Poly Styrene was a singer-songwriter, an artist, a free-thinker, a post-modern style pioneer and a lifelong spiritual seeker: a true punk icon. But this rebel queen with the cheeky grin was also a latter-day pop artist with a wickedly perceptive gift for satirising the world around her - her brightly coloured, playful aesthetic sharply at odds with the stark monochrome style and nihilism of punk. Here, for the first time, the vibrant jigsaw of Poly s inspiring and often moving story has been lovingly pieced together by her daughter, singer-songwriter Celeste Bell, and writer/artist Zoë Howe (author of the acclaimed Typical Girls? The Story Of The Slits, amongst many others). From growing up mixed-race in Brixton in the 1960s, to being at the forefront of the emerging punk scene with X-Ray Spex in the 1970s, to finding faith with the Hare Krishna movement, to balancing single motherhood with a solo music career and often debilitating mental health issues, the book honestly and openly explores Poly s exceptional life, up until her untimely passing in 2011. Based on interviews with those who knew and loved Poly whether personally or through music, this oral history book includes testimonies from Vivienne Westwood, Don Letts, Glen Matlock, Jonathan Ross, Neneh Cherry, The Slits Tessa Pollitt, Thurston Moore, Jon Savage, and many others. Heavily illustrated throughout including personal photographs, flyers from the punk scene and hand-drawn artwork and lyrics for X-Ray Spex and beyond the book beautifully captures Poly Styrene s creative and personal legacy, reminding us that if anyone had the power to turn our worlds dayglo, it was her.

This is the first English monograph of legendary French musique-concrete pioneer Luc Ferrari (1929-2005). Founding member of Groupe de Recherches (GRM) with Pierre Schaeffer-the group and studio were dedicated to the electronic medium that changed composition forever. This sumptuous volume includes facsimiles of Ferrari's original compositions, notebooks, and the first English translations of his writings, including poetry and fictional works and correspondence, as well as a special full-colour section that includes the composer's own collage artwork.

Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann (1756-1829) was born in Germany and lived from 1782 at St James's Palace, London, where he was organist and schoolmaster of His Majesty's German Chapel. He was one of the most profound music theorists of his time, and a pioneer in introducing Bach's music to England. His most extensive effort to inform the public about developments in the whole field of music - from acoustics to concert performance, from musical patents to books about music - was The Quarterly Musical Register, the first number of which is dated 1 January 1812. It can be regarded as England's first musicological journal. Written almost entirely by Kollmann, this journal included the first substantial English-language biography of Bach, identified anonymous music reviewers in English literary periodicals, gave a retrospect of the state of music in Great Britain and Germany, discussed efforts to improve organs and pianos, critically reviewed two editions of John Wall Callcott's Musical Grammar, and provided an account of Kollmann's own theory and much more. The Quarterly Musical Register folded after its second number. Only eight copies of the first number and six of the second appear to be extant, and just two libraries have the covering wrappers with which each number was issued. This book reproduces in facsimile both numbers and their wrappers, and presents new information about Kollmann's life and works.

Frederick Delius is among the most celebrated English composers of the 20th century. Widely studied and performed, his works are considered models of the British impressionist school and continue to fascinate students and scholars centuries later. This research guide serves as a ready reference for students and scholars, but will also be interesting to read and useful for anyone who wants to know where to begin to learn more about this important composer.

Since their first performances in 1960, The Beatles' cultural influence grew in unparalleled ways. From Liverpool to Beatlemania, and from dance halls to Abbey Road Studios and the digital age, the band's impact exploded during their heyday, and has endured in the decades following their disbandment. Beatles fashion and celebrity culture, politics, psychedelia and the Summer of Love, all highlight different aspects of the band's complex relationship with the world around them. With a wide range of short, snapshot chapters, The Beatles in Context brings together key themes in which to better explore The Beatles' lives and work and understand their cultural legacy, focusing on the people and places central to The Beatles' careers, the visual media that contributed to their enduring success, and the culture and politics of their time.

A major step in the rediscovery of one of the towering composers of the twentieth century; this brings to Schmidt's music the scholarship it so richly merits. Franz Schmidt is increasingly being recognised as a major composer. His music covers symphonies, quartets, opera and oratorio, and works and organ. In all of these genres he proves himself a master of large-scale symphonic form and one of the most substantial lyric geniuses of all time. Schmidt spent most of his life in Austria [he died in Vienna in 1939] where his importance was universally agreed. Here, Harold Truscott, the outstanding authorityon Schmidt in the English-speaking world, examines the orchestral works, taking the reader and listener through each of these mighty scores. Introduced by the `Personal Recollections' of Hans Keller, who knew Schmidt well in pre-World-War-II Vienna, the book also features the first-ever translation into English of Schmidt's Autobiographical Sketch, where the composer tells of his early childhood in Hungary, his teenage years near Vienna and his life as acellist in the Vienna Philharmonic. HAROLD TRUSCOTT is a composer and writer. He was Principal Lecturer in Music at Huddersfield Polytechnic and has performed widely as a pianist in recital, broadcast and concert work.

Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz is the biography of Krzysztof (Trzcinski) Komeda (1931-1969), composer of no fewer than 40 soundtracks, including film scores to all of Roman Polanski's early films such as Knife in the Water and Rosemary's Baby; and revered figure in the world of jazz, which regards his album, Astigmatic (released in 1966), as a key album in the history of European jazz. This biography of Komeda, originally published in Polish by Znak in 2018, the first to be published in the English language, not only traces Komeda's life, but also the development of Polish jazz during this period, showing how this arose in large part out of a need for self-expression and personal freedom during a repressive period of Soviet communist dominance. The book is full of interviews between the biographer and people who worked with and knew Krzysztof Komeda personally, and, while thoroughly-grounded in primary sources, it is written in a playful, questioning, engaging style.

Paul Gemignani is one of the titans of the modern musical theater industry. Serving as musical director for more than forty Broadway productions since 1971, his collaborations with Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Kander, Fred Ebb, Hal Prince, Michael Bennett, and Alan Menken have led to countless accolades for his collaborators, but due to the near invisible position of the musical director in the Broadway industry, Gemignani's story is often overlooked. GEMIGNANI seeks to not only bring the reader into the orchestra pit to learn Gemignani's story, but also to educate the reader about the crucial role a music director plays in bringing some of the most iconic musicals in Broadway history to life. Born into a second-generation Italian American family during the aftershocks of the Great Depression, Gemignani worked his way up from playing percussion in USO bands to conducting before Leonard Bernstein, all before becoming a pivotal player in the team that brought some of the most successful musicals of the late twentieth century to the stage. Sweeney Todd, Evita, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods would be quite different without his key contributions, and many of the sonic markers we now associate with the postmodern musical theater can be traced to Gemignani's careful curiosity to expand the bounds of what was possible.

From his early Liverpool days, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his long solo career, The Lyrics pairs the definitive texts of 154 songs by Paul McCartney with first-person commentaries on his life and music. Spanning two alphabetically arranged volumes, these commentaries reveal how the songs came to be and the people who inspired them: his devoted parents, Mary and Jim; his songwriting partner, John Lennon; his "Golden Earth Girl", Linda Eastman; his wife, Nancy McCartney; and even Queen Elizabeth II, amongst many others. Here are the origins of "Let It Be", "Lovely Rita", "Yesterday", and "Mull of Kintyre", as well as McCartney's literary influences, including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Alan Durband, his secondary school English teacher. With images from McCartney's personal archives-handwritten texts, paintings and photographs, hundreds previously unseen-The Lyrics, spanning sixty-four years, is the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

Revealing much about the workings of the musical world, these conversations will not only be essential reading for composers and composition students, but also contemporary music lovers more generally Julian Anderson is renowned internationally as one of the leading composers of his generation. This substantial book of conversations with the scholar and critic Christopher Dingle captures Anderson's thoughts and memories in-depth for the first time, not only providing biographical information and background material, but also capturing the workings of a remarkable mind. It is rare to find a composer prepared to speak extensively and honestly on as broada range of topics as Anderson. These extraordinarily diverse conversations range far beyond his own compositions and even beyond the sphere of music, exploring issues of broad cultural interest. Of particular value, providing insights into the practicalities and psychology of composing, are the glimpses of Anderson's thoughts on works in progress during the conversations, including the period from composing the score for his ENO opera Thebans to its first production, as well as his violin concerto, his 3rd String Quartet and his Berlin Philharmonic commission Incantesimi. Anderson's work with dance, his love of the voice and his varied collaborations with orchestras, soloists and conductors are also explored. With their wide range of musical and artistic topics, these conversations will be essential reading not only for composers and composition students, but for those interested inculture more generally.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller Updated with a new introduction and featuring never-before-seen photos Jessica reveals for the first time her inner monologue and most intimate struggles. Guided by the journals she's kept since age fifteen, and brimming with her unique humor and down-to-earth humanity, Open Book is as inspiring as it is entertaining. This was supposed to be a very different book. Five years ago, Jessica Simpson was approached to write a motivational guide to living your best life. She walked away from the offer, and nobody understood why. The truth is that she didn't want to lie. Jessica couldn't be authentic with her readers if she wasn't fully honest with herself first. Now America's Sweetheart, preacher's daughter, pop phenomenon, reality tv pioneer, and the billion-dollar fashion mogul invites readers on a remarkable journey, examining a life that blessed her with the compassion to help others, but also burdened her with an almost crippling need to please. Open Book is Jessica Simpson using her voice, heart, soul, and humor to share things she's never shared before. First celebrated for her voice, she became one of the most talked-about women in the world, whether for music and fashion, her relationship struggles, or as a walking blonde joke. But now, instead of being talked about, Jessica is doing the talking. Her book shares the wisdom and inspirations she's learned and shows the real woman behind all the pop-culture cliche's - "chicken or fish," "Daisy Duke," "football jinx," "mom jeans," "sexual napalm..." and more. Open Book is an opportunity to laugh and cry with a close friend, one that will inspire you to live your best, most authentic life, now that she is finally living hers.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) is now rightly recognized as one of the greatest and most original composers of the nineteenth century. His keen understanding of poetry and his uncanny ability to translate his profound understanding of human nature into remarkably balanced compositions marks him out from other contemporaries in the field of song. Schubert was one of the first major composers to devote so much time to song and his awareness that this genre was not rated highly in the musical hierarchy did not deter him, throughout a short but resolute and hard-working career, from producing songs that invariably arrest attention and frequently strike a deeply poetic note. Schubert did not emerge as a composer until after his death, but during his short lifetime his genius flowered prolifically and diversely. His reputation was first established among the aristocracy who took the art music of Vienna into their homes, which became places of refuge from the musical mediocrity of popular performance. More than any other composer, Schubert steadily graced Viennese musical life with his songs, piano music and chamber compositions. Throughout his career he experimented constantly with technique and in his final years began experiments with form. The resultant fascinating works were never performed in his lifetime, and only in recent years have the nature of his experiments found scholarly favor. In The Unknown Schubert contributors explore Schubert's radical modernity from a number of perspectives by examining both popular and neglected works. Chapters by renowned scholars describe the historical context of his work, its relation to the dominant artistic discourses of the early nineteenth century, and Schubert's role in the paradigmatic shift to a new perception of song. This valuable book seeks to bring Franz Schubert to life, exploring his early years as a composer of opera, his later years of ill-health when he composed in the shadow of death, and his efforts to reflect in his music his own profound inner experience.

Bob Dylan has helped transform music, literature, pop culture, and even politics. The World of Bob Dylan chronicles a lifetime of creative invention that has made a global impact. Leading rock and pop critics and music scholars address themes and topics central to Dylan's life and work: the Blues, his religious faith, Civil Rights, Gender, Race, and American and World literature. Incorporating a rich array of new archival material from never before accessed archives, The World of Bob Dylan offers a comprehensive, uniquely informed and wholly fresh account of the songwriter, artist, filmmaker, and Nobel Laureate whose unique voice has permanently reshaped our cultural landscape.

I have been seeking P.F. Sloan, but no one knows where he's gone. -from the song 'P.F. Sloan' by Jimmy Webb. Absolutely none of 'em could beat ol' P.F. -Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone magazine. What's Exactly The Matter With Me? is a first-person account of an extraordinary life and pilgrimage through the most fascinating years of American and English musical culture. This is a story of dreams, success, destruction, and miraculous resurrection; the incredible, heartbreaking, and ultimately inspiring story of one of the greatest songwriters in American music-and also one of the most elusive and mysterious. P.F. Sloan was one of the most prolific and influential geniuses to emerge from the golden age of the 60s, and a pioneer of folk-rock. Between 1965 and 1967, 150 of his songs were recorded by major acts, and 45 of those made the charts. No other songwriter has ever come close to achieving so great number of hits in such a short period of time. From his little studio at Dunhill Records, P.F. Sloan was a veritable hit-machine, writing for The Mamas and The Papas (that's Sloan's infectious guitar lick on 'California Dreamin"), Jan and Dean (the falsetto you hear on most of their hits is Sloan's), Barry McGuire (the brilliant and controversial 'Eve Of Destruction'), Johnny Rivers ('Secret Agent Man'), The Turtles, The Fifth Dimension, and many, many more. He wrote so many songs, in fact, that Dunhill sold him as seven different acts. Unsurprisingly, he wound up exhausted and broken, thus beginning a long journey into the wilderness-a journey of UFOs and psychiatric hospitals, healing and survival, and, ultimately, redemption.

The grotesque is one of art's most puzzling figures - transgressive, comprising an unresolveable hybrid, generally focussing on the human body, full of hyperbole, and ultimately semantically deeply puzzling. In Bluebeard's Castle (1911), The Wooden Prince (1916/17), The Miraculous Mandarin (1919/24, rev. 1931) and Cantata Profana (1930), BartA(3)k engaged scenarios featuring either overtly grotesque bodies or closely related transformations and violations of the body. In a number of instrumental works he also overtly engaged grotesque satirical strategies, sometimes - as in Two Portraits: 'Ideal' and 'Grotesque' - indicating this in the title. In this book, Julie Brown argues that BartA(3)k's concerns with stylistic hybridity (high-low, East-West, tonal-atonal-modal), the body, and the grotesque are inter-connected. While BartA(3)k developed each interest in highly individual ways, and did so separately to a considerable extent, the three concerns remained conceptually interlinked. All three were thoroughly implicated in cultural constructions of the Modern during the period in which BartA(3)k was composing.

It's never too early to start introducing your kids to the greatest musician who ever lived. Bowie for Babies is a vibrantly illustrated dip into David Bowie, perfect for parents to read with their young children. Transport them to life on Mars where they'll meet Ziggy Stardust, Major Tom and all their friends. With colourful illustrations for kids and text that's fun for parents to read, you can learn about Bowie together while they're still too little too play with your vinyl collection.

Faure Studies showcases new research from leading scholars in the United States, United Kingdom, and France into this influential French composer of the fin de siecle. This book features interpretations of individual works and musical analyses, as well as studies of compositional pedagogy, social history, and aesthetics. Accessible to a wide range of readers, this volume also provides a valuable overview of Faure research from the composer's lifetime to the present. As part of Cambridge Composer Studies, Faure Studies adds momentum to new research into this major composer, which includes recently launched critical editions of his music.

From producing her own albums, to designing her own stage performances, Kate Bush has been an innovator throughout her career. With hits such as 'Wuthering Heights', 'Babooshka' and 'Running Up That Hill', her music has always been ethereal and her endearing image has often been regarded as one of mystique. The creativity and the conviction with which she has made her music continue to be an inspiration to not only her legions of fans, but many of her peers. In celebration of Kate's entire career to date and complemented with a narrative by Laura Shenton MA LLCM Dip(RSL), this visual biography is packed with photos - many of which haven't been published before (including several from her 1979 tour).

Since the publication of The London Pianoforte School (ed. Nicholas Temperley) twenty years ago, research has proliferated in the area of music for the piano during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and into developments in the musical life of London, for a time the centre of piano manufacturing, publishing and performance. But none has focused on the piano exclusively within Britain. The eleven chapters in this volume explore major issues surrounding the instrument, its performers and music within an expanded geographical context created by the spread of the instrument and the growth of concert touring. Topics covered include: the piano trade and how piano manufacturing affected a major provincial town; the reception of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum during the nineteenth century; the shift from composer-pianists to pianist-interpreters in the first half of the century that triggered crucial changes in piano performance and concert structure; the growth of musical life in the peripheries outside major musical centres; the pianist as advocate for contemporary composers as well as for historical repertory; the status of British pianists both in relation to foreigners on tour in Britain and as welcomed star performers in outposts of the Empire; marketing forces that had an impact on piano sales, concerts and piano careers; leading virtuosos, writers and critics; the important role played by women pianists and the development of the recording industry, bringing the volume into the early twentieth century.

The displacement of European musics and musicians is a defining feature of twentieth-century music history. The displacement of European musics and musicians is a defining feature of twentieth-century music history. Musical Journeys uses vignettes of migratory moments in the works of Hanns Eisler in Paris, Matyas Seiber in London, and Istvan Anhalt in Montreal to investigate concepts of identity construction and musical aesthetics in the light of migratory experiences. Moving between the Austro-Hungarian Empire, proto-fascist Hungary, fascist Germany, war-time Britain, post-war Canada, and socialist East Germany, the book explores aspects of musical migrant culture including creative responses to nationalist ideas and politics, the role of cultural institutions in promoting (or censoring) the works of immigrant composers, and the complex interaction between Jewish identity and memory. It contends that an approach to music through the lens of migration can challenge and enrich socio-cultural understandings of music as well as conceptions of music historiography. Drawing on exile, diaspora, migration and mobilities studies, critical theory, and post-colonial and cultural studies, Musical Journeys weaves detailed biographical and contextual historical knowledge and analytical insights into music into an intricate fabric that does justice to the complexity of the musical migratory experience. FLORIAN SCHEDING is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Bristol.

For anyone wanting to get to grips with Britten's music and his eclectic compositional style - crucial reading. MUSIC AND LETTERS Fascinating and persuasive blend of documentary and critical study. MUSICAL TIMES Benjamin Britten's interest in the musical traditions of the Far East had a far-reaching influence on his compositional style; this book is the first to investigate the highly original cross-cultural synthesis he was able to achieve through the use of material borrowed from Balinese, Japanese and Indian music. Britten's visit to Indonesia and Japan in 1955-6 is reconstructed from archival sources, and shown to have had a profound impact on his subsequent work: the techniques of Balinese gamelan music were used in the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1957), and then became an essential feature of Britten's compositional style, at their most potent in Death in Venice(1973). The No drama and Gagaku court music of Japan were the inspiration for the trilogy of church parables Britten composed in the 1960s. The precise nature of these influences is discussed; Britten's sporadic borrowings from Indian music are also fully analysed. There is a survey of critical response to Britten's cross-cultural experiments.Accompanying CD of original Balinese, Japanese and Indian recordings used by Britten as source material.Dr MERVYN COOKE lectures in music at the University of Nottingham.

An icon of British national identity and one of the most widely performed twentieth-century composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams has been as much misunderstood as revered; his international impact and enduring influence on areas as diverse as church music, film scores and popular music has been insufficiently appreciated. This volume brings together a team of leading scholars, examining all areas of the composer's output from new perspectives, and re-evaluating the cultural politics of his lifelong advocacy for the music-making of ordinary people. Surveys of major genres are complemented by chapters exploring such topics as the composer's relationship with the BBC and his studies with Ravel; uniquely, the book also includes specially commissioned interviews with major living composers Peter Maxwell Davies, Piers Hellawell, Nicola Lefanu and Anthony Payne. The Companion is a vital resource for all those interested in this pivotal figure of modern music.