paradise City" became era-defining classics. Known as The Most Dangerous Band In The World, Guns N' Roses' success continued into the 1990s with the albums Use Your Illusion I and II, but by the end of that decade only singer Axl Rose remained from the original line up. This book follows the complete story of Guns N' Roses: the highs and lows, the triumphs and failures, the fights, the excess, and the great music that shook the world. Now, with Axl and Slash reunited - along with another member of the band's classic line-up, Duff McKagan - Guns N' Roses are set to make history once again with one of the biggest tours ever. The story continues...
The definitive biography of country legend Merle Haggard by the New York Times bestselling biographer of Clint Eastwood, Cary Grant, The Eagles, and more.Merle Haggard was one of the most important country music musicians who ever lived. His astonishing musical career stretched across the second half of the 20th Century and into the first two decades of the next, during which he released an extraordinary 63 albums, 38 that made it on to Billboard's Country Top Ten, 13 that went to #1, and 37 #1 hit singles. With his ample songbook, unique singing voice and brilliant phrasing that illuminated his uncompromising commitment to individual freedom, cut with the monkey of personal despair on his back and a chip the size of Monument Valley on his shoulder, Merle's music and his extraordinary charisma helped change the look, the sound, and the fury of American music.The Hag tells, without compromise, the extraordinary life of Merle Haggard, augmented by deep secondary research, sharp detail and ample anecdotal material that biographer Marc Eliot is known for, and enriched and deepened by over 100 new and far-ranging interviews. It explores the uniquely American life of an angry rebellious boy from the wrong side of the tracks bound for a life of crime and a permanent home in a penitentiary, who found redemption through the music of "the common man."Merle Haggard's story is a great American saga of a man who lifted himself out of poverty, oppression, loss and wanderlust, to catapult himself into the pantheon of American artists admired around the world. Eliot has interviewed more than 100 people who knew Haggard, worked with him, were influenced by him, loved him or hated him. The book celebrates the accomplishments and explore the singer's infamous dark side: the self-created turmoil that expressed itself through drugs, women, booze, and betrayal. The Hag offers a richly anecdotal narrative that will elevate the life and work of Merle Haggard to where both properly belong, in the pantheon of American music and letters.The Hag is the definitive account of this unique American original, and will speak to readers of country music and rock biographies alike.
Songs of the Unsung is the autobiography of Los Angeles jazz musician and activist Horace Tapscott (1934-1999). A pianist who ardently believed in the power of music to connect people, Tapscott was a beloved and influential character who touched many yet has remained unknown to the majority of Americans. In addition to being "his" story, Songs of the Unsung is the story of Los Angeles's cultural and political evolution over the last half of the twentieth century, of the origins of many of the most important avant-garde musicians still on the scene today, and of a rich and varied body of music. Tapscott's narrative covers his early life in segregated Houston, his move to California in 1943, life as a player in the Air Force band in the early fifties, and his travels with the Lionel Hampton Band. He reflects on how the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (the "Ark"), an organization he founded in 1961 to preserve and spread African and African-American music, eventually became the Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension-a group that not only performed musically but was active in the civil rights movement, youth education, and community programs. Songs of the Unsung also includes Tapscott's vivid descriptions of the Watts neighborhood insurrection of 1965 and the L.A. upheavals of 1992, interactions with both the Black Panthers and the L.A.P.D., his involvement in Motown's West Coast scene, the growth of his musical reputation abroad, and stories about many of his musician-activist friends, including Billy Higgins, Don Cherry, Buddy Collette, Arthur Blythe, Lawrence and Wilber Morris, Linda Hill, Elaine Brown, Stanley Crouch, and Sun Ra. With a foreword by Steven Isoardi, a brief introduction by actor William Marshall, a full discography of Tapscott's recordings, and many fine photographs, Songs of the Unsung is the inspiring story of one of America's most unassuming twentieth-century heroes.
A San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller! "The arid land that starts in Arizona and stretches into Mexico's west coast is Ronstadt's foothold in the world. It's a story she has told through music, and now wants to tell through food."-The New York Times "The book is many things at once. It's a portrait of a place, the Sonoran Desert, and it's a genealogy of sorts, an archival romp through Ronstadt's family history."-Vogue "An album of loves for the high desert of Sonora and Ronstadt's hometown of Tucson."-NPR Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Linda Ronstadt takes readers on a journey to the place her soul calls home, the Sonoran Desert, in this candid new memoir. In Feels Like Home, Grammy award-winning singer Linda Ronstadt effortlessly evokes the magical panorama of the high desert, a landscape etched by sunlight and carved by wind, offering a personal tour built around meals and memories of the place where she came of age. Growing up the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants and a descendant of Spanish settlers near northern Sonora, Ronstadt's intimate new memoir celebrates the marvelous flavors and indomitable people on both sides of what was once a porous border whose denizens were happy to exchange recipes and gather around campfires to sing the ballads that shaped Ronstadt's musical heritage. Following her bestselling musical memoir, Simple Dreams, this book seamlessly braids together Ronstadt's recollections of people and their passions in a region little understood in the rest of the United States. This road trip through the desert, written in collaboration with former New York Times writer Lawrence Downes and illustrated throughout with beautiful photographs by Bill Steen, features recipes for traditional Sonoran dishes and a bevy of revelations for Ronstadt's admirers. If this book were a radio signal, you might first pick it up on an Arizona highway, well south of Phoenix, coming into the glow of Ronstadt's hometown of Tucson. It would be playing something old and Mexican, from a time when the border was a place not of peril but of possibility.
Conlon Nancarrow (1912--1997) was an American-Mexican composer whose works for the player piano exhibit a level of innovation and complexity which remains unmatched even today--his catalogue of works is often considered the Well-Tempered Clavier of the twentieth century. Encounters with Conlon Nancarrow, by Jurgen Hocker, is the first extensive biography of Nancarrow. Hocker gives insight to the life and personality of the often reclusive Nancarrow, making use of many as-yet-unpublished sources and interviews as well as a timeline and a comprehensive catalogue of Nancarrow's works. Encounters with Conlon Nancarrow is an indispensable reference book for musicians, musicologists, and player piano collectors, but it is also sure to appeal to anyone with a particular interest in American contemporary music.
Taken from the acclaimed BBC Radio 6 Music show, The First Time invites you inside the lives of some of the music world's most notable legends. From Alice Cooper to Yoko Ono, Courtney Love to Elton John, follow their lives and careers starting with their first musical memories, first records and first gigs, finding out the songs that have shaped them along the way. With 40 compelling interviews, specially commissioned collage illustrations and a bespoke playlist for each musician, The First Time is a must-have for any music lover.
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.
Along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones were the key group of the sixties; headline makers, style icons, trend setters - but most of all the force behind a string of brilliant singles and albums that have come to define the era. If The Cavern in Liverpool was the birthplace of the Mersey beat, then the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, where the Stones played their first gigs, was at the heart of British rhythm and blues. Formed in 1962 this tells their incredible story including profiles of the past and present members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood, together with Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, and Mick Taylor.
This volume of spellbinding essays explores the tense relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann, providing new perspectives on their collaboration. Featuring chapters by leading scholars of Hitchcock's work, including Richard Allen, Charles Barr, Murray Pomerance, Sidney Gottlieb and Jack Sullivan, the collection examines the working relationship between the pair and the contribution that Herrmann's work brings to Hitchcock's idiom. Examining key works, including The Man Who Knew Too Much, Psycho, Marnie and Vertigo, the essays explore approaches to sound, music, collaborative authorship and the distinctive contribution that Herrmann's work with Hitchcock brought to this body of films, examining the significance, meanings, histories and enduring legacies of one of film history's most important partnerships. By engaging with the collaborative work of Hitchcock and Herrmann, the book explores the ways in which film directors and composers collaborate, how this collaboration is experienced in the film text, and the ways in which such partnerships inspire later work. -- .
When considered in a broader social context, The Clash stand as one of the most important musical acts in rock history. Original punks who transcended the music's minimalist origins, The Clash lived and breathed the idea that they could change the world with their art. In The Clash: The Only Band That Mattered, respected music critic Sean Egan examines The Clash's career and art through the prism of the uniquely interesting and fractious UK politics of the 1970s and '80s, without which they simply would not have existed. Tackling such subjects as The Clash's self-conscious tussles with their record label, the accusations of selling out that dogged their footsteps, their rivalry with the similarly leaning but less purist Jam, the paradoxical quality of their achieving multiplatinum success, and even whether their denunciations of Thatcherism were proven wrong, Egan has come up with new insights into a much discussed group. Clash fans, Clash haters, social historians, and political students will all find themselves entertained by his thought-provoking conclusions.
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.
In The Performance of Authenticity: The Makings of Jazz and the Self in Autobiography Teofilo Espada-Brignoni analyzes the autobiographies of New Orleans musicians (Baby Dodds, Sidney Bechet, Pops Foster, and Lee Collins) who throughout their texts construct New Orleans jazz as an authentic musical expression grounded in their experiences and culture. The author argues the autobiographies reproduce and reinterpret modernist conceptions of authenticity to assert and affirm authority over the public representations and discussions of jazz. Through the autobiographers' use of ideas about authenticity, they establish the value of their narratives but at the same time reinforce some of the power dynamics they set out to criticize. Their narratives also reveal the complex ethics that emerged during the first decades of the music and problematize modernist values such as individualism, the dichotomy of work and life, as well as the self and the social. The book adopts Foucauldian and social-constructivist perspectives, complementing analysis of the autobiographies by drawing from literary theory, psychology, sociology, and jazz scholarship.
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. |
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