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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Composers & musicians
Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) is best known as the conductor of the Halle Orchestra, who arguably made Manchester the most important focus for music in Britain in his day. This book chronicles and analyses Harty's illustrious career, from his establishment as London's premiere accompanist in 1901 to his years as a conductor between 1910 and 1933, first with the LSO and then with the Halle, to his American tours of the 1930s. Tragically, Harty died from cancer in 1941 at the age of only 61. This book also looks at Harty's life as a composer of orchestral and chamber works and songs, notably before the First World War. Although Harty's music cleaved strongly to a late nineteenth-century musical language, he was profoundly influenced during his days in Ulster and Dublin by the Irish literary revival. A great exponent of Mozart and especially Berlioz, Harty was also a keen exponent of British music and an active supporter of American composers such as Gershwin. Harty's role in the exposition of standard and new repertoire and his relationship with contemporary composers and performers are also examined, against the perspective of other important major British conductors such as Sir Thomas Beecham, Malcolm Sargent and Sir Henry Wood. Additionally, the book analyses the debates Harty provoked on the subjects of women orchestral players, jazz, modernism, and the music of Berlioz. JEREMY DIBBLE is Professor of Music at Durham University and author of John Stainer: A Life in Music(The Boydell Press, 2007) and monographs on C. Hubert H. Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford and Michele Esposito.
Following a run of New Year's concerts at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland, with no design yet heeding signs, including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger's words, "Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey." For Patti Smith - inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life's gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Smith melds the Western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from Southern California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places - this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment. But as Patti Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope of a better world. Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith's signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.
The biography of the first rock n roll star, written by his son. The story of a country and western singer who became an overnight success with `Rock Around the Clock', mobbed wherever he went for two years (`Thousands of fans formed a crush at the station to greet the group in a raucous display the press dubbed "the Second Battle of Waterloo."'), accused of inciting riots and then completely eclipsed by a singer called Elvis with sex appeal. Haley's messy private life resulted in distancing himself from his kids before his big 1970s revival. Despite this reversal of his fortunes he had drunk himself to death by 1981.
For the past half-century and more David Cairns has been one of the world's pre-eminent Berlioz scholars, translating Berlioz's freewheeling memoirs and writing a monumental biography of the composer that earned a procession of awards. But many of Cairns' writings on Berlioz were intended for particular audiences - the Berlioz Society Bulletin, articles in books and journals, contributions to newspapers (he was a critic for The Sunday Times for 25 years) and lectures - and have never been collected between a single set of covers. Discovering Berlioz presents nearly 40 essays from the past five decades that even now throw unexpected light on this most quixotic and profound of composers - firebrand and philosopher almost in the same breath. These articles follow the chronology of Berlioz's life, examining the influences of his provincial childhood on his music, the revelations of Virgil, Gluck, Shakespeare and Beethoven, the tribulations of his professional life in Paris, when the pressure to earn a living as a reviewer and writer robbed him of the time he should have spent on composition, and finally focusing on the masterpiece that crowned Berlioz's difficult life, the operatic epic Les Troyens. Discovering Berlioz also charts the history of Berlioz reception: the composer who in the mid-twentieth century was regarded as an eccentric outsider is now seen as one of the most vital figures in the history of western music - a re-assessment for which David Cairns himself deserves much of the credit.
First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Kris Kristofferson is one of country music's most illustrious singer-songwriters. Seemingly destined for a distinguished military career, ex-Golden Gloves boxer and Rhodes scholar Kristofferson gave it all up to sweep floors in Nashville, began to pitch his songs to his musical heroes and finally became a star himself. Stephen Miller's biography perfectly captures the spirit of a single-minded but multi-talented man who has been inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. It details the 100 films Kristofferson has been in to date and talks about the people who he worked with including Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan to Barbra Streisand and Martin Scorcese and Sam Peckinpah. The story if brought right up to date as Kristofferson carries on working following heart bypass surgery and the death of his friends and fellow performers including Johnny Cash, The Highwaymen and Waylon Jennings.
On February 16 1969, John McLaughlin flew into New York, from London, in a snowstorm. The following day, Miles Davis, his hero, invited him to play on a record. Two years later, on the path of Bengali mystic Sri Chinmoy, John launched The Mahavishnu Orchestra-an evocation in music of spiritual aspiration and extraordinary power, volume and complexity, far beyond anything else in jazz or rock. Curiously, it was also a huge success. John McLaughlin brought rock music to its pinnacle, the end point in an evolution from Mississippi blues through Coltrane, Hendrix and The Beatles. And then, in November 1975, he hung up his electric guitar and walked away from the stadiums of the rock world for an ongoing, restless career in music of other forms. To most of the world, John McLaughlin looked like an overnight success, with a backstory going back only as far as that February in 1969. Yet he had been a professional musician since 1958, experiencing all the great movements in British music-trad jazz, rock'n'roll, R and B, soul, modern jazz, free jazz, psychedelic rock-a guitar for hire at the centre of 'Swinging London', a bandmate of future members of Cream, Pentangle and Led Zeppelin, but always just under the radar. Drawing on dozens of exclusive interviews and many months of meticulous research, author and music historian Colin Harper brings that unrepeatable era vividly to life. This landmark new work retrieves for the first time the incredible career of John McLaughlin before he conquered the world-and then chronicles how he did so.
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. -- .
In April 1998, legendary southern jam band Widespread Panic held a free open-air record release show in downtown Athens, Georgia, its homebase. No one involved could have known that the predicted crowd of twenty thousand would prove to be nearly five times that size. The ultimately successful show, now known as "Panic in the Streets," went on to become a cult favorite of Panic fans and a decisive moment in Athens music history. This event still holds the record for the world's largest record release party, but the full story of how the event came to be has not been told until now. Widespread Panic in the Streets of Athens, Georgia places readers at the historic event, using in-depth investigation and interviews with the band, city officials, and "Spread Heads" who were there. Told as much as possible in real time, music journalist Gordon Lamb's narrative takes the reader from conception to aftermath and uncovers the local controversies and efforts that nearly stopped the show from happening altogether. This deeply researched and richly sourced book follows every stage of the concert's development from the spark of an idea to approximately one hundred thousand people from all over the world packing the streets of a legendary music town. Taking us back to 1990s Athens through vibrant, on-the-scene writing, Lamb gives us the story of a band on the verge of greatness and a town reckoning with its significant place in music history.
In addition, "The Tone Clock" contains a broad selection of Peter
Schat's polemical writings, embracing historical, political,
aesthetic and environmental perspectives. His book is not just of
interest to composers, but it also provides a valuable insight for
anyone interested in the development of twentieth-century
music.
Drawing on many archival findings, this book considers the emerging function and status of orchestral conductors in Britain, and the nature of the opportunities available to them, from the late Victorian era until the outbreak of World War I. It does so by examining and comparing the profiles and impact of eight men whose work supplied the needs of a variety of institutions across the period but whose significant contributions were overshadowed by the emergence of virtuoso interpreters. The conducting activities of Julius Benedict, William Cusins, Joseph Barnby, Arthur Sullivan, Frederic Cowen, Alexander Mackenzie, Dan Godfrey and Landon Ronald provide a lens through which the evolution of conducting as a profession is traced. At the British Empire's height their work was shaped by and enriched the cultural life of the nation. During a period of intense activity and development, their portfolios of engagements and working patterns shed light on the infrastructures within the music business. By focusing on the fortunes and agency of conductors resident within the marketplace, this book deepens our understanding of the internal networks, influences and priorities within musical life in Britain in the late nineteenth century. FIONA M. PALMER is Professor of Music at the National University of Ireland Maynooth.
In time for the band's twentieth anniversary, the inside story of the Dave Matthews Band-from the early days playing small gigs in Charlottesville to their current sold-out annual summer concert tours...and more than thirty-five million records sold. Dave Matthews Band has one of the largest and most loyal followings of any band today-after twenty years of constant touring and several acclaimed, multiplatinum albums, the members enjoy a connection with their fans that few other acts can match. Ask DMB devotees and they'll happily tell you tales of amazing sold-out summer shows, the stunning venues they've seen the band play all around the world, classic live show recordings...and memories of good times with great friends, old and new. For hundreds of thousands of people, affection for DMB goes far beyond simple fan adulation-it's a way of life. Journalist (and fan) Nikki Van Noy bridges the gap between the band and their followers, looking at the DMB phenomenon from all perspectives-including interviews with the band, Charlottesville insiders who knew them in the early days, and, of course, the DMB fans who witnessed it all. This lively, insider book offers insights into: -The beginnings of the band in Charlottesville, VA-which gave rise to the culture of taping and trading live shows, and the early online networking that laid the groundwork for their later explosive success. -The heady success of their first several albums-when the small "club" of DMB fans suddenly became a lot less exclusive. -Their creative misfires in the early 2000s-including the leaked Lillywhite Sessions. -The crushing sudden loss of saxophonist LeRoi Moore-and how the band emerged stronger than ever. A chronicle of the live Dave Matthews Band experience and what it means to be a part of it, So Much to Say is a comprehensive biography of this incredible group and the fans who helped them achieve such enduring success.
This is the first in a two-volume study of Jenkins and his music. It concerns itself exclusively with the superb consorts for viols which dominate the early part of the composer's career.
Actor performer musician entrepreneur winemaker athlete writer curious adventurer a Maynard James Keenan is the embodiment of the archetypal artist. Best known as the vocalist in award-winning groups Tool A Perfect Circle and Puscifer he has trusted the path he's followed and heeded his inner voice ever open to synchronicities and unexpected turnings along the way.THUntil now fans of Maynard James Keenan a or MJK as he is often called a have had access to only an abridged version of his story. In EA Perfect Union of Contrary ThingsE Keenan partners with his friend of 30 years Sarah Jensen to present a full account of his life and career. From his Midwest childhood to his years in the army to his time in art school a and from his stint at a Boston pet shop to his place in the international spotlight and his influence on contemporary music and regional winemaking a the book chronicles the events that led MJK to take one step after the next to change direction to explore sometimes surprising opportunities.THIncluded are sidebars in his own words often humorous anecdotes that illuminate the narrative as well as commentary by his family members friends instructors and industry colleagues. It also features a foreword by Alex Grey an American visionary artist and longtime friend of Keenan along with a bounty photos of Keenan from childhood to the present.THA comprehensive portrayal of a versatile and dedicated artist EA Perfect Union of Contrary ThingsE pays homage to the people and places that shaped the man and his art. A ENew York TimesE Bestseller in hardcover it is presented here for the first time in paperback.
'This book is going to try and get as close as possible to the full story of what informed the noise of The Streets. Obviously that's something I should be fairly well-qualified to know about, and I'm going to be as honest as the publisher's lawyers will allow'. With the 2001 release of "The Streets" debut single "Has It Come To This?" the landscape of British popular music changed forever. No longer did homegrown rappers have to anxiously defer to transatlantic influences. Mike Skinner's witty, self-deprecating sagas of late-night kebab shops and skunk-fuelled Playstation sessions showed how much you could achieve simply by speaking in your own voice. In this thoroughly modern memoir, the man the "Guardian" once dubbed 'half Dostoevsky ...half Samuel Pepys' tells a freewheeling, funny and fearlessly honest tale of Birmingham and London, ecstasy and epilepsy, Twitter-fear and Spectrum joysticks, spread-betting and growing up. He writes of his musical inspirations, role models and rivals, the craft of songwriting and reflects on the successes and failures of the decade-long journey of "The Streets".
Interest in Pink Floyd remains as intense as ever even 40 years after the release of Dark Side of the Moon, with lavish box-sets collecting demos and out-takes, and Roger Waters' world tours of The Wall playing to packed stadiums. Now, Mark Blake's superbly comprehensive and engrossing history of the group, rightly acclaimed as the definitive book on the band, has been fully revised and extended with new interviews to bring the story up to date with the recent appearances of David Gilmour and Nick Mason with Roger Waters at a London date on his The Wall tour.
Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains celebrates 50 years of one of the greatest bands of all time. Lavishly illustrated throughout with material from the band's archive, including never-before-seen photographs, ephemera, and more, this book examines what makes Pink Floyd unique, from the mythology underpinning their output to their musicianship, epic staging, and performance impact. With a photographic section devoted to the band's 15 albums, the book explores the lasting Pink Floyd phenomenon. Five essays address what has made Pink Floyd unique, and contextualize their continued impact: 1. "Lift Off": Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd and the London underground Joe Boyd examines the character and musical legacy of Syd Barrett, as the mythologized founder of Pink Floyd and icon of late 1960s British counterculture, drawing on the author's personal acquaintance with Syd Barrett. 2. "What Have We Done to England?" Pink Floyd and the lure of the pastoral Rob Young places Pink Floyd in a wider visual tradition, exploring their "British" appeal. 3. A Long Term Prospect Jon Savage on how Pink Floyd negotiated a transition from single releases to concept albums between 1967 and 1970. 4. "Painters, pipers, prisoners": the musical legacy of Pink Floyd Howard Goodall explains how Pink Floyd escaped the musical constraints of the three-minute single and exploited the potential of longer-form pieces in the mid-1970s, developing their signature sound and style in Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here and continuing to hone this over subsequent albums. 5. Great Gigs in the Sky: Pink Floyd on stage Victoria Broackes and Anna Landreth-Strong chart the band's live acts, from the psychedelic light shows in 60s London to huge stadium concerts, with particular reference to their successful collaboration with architect and set designer Mark Fisher (1947-2013). Their Mortal Remains: The Studio Albums: A chronological, album-by-album history of the band, each album is introduced by Mark Blake and accompanied by insights from Aubrey "Po" Powell.
If any band deserves to have homage paid to them with a lavish, limited edition photographic book, look no further than Blue Oyster Cult. With their origins going back to the late sixties, by 1972 with the first album release, Blue Oyster Cult's journey really began. Five decades on and Blue Oyster Cult is still touring to its devoted following, both in North America and Europe. Incredibly no one has published a visual biography before, but now that has been rectified. Drawing on several thousand images and items of memorabilia this large format 240-page book is a treasure trove for the Cult devotees - crammed full of live and off stage shots that portray the band's journey through the decades. It also includes loads of super cool memorabilia including backstage passes, gig posters, media adverts and much more, all reproduced on high quality art paper. This is one future collector's item that every self-respecting BOC fan will want to own. Rounding it off, Blue Oyster Cult A Visual Biography is topped and tailed with 15,000 words by Cult biographer and world-renowned rock author Martin Popoff. With a new record deal and the first album of new material for two decades touted as being released in 2020, Blue Oyster Cult A Visual Biography will prove to be the perfect companion and a valuable addition to any fan's collection.
This volume explores the work of one of medieval music's most important figures, and in so doing presents an extended panorama of musical life in Europe at the end of the middle ages. Guillaume Du Fay rose from obscure beginnings to become the most significant composer of the fifteenth century, a man courted by kings and popes, and this study of his life and career provides a detailed examination of his entire output, including a number of newly discovered works. As well as offering musical analysis, this volume investigates his close association with the Cathedral of Cambrai, and explores how, at a time when music was becoming increasingly professionalised, Du Fay forged his own identity as 'a composer'. This detailed biography will be highly valuable for those interested in the history of medieval and church music, as well as for scholars of Du Fay's musical legacy.
Queen are unique among the great rock bands. It is nearly twenty years since frontman Freddie Mercury' s death brought the band to an end - yet their fanbase remains massive. They appeal equally to men and women. Their fans are just as likely to be teenagers too young to have been born when the band were still touring and making records (thanks not least to the huge success of the musical We Will Rock You). And their musical history is one of constant reinvention - from heavy metal and prog rock to disco pop, stadium anthems and even jazz influences. Now, Mark Blake, the experienced Mojo journalist who wrote Aurum' s bestselling book on Pink Floyd, has written the definitive history. Having already interviewed the surviving band members over the years, he has now tracked down dozens and dozens of new interviewees, from Queen' s first long-forgotten bass players to Freddie Mercury' s schoolmates in Isleworth, Middlesex, to trace Queen' s long career from their very first gawky performances in St Helens through their sensational stage-stealing appearance on Live Aid to the band' s collaboration with Paul Rodgers at the beginning of the century. Full of fascinating new revelations - especially about the improbable transformation of a shy Asian schoolboy called Bulsara into the outrageous-living hedonist that was Freddie Mercury - this is a book every Queen fan will want to have.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre are probably best known for their leader Anton Newcombe s incendiary persona, as captured in the controversial 2004 rockumentary Dig! - which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance - but what isn t known is the truth behind the making of the film, or the true story of the band since their formation in early 1990s San Francisco. Until now. Writer, actor, and musician Jesse Valencia spent ten years uncovering the mysteries of the band and the film, during which time he has traveled from San Francisco to Denver, Portland to Tucson, and beyond, gathering pieces of the band s history and putting them together, clue by clue, until he found it. Presented as a personal narrative and compiled from hundreds of sources and interviews with key members of The Brian Jonestown Massacre - including Joel Gion, Rick Maymi, Frankie Emerson, Jeff Davies, Dean Taylor, Miranda Lee Richards, and Peter Hayes - as well as members of The Dandy Warhols, Dig! director Ondi Timoner, and countless other figures from both the film and from the band s greater history, Keep Music Evil is the definitive work on the band and their enigmatic leader. Keep Music Evil also tells the stories of the creation of every album the band have released during their three-decade career, offering insight in Anton and his collaborators working methods, and provides an in-depth look at the making of Dig!, giving deeper context to the events as portrayed, correcting misinformation, and deconstructing the film as a whole. It also features rare, candid, and never-before-seen photographs of the band from throughout their career.
The third volume in Alan Walker's magisterial biography of Franz Liszt. "You can't help but keep turning the pages, wondering how it will all turn out: and Walker's accumulated readings of Liszt's music have to be taken seriously indeed." D. Kern Holoman, New York Review of Books "A conscientious scholar passionate about his subject. Mr. Walker makes the man and his age come to life. These three volumes will be the definitive work to which all subsequent Liszt biographies will aspire." Harold C. Schonberg, Wall Street Journal "What distinguishes Walker from Liszt's dozens of earlier biographers is that he is equally strong on the music and the life. A formidable musicologist with a lively polemical style, he discusses the composer's works with greater understanding and clarity than any previous biographer. And whereas many have recycled the same erroneous, often damaging information, Walker has relied on his own prodigious, globe-trotting research, a project spanning twenty-five years. The result is a textured portrait of Liszt and his times without rival." Elliot Ravetz, Time "The prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative. . . . This three-part work . . . is now the definitive work on Liszt in English and belongs in all music collections." Library Journal"
The Austrian composer Hans Gal (1890-1987) was one of many Jewish refugees who fled to Britain from Hitler's Third Reich only to find themselves interned in prison camps in Britain as 'enemy aliens' - the result of Churchill's panic decision to 'collar the lot'. Gal thus spent five months over the summer of 1940 in internment camps - first in Donaldson's Hospital in Edinburgh, then at Huyton, near Liverpool, and finally in the Central Promenade Camp on the Isle of Man. Many of Gal's fellow internees went on, like Gal himself, to become shaping forces in the intellectual life of Britain - but in captivity this colourful parade of characters had to put up with bureaucratic inertia and the indifference of their captors to their undeserved fate. The diary Gal kept during his captivity vividly describes the difficulties the internees had to overcome to live as normal a life as possible. Gal's contribution, of course, was music, and the CD with this book presents first recordings of the Huyton Suite he wrote for two violins and flute (the only instruments available to him), the satirical review What a Life! composed on the Isle of Man and the piano suite he drew from it. Introductory chapters by Gal's daughter and by Richard Dove present a biographical survey of Gal's life and career and an examination of British internment policy; the Foreword is by the distinguished economist Sir Alan Peacock, who studied composition with Gal. Together they throw light on one of the more shameful British responses to the threat of Nazi invasion.
'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.
The Prodigy have sold 25 million records and single-handedly reinvented the crossover between dance and rock music, with legendary songs such as 'Firestarter', 'Omen' and 'Breathe'. However, long before they became a stadium-filling rock monster, The Prodigy were prowling the underground of the UK rave scene, first as a blistering demo of tunes by the 'prodigious' teenage Liam Howlett, then latterly with their breakthrough masterpiece, Music for the Jilter Generation. Martin Roach was present throughout the band's early years and documented their rise to fame from the underground into the bright lights of music superstardom. Containing hours and hours of exclusive interviews, the book chronicles the band's early years in minute detail, speaking the each band member and all the key playes along the way. With a new introduction and fresh interview with band members putting these classic early phase in the context of their historically important career, this book is a must-buy for the millions for Prodigy fans eager to learn about the band's formative days. |
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