Carl Ruggles (1876-1971) was the epitome of the New England iconoclast. A composer of the American avant-garde movement, he wrote, in a very concise and dissonant style, a small body of truly unique musical works. He lived to be 95, composing to the very end of his life, but left behind a mere eight sanctioned works which he had rewritten and refined over decades. In the 1920s, he was at the focal point of ultra-modern music-making. Since there is currently a renewed interest in his work, this bio-bibliography is timely and needed, and of interest to scholars, students, and performers.

During the 1920s, had Edgard Varese or Charles Ives been asked to name America's greatest living composer, the response would have been Carl Ruggles. Forty years later, such eminent experts on American music as Nicolas Slonimsky, Virgil Thomson, and Aaron Copland would each describe Ruggles as our most technically refined composer. Ruggles, with Varese and Ives, was the standard-bearer of the atonal movement in this century's third decade. With the rise of American realism, he slipped out of the public eye. Recent years have seen a resurgence of performances of his works and research on his music; consequently, there is a need for this timely bio-bibliography.

For three decades, Anthony Braxton has been alternately celebrated, dismissed, and attacked for his musical innovations. His ambitious efforts to reconcile and personalize the historically divergent and often conflicting worldviews and principles of African-American (jazz), American Experimental (post-Ives), and Western European (post-serial) traditions have attracted both loyal supporters and passionate critics. Mike Heffley has followed Braxton's widely varied music from its beginning, and in 1988 began a professional musical relationship with him. His "biography" of Braxton's music is just that--a look at the music as if it were a living entity, with a traceable ancestry, a describable place in the world, and a history full of drama, intrigue, and passion. The music scholar will find here all the information necessary to understand the contents, contexts, and concepts of Braxton's music, and to further that understanding. The general reader will find the human and trans-human qualities that make the music so compelling to its makers and lovers.

Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911-1990), a pioneer in electronic music, was also a composer, teacher and administrator of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. His more than 44 works involving electroacoustics reflect the importance of his contribution to electronic music. Ussachevsky studied with Howard Hanson, Bernard Rogers and Otto Luening and his style varied from neoromantic and Russian Orthodox influences in choral music and other compositions before 1952 to electronic and computer music from 1952 to his death in 1990. This volume in the Greenwood series Bio-Bibliographies in Music includes a brief biography and detailed list of works and performances, discography, mediagraphy, and bibliography of writings about and by Ussachevsky.

Music scholars, especially those with an interest in electronic music or those interested in learning more about Vladimir Ussachevsky, will appreciate the detailed information about his works and writings compiled in this one volume. The works and performances section is organized by type of music, including electronic, orchestral, chamber, keyboard, choral and vocal. Also included are both an alphabetical and chronological list of compositions, a list of Ussachevsky's collaborations, arrangements and sound effects, and an index.

'I think my music deserves to be considered as a whole', Igor Stravinsky remarked at the end of a long and restless career, and that is exactly what the authors of The Apollonian Clockwork do. In 1982, convinced that there is no essential difference between 'early' and 'late' Stravinsky, Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schonberger were the first to write a monograph on the composer which radically breaks with the habit of dividing his works into 'Russian', 'neoclassical' and 'serial'. In an essay which continually shifts in its approach, style and perspective, the authors elaborate on their insight that a single, immutable compositional attitude underlies the whole of Stravinsky's oeuvre. By this token the book not only offers an analysis of the composer's protean work and artistry but takes example by it as well.

Offering commentary, musical analysis, and detailed interpretation of her songs' lyrics, this book examines the qualities of Sheryl Crow's music that have served to establish the artist's success and popularity. Sheryl Crow continues to be celebrated for her legacy as a singer-songwriter and pop culture icon. This book provides an introduction to Sheryl Crow's entire music catalog. Organized into chronological periods of time, the author weaves biographical facts throughout a narrative rich with details about her songs: how they were created, recorded, distributed, and modified in live performance. Accompanying commentary features song analysis-including song structure, chord progression, and melody-and provides fascinating insights into the lyrical content of Crow's songwriting. The work begins with Crow's upbringing, her musical roots and influences, and how they manifested themselves in her later career. Subsequent sections delve into her road to success and eventual stardom, revealing how her rise to fame and widespread popularity was littered with broken friendships, acrimony, and suicide. The last several chapters follows her life after a diagnosis of breast cancer and the adoption of her sons. The work also includes a chapter on B-sides and rare songs by Crow. Presents an in-depth and complete listening guide to all of Crow's songs, including B-sides and rarities Features insightful commentary with song analysis Includes a glossary of musical and technical terms for the non-specialist

Passionate and intense in one moment, ironic or brash in the next, Mahler's music speaks with a diversity of voices that often undermine its own ideals of unity, narrative struggle and transcendent affirmation. The composer plays constantly with musical genres and styles, moving between them without warning in a way that often bewildered his contemporaries. Ranging freely across Mahler's symphonies and songs in a thoughtful and thorough study of his musical speech, Julian Johnson considers how this body of music foregrounds the idea of artifice, construction and musical convention while at the same time presenting itself as act of authentic expression and disclosure. Mahler's Voices explores the shaping of this music through strategies of calling forth its own mysterious voice--as if from nature or the Unconscious--while at other times revealing itself as a made object, often self-consciously assembled from familiar and well-worn materials.
A unique study not of Mahler's works as such but of Mahler's musical style, Mahler's Voices brings together a close reading of the renowned composer's music with wide-ranging cultural and historical interpretation. Through a radical self-awareness that links the romantic irony of the late 18th-century to the deconstructive attitude of the late 20th-century, Mahler's music forces us to rethink historical categories themselves. Yet what sets it apart, what continues to fascinate and disturb, is the music's ultimate refusal of this position, acknowledging the conventionality of all its voices while at the same time, in the intensity of its tone, speaking "as if" what it said were true. However bound up with the Viennese modernism that Mahler prefigured, the urgency of this act remains powerfully resonant for our own age.

The first extensive study of the life and music of the Swiss composer, Richard Flury (1896-1967). The late-Romantic composer Richard Flury (1896-1967) was born in Biberist, a tiny town outside the Baroque city of Solothurn in northern Switzerland. He went to school in Solothurn, later taught there, conducted its orchestra, andhad his operas and ballets performed at the local theatre by its semi-professional ensemble. But Flury was more than just another conservative composer stuck in the provinces. His teachers included Ernst Kurth and JosephMarx of Vienna, and his music was performed by conductors such as Felix Weingartner and Hermann Scherchen and star instrumentalists like Wilhelm Backhaus and Georg Kulenkampff. His first opera was conducted by a former student ofBerg and Schoenberg who became his staunch advocate, and during the Second World War Flury worked closely with several Jewish emigre writers and musicians from Germany and Czechoslovakia. In his music of the early 1930s, the influence of Berg and Hindemith became apparent as Flury dabbled in modernism and free tonality before moving back to a more traditionalist stance; but he was also a fine tunesmith who loved writing Viennese waltzes and violin miniatures after the manner of Kreisler. In both his aesthetic and his career, Flury offers a fascinating case of a man negotiating constantly between the centre and the periphery - and composing some very good music in the process.The book includes a 23 track CD of Flury's music. CHRIS WALTON teaches music history at the Basel University of Music in Switzerland. He is the author of Othmar Schoeck: Life and Works (2009) and Richard Wagner's Zurich: The Muse of Place (2007).

New York City witnessed a dazzling burst of creativity in the 1920s. In this pathbreaking study, Carol J. Oja explores this artistic renaissance from the perspective of composers of classical and modern music, who along with writers, painters, and jazz musicians, were at the heart of early modernism in America. She also illustrates how the aesthetic attitudes and institutional structures from the 1920s left a deep imprint on the arts over the 20th century.

Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Virgil Thomson, William Grant Still, Edgard Varèse, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles, Marion Bauer, Dane Rudhyar--these were the leaders of a talented new generation of American composers whose efforts made New York City the center of new music in the country. They founded composer societies--such as the International Composers' Guild, the League of Composers, the Pan American Association, and the Copland-Sessions Concerts--to promote the performance of their music, and they nimbly negotiated cultural boundaries, aiming for recognition in Western Europe as much as at home. They showed exceptional skill at marketing their work. Drawing on extensive archival material--including interviews, correspondence, popular periodicals, and little-known music manuscripts--Oja provides a new perspective on the period and a compelling collective portrait of the figures, puncturing many longstanding myths.

American composers active in New York during the 1920s are explored in relation to the "Machine Age" and American Dada; the impact of spirituality on American dissonance; the crucial, behind-the-scenes role of women as patrons and promoters of modernist music; cross-currents between jazz and concert music; the critical reception of modernist music (especially in the writings of Carl Van Vechten and Paul Rosenfeld); and the international impulse behind neoclassicism. The book also examines the persistent biases of the time, particularly anti-Semitisim, gender stereotyping, and longstanding racial attitudes.

No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller. 'Can't fail to move' The Sunday Times ALL AUTHOR PROCEEDS DONATED TO THE AMY WINEHOUSE FOUNDATION. As an artist, she had few peers. Her lyrical prowess and timeless contralto vocals made her an instant revelation when her debut album Frank was released in 2003. And as her star continued to rise it became evident that this seemingly delicate girl from north London was much more than just a precocious talent. Genius, inspiration, icon; there are many ways to describe Amy Winehouse, but it was her wit, charm and lust for life that cemented her place in the hearts of her fans. Here, using exclusive extracts from his own personal diaries, Amy's father and confidant Mitch celebrates what influenced his daughter. Documenting her early years from Sylvia Young to the Brit School, and the darker side of her life as she struggled to cope with her addictions under the glare of the media spotlight, he gives new insights. With never before seen photos, notes and drawings, this book brings together the many layers of Amy's life - the personal, the private and the public - to create an honest and intensely moving account of the life of the most talented recording artist of her generation.

The first performance of Handel’s 'Messiah' in Dublin in 1742 is now legendary. Gentlemen were asked to leave their swords at home and ladies to come without hoops in their skirts in order to fit more people into the audience. Why then, did this now famous and much-loved oratorio receive a somewhat cool reception in London less than a year later? Placing Handel’s best-known work in the context of its times, this vivid account charts the composer’s working relationship with his librettist, the gifted but demanding Charles Jennens, and looks at Handel’s varied and evolving company of singers together with his royal patronage. Through examination of the composition manuscript and Handel’s own conducting score, held in the Bodleian, it explores the complex issues around the performance of sacred texts in a non-sacred context, particularly Handel’s collaboration with the men and boys of the Chapel Royal. The later reception and performance history of what is one of the most successful pieces of choral music of all time is also reviewed, including the festival performance attended by Haydn, the massed-choir tradition of the Victorian period and today’s ‘come-and-sing’ events.

Irwin Bazelon, one of the most original figures in American music in the second half of the 20th century, devoted his life to the art of composition. He was also well known for his musical compositions for films, television, commercials, and documentaries. His music was inspired by his experiences in the fast-paced environments of Chicago and New York. This major bibliography presents a biographical sketch, which details the influence of city life on the composer's artistic creativity, a catalogue of his compositions and performances, and a discography. A bibliography includes excerpts from the composer's lectures and other unpublished writings.

This thorough research tool will appeal to scholars of 20th-century music and to Bazelon fans. An archive of the composer's collections is included, and the separate book sections are cross-referenced throughout.

Stuart offers the most thorough discography of the works and recordings of Igor Stravinsky to date as well as a chronicle of the composer's recording career. As the first discography to list all of Stravinsky's recorded compositions, including concert and broadcast performances, both pre- and post-World War II, as well as all LP issues, this volume displays the wide range of Stravinsky's talent. The significance of Robert Craft's contribution to the continued exposure of Stravinsky's works after 1948 is well documented, as are the piano performances recorded by Stravinsky's son. A lengthy introductory essay traces Stravinsky's recording history from his early use of the pianola through the advent of more sophisticated musical technology which enabled the composer to become the composer-performer. The discography itself lists 191 studio performances, catalogs recorded issues, and details unpublished recordings. The chronological index of Stravinsky's compositions which follows is cross-referenced to the recordings already cited, thereby showing each recording relative to the date of the work's composition. This extensive listing of recordings, combined with the narrative account of Stravinsky's recording history provides the collector with a valuable updated guide to almost all of the composer's works.

A No Depression Most Memorable Music Book of 2022 The acknowledged maestro of the pedal steel guitar, Buddy Emmons lent his unparalleled virtuosity to over five decades of hit recordings and set standards that remain the benchmark for musicians today. Steve Fishell's merger of biography and memoir draws extensively on in-depth interviews with Emmons and the artist's autobiographical writings. Emmons went from playing strip clubs to a Grand Ole Opry debut with Little Jimmy Dickens at age 18. His restless experimentation led to work with Ernest Tubb and Ray Price--and established him in a career that saw him play alongside a who's who of American music. Fishell weaves in stories and anecdotes from Willie Nelson, Brenda Lee, Linda Ronstadt, Pat Martino, and many others to provide a fascinating musical and personal portrait of an innovator whose peerless playing and countless recordings recognized no boundaries. A one-of-a-kind life story, Buddy Emmons expands our view of a groundbreaking artist and his impact on country music, jazz, and beyond.

Jean Sibelius's Violin Concerto is the story of Sibelius as performer and composer, of violin performing traditions, of histories of musical transmission, and of virtuosity itself. It investigates the history and legacy of one of the most recorded concertos in the violin repertoire. Sibelius, a celebrated and influential composer of the late 19th and 20th centuries, was an accomplished violinist, whose enduring interest in the instrument has been paralleled by the broad success of the only concerto in his oeuvre: his violin concerto (premiered in 1904 and revised in 1905). Considering how violinists engage with the work, author Tina K. Ramnarine discusses technology's central role in the concerto's transmission from Jascha Heifetz's seminal 1935 recording to contemporary online performances, gender issues in violin solo careers, and nature-based musical aesthetics that lead to thinking about the ecology of virtuosity in an era of environmental crisis. Beginning with Sibelius's early training as a violinist and his aspirations as a performer, Ramnarine traces the dramatic historical context of the violin concerto. It was composed as Finland underwent a period of heightened self-determination, nationalism, and protest against Russian imperial policies, and it heralded intense political dynamics relating to Europe's East-West border that have extended to the present. This story of the violin concerto points to the notion of Sibelius - and the virtuoso more generally - as a political figure.

I'm just a cosmic yob, I suppose.

I change every day. I'm not outrageous. I'm David Bowie.

I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir.

Genre-hopping, gender-bending: Bowie has never been afraid to push the boundaries. Whether masquerading as an alien, a spaceman or a goblin king, this rock 'n' roll hero was a true visionary. The death of the Man Who Fell to Earth shook fans around the world, but his influence lives on.

Pocket Bowie Wisdom is full of insights into music, identity, fame, love and creativity from one of the most pioneering musicians of all time.

This collection of quotes makes a perfect gift for the Bowie fan in your life.

Even after acquiring the Doctor of Laws degree from both the University of Berlin and the Sorbonne (discussed in a letter, along with the effects of living in Europe during the Nazi era), Konrad Wolff's enthusiasm for music was so overwhelming that he became a professional musician in his mid-thirties. That enthusiasm is contagious. The more one reads his work, the more one understands music, but perhaps of greater importance, the more one loves it.

This is the only collection of a substantial quantity of his prolific writings (many never published before) under one cover. With almost 200 musical illustrations and his engaging style of writing, teachers, students, and sophisticated music lovers will find articles such as Schubert's Reaction to Beethoven, Bach's Last Work, and Beethovenian Dissonances in Listz's Piano Music a pleasurable read and an easy way to learn. Correspondence with Sviatoslav Richter, among others, and a brilliant debate between Wolff and Alfred Brendel are unique contributions. Also impressive is the breadth of Wolff's culture. As one scholar who had read the manuscript exclaimed: The writing is so brilliant that it can be applied to fields other than music, as well.

Kurt Cobain and Ian Curtis. Through death, they became icons. However, the lead singers have been removed from their humanity, replaced by easily replicated and distributed commodities bearing their image. This book examines how the anglicised singers provide secular guidance to the modern consumer in an ever more uncertain world.

From the Preface: " ... an account of the girlhood of the famous pianist whose art and personality are vividly remembered by the older generation of the music lovers of to-day ..."

Using Schumann's Eichendorff Liederkreis as the primary example, this book sheds new light on the structure of nineteenth century song cycles and on the Schumann's particular response to the problem of musical coherence in large scale works. Drawing on analysis, literary criticism, and source studies, this book argues for a new conception of the nineteenth-century song cycle. Rather than a unified whole, the cycle is seen as a fragmentary and open-ended form that enables Schumann to express the romantic themes of transcendence and ineffability in musical terms. THe book begins with a general discussion of the cycle as a genre. The heart of the book is a series of closely argued analyses of five of the Eichendorff songs, with particular attention on the relationship between text and music. Ferris concludes by setting the Liederkreis within the context of Schumann's other 1840 song cycles.

Dame Schwarzkopf (1915-2006) was a Flower Maiden in Wagner's "Parsifal" in her opera debut. As Marchallin in Strauss' "Rosenkavalier" she made history. This book is a homage to one of the greatest singers of the last century. Honored by Queen Elisabeth II, she not only posessed an unmistakable timbre, but also a bewitching beauty.This pictorial volume, on which the soprano collaborated right up until the time of her sudden death, contains hundreds of costume and portrait photographs from her private estate that together provide a lasting reflection of her personality and elegance. The core pictures were taken by the Viennese photographer to the stars, Lillian Fayer, who for many years was the trusted companion of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

'Genuinely funny; indeed, the story will keep you entertained for a very long time' Sunday Times Joy Division changed the face of music. Godfathers of the enduring alternative scene, they reinvented rock in the post-punk era, creating a sound - dark, hypnotic, intense - that would influence U2, Morrissey, R.E.M., Radiohead and many others. This is the rollercoaster story of Joy Division - the friendships, fights, fall-outs; the rehearsals and recording sessions; the larger than life characters - told by the band's legendary bassist, Peter Hook. 'Hook has restored a flesh-and-blood rawness to what was becoming a standard tale. Few pop music books manage that' Guardian 'An honest, enthusiastic account . . . it's a window like no other into the reality of life in this most aloof of bands' Metro 'An immense account of Joy Division's rise . . . having read Hook's book, you'll feel like you were the fifth member of the band' GQ 'A bittersweet, profanity-filled recollection . . . if you like Joy Division, you really have to read it' Q Magazine 'Hook lifts the lid on the real Ian Curtis' NME 'He's frank, incredibly funny, and it isn't shy' Artrocker