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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Composers & musicians
Contents Include: Childhood and Youth In Search of a Career The Teaching of Experience Marriage and Artistic Progress Growing Mastery Gradual Recognition and Fame Full Maturity Continued Creative Activity Fame at Home and Abroad The Elgar Festival and Knighthood Honours Continue Violin Concerto and Second Symphony 'Falstaff' and the War Music Chamber Music and Cello Concerto Music of the Last Phase Last Days and Unfinished Works Conclusion.'It is difficult to imagine that any one could draw a more intimate and helpful picture of a great man than Mr. Reed has done of Elgar. Even to those who knew Elgar's works well this book will be instructive and helpful' Manchester Evening NewsKeywords: Cello Music Music Chamber Chamber Music War Music Cello Concerto Violin Concerto Elgar Manchester Evening News Mr Reed Creative Activity Artistic Progress Knighthood Falstaff Great Man Mastery Maturity
John McCabe is a thoroughly documented bio-bibliography of one of Britain's leading composers. John McCabe has an international reputation, both as a composer and a pianist, whose compositions cover most of the established forms. The complete list of his works and performances have never before been presented in such detail. Articles and features by and about the composer contain annotations, often in the form of quotations from the material. National, academic, and public libraries, as well as specialized music libraries and archives, will find this work a valuable research tool. The work begins with a brief biography of John McCabe prepared with the composer's assistance and is followed by a complete list of works and performances classified by genre and arranged alphabetically by title of composition. Performance and publication information is provided for each work, including its first and other selected performances. A list of McCabe's publishers is followed by a discography of commercially produced sound recordings divided into sections on McCabe as a composer and as a performer. A bibliography of writings by and about McCabe includes gramaphone record reviews written by McCabe for the British journal Records and Recordings between 1967 and 1974. An alphabetical and a chronological list of compositions appear in appendices.
Consisting of six studies that present hermeneutical analyses of Wagnerian dramas, this book discusses Wagner's mature single dramas from Hollander to Parsifal with reference to the concept of Romantic irony and the basic theoretical orientation of post-structuralism. Wagner is best known as a composer of mythological works, but these music-dramas contain basic problems that essentially contradict what is regarded as their mythological or legendary nature. They all self-referentially play out certain critical processes. Focusing on the very issue of interpretation, this work asks how Wagner's dramas use their legendary or mythological raw material in a specifically 19th-century Romantic way to create meaning. It is argued that by means of Romantic irony, internal self-reflection or self-consciousness, each work deconstructs its own mythological or legendary nature. Musicologists with an interest in Wagner's works, and literary scholars who are interested in interdisciplinary applications of literary-critical theory, will appreciate this unique application of literary, theoretical, and critical concepts to the understanding of his music-dramas. This work will also appeal to scholars of German literature and of German cultural history. It discusses Wagner's single dramas from Hollander to Parsifal.
A study in contrasts, the career of Sergey Prokofiev spanned the
globe, leaving him witness to the most significant political and
historical events of the first half of the twentieth century. In
1918, after completing a program of studies at the St. Petersburg
conservatory, Prokofiev escaped Russia for the United States and
later France where, like most emigre artists of the time, he made
Paris his home. During these hectic years, he composed three
ballets and three operas, fulfilled recording contracts, and played
recitals of tempestuous music. Scores were stored in suitcases,
scenarios and librettos drafted on hotel letterhead. The constant
uprooting and transience fatigued him, but he regarded himself as a
person of action who, personally and professionally, traveled
against rather that with the current. Thus, in 1936, as political
anxieties increased in Western Europe, Prokofiev escaped back to
Russia. Though at first pampered by the totalitarian regime,
Prokofiev soon suffered official correction and censorship. He
wrote and revised his late ballets and operas to appease his
bureaucratic overseers but, more often than not, his labors came to
naught. Following his official condemnation in 1948, many of his
compositions were withdrawn from performance. Physical illness and
mental exhaustion characterized his last years. Housebound, he
journeyed inward, creating a series of works on the theme of youth
whose music sounds despondently optimistic.
A compelling portrait of composer-performer Julius Eastman's enigmatic and intriguing life and music. Composer-performer Julius Eastman (1940-90) was an enigma, both comfortable and uncomfortable in the many worlds he inhabited: black, white, gay, straight, classical music, disco, academia, and downtown New York. His music, insistent and straightforward, resists labels and seethes with a tension that resonates with musicians, scholars, and audiences today. Eastman's provocative titles, including Gay Guerrilla, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and others, assault us with his obsessions. Eastman tested limits with his political aggressiveness, as reflected in legendary scandals like his June 1975 performance of John Cage's Song Books, which featured homoerotic interjections, and the uproar over his titles at Northwestern University. These episodes are examples of Eastman's persistence in pushing the limits of the acceptable in the highly charged arenas of sexual and civil rights. In addition to analyses of Eastman's music, the essays in Gay Guerrilla provide background on his remarkable life history and the era's social landscape. The book presents an authentic portrait of a notable American artist thatis compelling reading for the general reader as well as scholars interested in twentieth-century American music, American studies, gay rights, and civil rights. This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music inBuffalo received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence. Mary Jane Leach is a composer and freelance writer, currently writing music and theatre criticism for the Albany Times-Union.
Billy May was a self-taught musician and arranger. In 1938, he received his first big break arranging and playing trumpet; first, for the Charlie Barnet band, and in 1940, the band of Glenn Miller. Settling in Hollywood in 1943, his first of many big breaks in radio was playing in Ozzie Nelson's band for the "Red Skelton ShoW." Shortly thereafter, May was asked by Nelson to be musical director to his new show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. He was also fortunate to play in the orchestra and write arrangements for John Scott Trotter on Bing Crosby's "Kraft Music Hall." Billy May's earliest collaboration with Frank Sinatra produced "Don't Fence Me In" for broadcast on December 23, 1944. Capitol Records paired Billy May and Alan Livingston to initiate a series of children's recordings with arrangements and compositions such as "Bozo the Clown" and the exceedingly popular "I Taut I Taw a Putty Tat." As a band leader and arranger, his signature included the prominent saxophone section glissando (sliding, or slurping) effect, and highly imaginative arrangements. His last great project was the documentation on record of swing era music, commissioned by Time-Life, and completed in 1973. The discography covers Billy May as arranger and composer from 1944-1998, as sideman and arranger for others, his work on radio, television, movies, and international appearances, his road band, recordings, both domestic and foreign, and his transcriptions. Data is cross-indexed by song title and artist.
Sculthorpe is one of Australia's most prominent composers and is among the most important composers on the international scene. Although he is a distinguished academic and popular lecturer, Sculthorpe does not fit any ready-made category of composer or teacher. In a body of work that so far includes orchestral and chamber music in many genres and mediums, opera and other theater music, songs and choral music, and music for documentary and commercial films, radio, and television, he has established a personal musical style and public presence that have shaped the history of 20th-century music in Australia and the world. Owing to circumstances of place and time--Australia in the 20th century--he has been defining, or redefining, the role of composer for himself and his audiences. This book is a record of Sculthorpe's work and of its reception by composer colleagues, performers, critics, and audiences.
From Mozart's fabulous legato that "flowed like oil" to Beethoven's oceanlike surge, from Clara Schumann's touch "sharp as a pencil sketch" to Rubinstein's volcanic and sensual playing, The Great Pianists brings to life the brilliant, stylish, and sometimes eccentric personalities, methods, and technical peculiarities of history's greatest pianists.Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author Harold C. Schonberg presents vivid accounts of the artists' performances, styles, and even their personal lives and quirky characteristics-- such as Mozart's intense competition with Clementi, Lizst's magnetic effect on women (when he played, ladies flung their jewels on stage), and Gottschalk's persistent nailbiting, which left the keys covered with blood. Including profiles of Horowitz and Van Cliburn, among others, and chapters detailing the playing and careers of such modern pianists as de Larrocha, Ashkenazy, Gilels, Gould, Brendel, Bolet, Gutierrez, and Watts, The Great Pianists is a comprehensive and fascinating look at legendary performers past and present.
From patriotic "God Bless America" to wistful "White Christmas," Irving Berlin's songs have long accompanied Americans as they fall in love, go to war, and come home for the holidays. Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater is the first book to fully consider this songwriter's immeasurable influence on the American stage. Award-winning music historian Jeffrey Magee chronicles Berlin's legendary theatrical career, providing a rich background to some of the great composer's most enduring songs, from "There's No Business Like Show Business" to "Puttin' on the Ritz." Magee shows how Berlin's early experience singing for pennies made an impression on the young man, who kept hold of that sensibility throughout his career and transformed it into one of the defining attributes of Broadway shows. Magee also looks at darker aspects of Berlin's life, examining the anti-Semitism that Berlin faced and his struggle with depression. Informative, provocative, and full of colorful details, this book will delight song and theater aficionados alike as well as anyone interested in the story of a man whose life and work expressed so well the American dream.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY- HIS LIFE AND WORKS Translated from the French by MAIRE and GRACE O BRIEN. Originally published in 1933. PREFACE: IN this book on Claude Debussy I have avoided all biographical details the publication of which, might be deemed premature and indiscreet. The secrets of his private life belong to those who shared it and who bear his name. For the purposes of this book I have made use only of such documents as were originally intended for publication or which have by chance become public property. To my mind, the really interesting points in the life of a musician are his works, his activities, and his influence on his contemporaries. The book which I published in 1928 under the title of The Theories of Claude Debussy, musicien franfais, supplements the present work, revealing as it does the composer s ideas on music given to the public between the years 1901 and 1916. I have made frequent use of Debussys published correspondence: his letters to Vasnier and Ernest Chausson ( Revue Musicale, December 1925 and May 1926) and to the publisher, Durand ( Paris, Durand, 1927). I have also drawn on the reminiscences published by the Revue Musicale, in May 1926 ( articles by: Raymond Bonheur, Paul Dukas, Robert Godet, Andre Messager, Gabriel Pierne, Henri de Regnier, Marguerite Vasnier, Paul Vidal). I have likewise utilized the recollections to which Maurice Emmanuel refers in his study on Telleas et Melisande ( Paris, Mellotte, 1926). Contents include: I. CHILDHOOD. THE CONSERVATOIRE ( 1862-83) . i II. THE PRIX DE ROME ( 1883-4) 22 III. THE VILLA MEDICI ( 1885-7); THE ENVOIS DE ROME ( 1885-90) 32 IV. RETURN TO PARIS ( 1887). INFLUENCES . . 49 V. THE FIRST COMPOSITIONS ( 1888-93) . .66 VI. BEFORE PELLfiAS: THE QUARTET AND THE PROSES LYRIQUES ( 1892-9) . . .80 VII. & amp; lt; L APRfiS-MIDI D UN FAUNE; THE NOCTURNES; CRITIQUES ( 1894-1901) . . . .101 VIII. PELLfiAS ET MfiLISANDE ( 1892-1902) DEBUS SYISM 121 IX. CHAMBER MUSIC. C LA MER ( 1902-7) . . 152 X. VARIOUS COMPOSITIONS. LE CAS DEBUSSY ( 1907-10) ...... 181 XL IMAGES FOR ORCHESTRA; PRELUDES AND SONGS ( 1910-13) . . . . - 195 XII. DRAMATIC MUSIC, VARIOUS PLANS. LE MAR TYRE DE SAINT-SfiBASTIEN ( 1911) . . 217 XIII. JEUX. LA BOlTE A JOUJOUX ( 1913) . . 235 XIV. THE WAR. LAST YEARS ( 1914-18) . . .251 APPENDIX A ....... 274 B 274 C . . . - . . - 275. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS: Achille-Claude Debussy ( in 1867) . . . facing p. 2 Achille-Claude Debussy, while at the Conservatoire ( about 1874) ........ 10 New Year s Greetings to Madame Vasnier ( on the music of Mandoline) . . . ., , 18 Music Facsimile ( from Le Gladiateur) . between pp. 24 and 25 Villa Medici ( 1885) ..... facing p. 32 Debussy at the house of Ernest Chausson, 1893 . ., , 62 A few pages from the note-book of Maurice Emmanuel .... between pp. 84 and 85 Claude Debussy ( about 1895) .... facing p. 90 Claude Debussy ( about 1895) . . . -, , 101 Letter to Pierre Louys . . . ., , no Debussy at the house of Pierre Louys ( about 1895) . 112 Debussy at the piano ( about 1898) . ., , 116 Claude Debussy ( about 1900) . . ., , 121 Debussy and his first wife, Rosalie Texier ( about 1902) ., , 124 At the time of Telleas et Melisande 138 Debussy, photographed by Pierre Louys ( about 1900) *,, 15 Debussy, by Jacques-fimile Blanche ( 1903) - * 54 Letter to Jacques Durand ( August 1903) . . -, , * 57 Debussy and his first wife, Rosalie Texier, at Bichain ( about 1902)..... 158 Debussy at Pourville ( September 1904) . . -, , 168 Debussy outside his home ( about 1910). . 212 Letter to Andr6 Halle& quot; ( 27 August 1913) - 240 One of the 363 themes in Roman de Tristan* Debussy s note for the Fourth of a projected Series of Six Sonatas ..... Opening of the Finale of the Violin Sonata.
THE LEGENDARY GUITAR GOD WHO EXCEEDED ALL LIMITS AND LIVED TO TELL
TAKES FANS ON A WILD RIDE THROUGH "KISS"TORY.
Composer, diplomat, bishop: Agostino Steffani (1654-1728) was one of the most remarkable figures in late-17th and early-18th century Europe. Steffani began his life as a composer, musician, and courtier, but his accomplishments brought him high-level positions in the courts of Germany and in the Catholic Church. This book is the first to discuss all the periods and facets of Agostino Steffani's extraordinary career and to examine his entire output of musical works.
Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, George Michael was raised in a family of Greek Cypriot immigrants in North London, and dreamed of stardom when he was a little boy. At just twelve years old he met Andrew Ridgeley and the two of them went on to achieve stunning success in the early 1980s with Wham!, creating music that remains popular to this day. Yet despite the enormous success of Wham!, George wanted more, and so set about recreating himself as a serious solo artist, reaching heights of even greater success. Ironically, however, even from the early days he was plagued with insecurity about his sexuality, which, combined with the calamity of losing his first lover to AIDS and his mother to cancer, plunged him into a lifelong struggle with drug addiction. He died, at the tragically early age of just fifty-three, on Christmas Day 2016. George Michael's life and career brought him international fame, and his sudden and unexpected death shocked the world. His unrivalled popularity as an artist, however, and the music he made, have turned him into one of the immortal greats of pop music. As Emily Herbert shows in this new biography, his legacy is not just his music, but his many extraordinary, and often anonymous, acts of charity.
O.E.Deutsch's documentary biography of Mozart, first published in German in 1961 and translated into English in 1965, presented all the contemporary documentation on Mozart then known to scholars. During three decades of research more have come to light, and Dr Eisen himself has substantially augmented their number with a methodical search through contemporary research material - newspapers, diaries, memoirs, books and many others. This new edition presents all the material discovered since the English edition of the Deutsch volume, with full description and documentation. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the basic information on Mozart's life, his activities and the reception of his music.
"A composer of delicate and 'otherworldly' music, Catalani demands the re-evaluation that David Chandler herewith provides in a fascinating book which gathers together the earliest biographical writings on Catalani, the composer's earliest surviving letters, and some account of his cultural afterlife in the first age of recorded music. For anyone wanting to know more about Catalani, and the issues surrounding his career, this will be essential reading." -Konrad Dryden Dr. Dryden is Professor of Music at the University of Maryland University College Europe and author of 'Ruggiero Leoncavallo: Life and Works', 'Franco Alfano: Transcending Turandot' and 'Riccardo Zandonai: A Biography.'
In recent years, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to women in music, and information on the music of a handful of black women composers, such as Florence Price and Mary Lou Williams, has been published. Determined search, however, is needed to locate what little data is available on most such composers. Proceeding from a desire to use music of black women composers in her piano performance and teaching, Helen Walker-Hill has dedicated herself to uncovering this material, utilizing secondary sources and numerous archives, conducting interviews with composers, and engaging in voluminous correspondence with individuals and institutions. The result is the most comprehensive catalog of music composed by African American women to date. The depth of detail required limiting the scope to solo and ensemble piano music. However, an introductory overview on the contributions of black women in music and biographical sketches on the fifty-four composers profiled in the catalog contain broader information. Over 300 piano works are listed, with detailed descriptive information on close to 200 works the author was able to obtain and study, including sources and levels of difficulty. Appendixes list available published music, ensemble instrumentation, music for teaching, and music published before 1920. A selected bibliography and a selected discography are also provided. This biographical dictionary and descriptive catalog will be most directly useful to performers and teachers, but the breadth of information makes it valuable for research in music history, African American studies, and women's studies.
"In The Return of Jazz, Andrew Wright Hurley has admirably demonstrated Berendt's influence upon the emerging jazz scene of the early Federal Republic. Hurley shows how Cold War politics and rejection of the National Socialist past heightened Berendt's sense of mission. For Berendt, jazz was more than an avocation; it was a program for social and cultural reform. It is to Hurley's credit that he raises so many important issues surrounding jazz's development in the second half of the twentieth century." - H-German "This is a benchmark study, in showing why a subject that has been overlooked in jazz historiography should not have been. Its importance lies not just in recognising the importance of a major mediator and 'enabler' of postwar jazz; it also models the late twentieth century shift of the jazz centre of gravity away from the US and towards international fusions. In its balancing of cultural theory with the most painstaking empirical research this is, quite simply, essential reading not just in jazz scholarship, but in the larger field of cultural history and its methodologies." - Bruce Johnson Cultural History, University of Turku Jazz has had a peculiar and fascinating history in Germany. The influential but controversial German writer, broadcaster, and record producer, Joachim-Ernst Berendt (1922-2000), author of the world's best-selling jazz book, labored to legitimize jazz in West Germany after its ideological renunciation during the Nazi era. German musicians began, in a highly productive way, to question their all-too-eager adoption of American culture and how they sought to make valid artistic statements reflecting their identity as Europeans. This book explores the significance of some of Berendt's most important writings and record productions. Particular attention is given to the "Jazz Meets the World" encounters that he engineered with musicians from Japan, Tunisia, Brazil, Indonesia, and India. This proto-"world music" demonstrates how some West Germans went about creating a post-nationalist identity after the Third Reich. Berendt's powerful role as the West German "Jazz Pope" is explored, as is the groundswell of criticism directed at him in the wake of 1968.
The international Number One bestseller. Over a million copies sold in the English language. Published in 23 foreign languages. ‘A heartfelt memoir . . . there is a fearlessness to his prose, a willingness to engage with his past, that chimes with his songwriter’s desire to give voice to the people around him’ Sunday Times “Writing about yourself is a funny business…But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.” —Bruce Springsteen, from the pages of Born to Run In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began. Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs. He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as “The Big Bang”: seeing Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band. With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song “Born to Run” reveals more than we previously realized. Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll. Rarely has a performer told his own story with such force and sweep. Like many of his songs (“Thunder Road,” “Badlands,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The River,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” “The Rising,” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” to name just a few), Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography is written with the lyricism of a singular songwriter and the wisdom of a man who has thought deeply about his experiences.
Barcelonian Gaspar Cassado (1897-1966) was one of the greatest cello virtuosi of the twentieth century and a notable composer and arranger, leaving a vast and heterogeneous legacy. In this book, Gabrielle Kaufman provides the first full-length scholarly work dedicated to Cassado, containing the results of seven years of research into his life and legacy, after following the cellist's steps through Spain, France, Italy and Japan. The study presents in-depth descriptions of the three main parts of Cassado's creative output: composition, transcription and performance, especially focusing on Cassado's plural and multi-facetted creativity, which is examined from both cultural and historical perspectives. Cassado's role within the evolution of twentieth-century cello performance is thoroughly examined, including a discussion regarding the musical and technical aspects of performing Cassado's works, aimed directly at performers. The study presents the first attempt at a comprehensive catalogue of Cassado's works, both original and transcribed, as well as his recordings, using a number of new archival sources and testimonies. In addition, the composer's significance within Spanish twentieth-century music is treated in detail through a number of case studies, sustained by examples from recovered score manuscripts. Illuminated by extraordinary source material Gaspar Cassado: Cellist, Composer and Transcriber expands and deepens our knowledge of this complex figure, and will be of crucial importance to students and scholars in the fields of Performance Practice and Spanish Music, as well as to professional cellists and advanced cello students.
The genius of Johann Sebastian Bach transcends the boundaries of time, geography, and discipline. This collection of essays, the outgrowth of a conference held at Hofstra University, celebrates the tercentenary of the composer's birth. The contributors contend that Bach's influence extends far beyond his own life time and art form. They show the often unanticipated impact of his works in such diverse areas as literature, film, religion, and psychology. The wide-ranging articles offer theoretical analysis, biographical-musical interpretation, literary and religious explorations, and analyses of performance practice. They range from Howard Adams' discussion of how Bach contemporized scripture in his cantatas to Richard Spurgeon Hall's consideration of how Bach and Edwards viewed religious affections. Stephen Gottlieb assesses Bach's "Musical Offering" as an autobiographical work. Fritz Sammern-Frankenegg explores the expression of Bach's messages in the film work of Ingmar Bergman while the unlikely coupling of Bach and English author Aldous Huxley is reviewed by Sister Ann Edward Bennis. Charles M. Joseph suggests that the structure and pacing of selected Bach "Praeludia" reflect previously unseen architectural influences. The convergence of musical expression and musical rhetoric in Bach's keyboard works are the subject of David Schulenberg while Don L. Smithers reconstructs the circumstances surrounding a performance of Bach's "Leipzig Church CantataS." This unique appeal of this volume lies in its presentation of a wide range of new and provocative scholarship. The exploration of new aspects of the genius of Johann Sebastian Bach is certain to interest anyone interested in his life, work, and influence.
The first comprehensive discography on one of Wagner's music dramas, this volume lists all complete performance recordings, all major selections recorded, and hundreds of individually-recorded excerpts, both vocal, and instrumental, from the earliest acoustic recordings to recent laser discs. Many excerpts have never appeared in discographies or other works on Wagner, and pirate recordings have been identified. Precise information is given as to date and place of recording and record numbers as well as performers, choruses, orchestras, and conductors. Musical incipits introduce each excerpt. The index provides access to more than 230 singers of the principal roles and over 130 conductors. A lengthy introduction provides a lively and provocative commentary on the recordings. Written in Australia where Parsifal has never been fully staged, the discography was researched in major libraries and archives of Europe and the United States as well as old record shops in New York, London, Paris, and Sydney. The result is an important resource for the discographer and record collector, the student of opera and vocal art, and all lovers of Wagner in performance.
A biography of Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly which discusses his life and works, including concert performances. |
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