My real story starts with a disaster, an unmitigated, pull-the-rug-from-under-you, clean-out-the-bank-account disaster. But had it not happened, The Police would never have risen to become the biggest rock band in the world; Jools Holland would not have ended up on TV; The Bangles, The Go-Go s, R.E.M., and many other music stars might never have made it either. It s strange how a fluke, a disaster, an unlikely event can lead to incredible results. But that is in essence what happened to me . . . Two Steps Forward, One Step Back tells the extraordinary story of a maverick manager, promoter, label owner, and all-round legend of the music industry. It opens in the Middle East, where Miles grew up with his father, a CIA agent who was stationed in Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. It then shifts to London in the late 60s and the beginnings of a career managing bands like Wishbone Ash and Curved Air only for Miles s life and work to be turned upside down by a pioneering yet disastrous European tour. From the ashes of near bankruptcy, Miles enters the world of punk, sharing office space with Malcolm McLaren and Sniffin Glue, before shifting gears again as manager of The Police, featuring his brother, Stewart, on drums. Then, after founding IRS Records, he launches the careers of some of the most potent musical acts of the new wave scene and beyond, from Squeeze and The Go-Go s to The Bangles and R.E.M. Finally, the story comes full circle as Miles finds himself advising the Pentagon on how to win over hearts and minds in the Middle East and introducing Arabic music to the United States. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, his father would tell him. Sometimes, though, the truth is all you need.

Indispensable reading for historians and musicologists as well as those interested in Wagner's philosophy and the aesthetics of music. Despite the enormous and accelerating worldwide interest in Wagner leading to the bicentenary of his birth in 2013, his prose writings have received scant scholarly attention. Wagner's book-length essay on Beethoven, written to celebrate the centenary of Beethoven's birth in 1870, is really about Wagner himself rather than Beethoven. It is generally regarded as the principal aesthetic statement of the composer's later years, representing a reassessment ofthe ideas of the earlier Zurich writings, especially Oper und Drama, in the light of the experience gained through the composition of Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg and the greater part of DerRing des Nibelungen. It contains Wagner's most complete exegesis of his understanding of Schopenhauer's philosophy and its perceived influence on the compositional practice of his later works. The essay also influenced the young Nietzsche. It is an essential text in the teaching of not only Wagnerian thought but also late nineteenth-century musical aesthetics in general. Until now the English reader with no access to the German original has been obliged to work from two Victorian translations. This brand new edition gives the German original and the newly translated English text on facing pages. It comes along with a substantial introduction placing the essay not onlywithin the wider historical and intellectual context of Wagner's later thought but also in the political context of the establishment of the German Empire in the 1870s. The translation is annotated throughout with a full bibliography. Richard Wagner's Beethoven will be indispensable reading for historians and musicologists as well as those interested in Wagner's philosophy and the aesthetics of music. ROGER ALLEN is Fellow and Tutor in Music at St Peter's College, Oxford.

As featured in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The A.V. Club, Consequence, Mashable, Mental Floss, Book Riot and more! "Weird Al" Yankovic continues as one of our most beloved comedians, actors, and musicians. A skilled accordion player and lyricist, the California native not only crafts meticulous parodies, but also creates hilarious originals and pop culture-themed polkas. Now in his fifth decade of recording and performing, Al has maintained a career that has outlasted many of the artists that he has lampooned. Since 1980, Al's drummer Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz has been by his side, photographing and documenting his career. Jon has taken more than 20,000 images of Al in his element: on tour, in the studio, on video sets, and backstage. Lights, Camera, Accordion! presents over 300 images of Al, culled from Jon's personal collection of color photography, all restored from the original negatives. This exhaustive volume represents the 25 years that Jon shot Al on 35mm color film, from 1981 to 2006, before switching to digital photography. Jon additionally provides previously unheard stories and anecdotes throughout. From "Eat It" and "Like a Surgeon" to later classics such as "Smells Like Nirvana," "Amish Paradise," and the Star Wars parody "The Saga Begins," Lights, Camera, Accordion! showcases a body of work that spans ten albums, five Grammys, and nearly 2,000 concerts to millions of fans - and is packed with the weirdness and fun that always surrounds the undisputed king of comedic music.

In 2002, David Bowie and Mick Rock created Moonage Daydream, the defining document of the life and times of Ziggy Stardust. Twenty years later, it remains the closest readers will get to understanding Bowie through his own words.

Alongside over 600 photographs taken by Mick Rock, Bowie’s personal and often humorous commentary gives unprecedented insight into his work and the creation of his most memorable persona. Readers can see how Bowie singlehandedly challenged and elevated 1970s culture through his style, his inspirations ranging from Kubrick to Kabuki, and his creative spirit, which endures through the decades. Moonage Daydream is the essential David Bowie book.

First published as a signed limited edition, Moonage Daydream sold out in a matter of months and became lore among David Bowie fans. Now, on the 50th anniversary of Bowie’s acclaimed album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, the book is available again. Published in a new larger format, this uncut edition keeps to Bowie and Rock’s original vision, allowing us to explore Moonage Daydream the way the authors intended.

Nadia Boulanger - composer, critic, impresario and the most famous composition teacher of the twentieth century - was also a performer of international repute. Her concerts and recordings with her vocal ensemble introduced audiences on both sides of the Atlantic to unfamiliar historical works and new compositions. This book considers how gender shaped the possibilities that marked Boulanger's performing career, tracing her meteoric rise as a conductor in the 1930s to origins in the classroom and the salon. Brooks investigates Boulanger's promotion of structurally motivated performance styles, showing how her ideas on performance of historical repertory and new music relate to her teaching of music analysis and music history. The book explores the way in which Boulanger's musical practice relied upon her understanding of the historically transcendent masterwork, in which musical form and meaning are ideally joined, and shows how her ideas relate to broader currents in French aesthetics and culture.

Richard and Fred Fairbrass, better known as Right Said Fred, scored a global Number 1 hit in 1991 with their debut single 'I'm Too Sexy', selling 30 million albums, being showered with industry awards, and earning plaudits from admirers such as Madonna and Prince. Before that breakthrough, though, the brothers spent over a decade in London and New York, trying to make it in the music industry. Fred played guitar with Bob Dylan and Richard played bass in several David Bowie videos, with the brothers appearing on stage with Joy Division and Suicide, and on film with Mick Jagger. Once fame hit, the good times rolled, the substances mounted up and the groupies formed an orderly queue, but it wasn't long before the brothers realised that fame and fortune is not for everyone. Still Too Sexy is their story, with a foreword by the legendary stunt motorcyclist Eddie Kidd, OBE.

Liszt's Final Decade reveals in the composer's own words to his confidantes Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein and Olga von Meyendorff how he resolved his conflicted self-image as a celebrated performer but underappreciated composer. Toward the end of his life Franz Liszt maintained extensive correspondence with two women who were at the time his closest confidantes, Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein and Olga von Meyendorff. Liszt wrote to them regularly, expressing his intimate feelings about personal and career events and his conflicted self-image as a celebrated performer but underappreciated composer. Absent a diary, the letters offer the most direct avenue into Liszt's psyche in hisfinal years. Liszt's Final Decade explores through these letters the mind and music of one of the nineteenth century's most popular musicians, providing insight into Liszt's melancholia in his last years and his struggle to gain recognition for his music yet avoid criticism. The exchange indicates that Liszt ultimately resolved his inner conflict through a personally constructed Christian moral philosophy that embraced positive resignation to suffering, compassionate love, and trust in a just reward to come. The book also examines how Liszt's late sacred compositions affirm the yielding of suffering to joy and hope. Significantly, Liszt viewed these works, commonly overlooked today, as a major part of his compositional legacy. This volume thus challenges the idea of a single "late" Lisztian style and the notion that despair overwhelmed the composer in his final years. We are pleased to announce that Liszt's Final Decade is the winner of the 2017 Alan Walker Book Award, given by the American Liszt Society. Dolores Pesce is the Avis Blewett Professor of Music in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Maurice Ravel's operas L'Heure espagnole (1907/1911) and L'Enfant et les sortileges (1919-25) are pivotal works in the composer's relatively small oeuvre. Emerging from periods shaped by very distinct musical concerns and historical circumstances, these two vastly different works nevertheless share qualities that reveal the heart of Ravel's compositional aesthetic. In this comprehensive study, Emily Kilpatrick unites musical, literary, biographical and cultural perspectives to shed new light on Ravel's operas. In documenting the operas' history, setting them within the cultural canvas of their creation and pursuing diverse strands of analytical and thematic exploration, Kilpatrick reveals crucial aspects of the composer's working life: his approach to creative collaboration, his responsiveness to cultural, aesthetic and musical debate, and the centrality of language and literature in his compositional practice. The first study of its kind, this book is an invaluable resource for students, specialists, opera-goers and devotees of French music.

The story of Afro-Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos stitches together histories of 1960s-1980s jazz, psychedelia, world music, experimentalism and post-punk. Based in Recife, Rio de Janeiro, New York City and Paris, Naná played with musicians as varied as Egberto Gismonti, Don Cherry, Pat Metheny, Ralph Towner, Arto Lindsay, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Paul Simon, Jon Hassell, Brian Eno, Os Mutantes, and Milton Nascimento. This book traces the 15 years (1964-1979) leading up to Naná's Saudades (1979, ECM), an album evoking his sonic memories of Brazil that he recorded while in Germany. Saudades features berimbau, a one-stringed instrument that looks like a bow and arrow, alongside onomatopoetic vocals and the strings of the Radio Symphony Stuttgart. Daniel B. Sharp hears Naná's playing as a counterargument against dishonest notions of the primitive just as world music emerged as a genre. With a gourd, a stick, a wire, a wicker basket, and a stone, Naná made music as complex and contemporary as the ARP synthesizers in vogue at the time.

A complete biographical reference work covering all aspects of the classical music world.
* Over 8,000 detailed biographical entries
* Coverage of the classical and light classical fields
* Entries range from composers to conductors and managers
* Up-and-coming musicians as well as well-established names.
Key features include:
* Profiles composers, musicians, singers, arrangers, writers, conductors, soloists and managers throughout the world
* Includes listings of orchestras and festivals
* Lists music libraries, conservatoires, music organizations and opera companies
* Details major competitions and awards
* Lists Masters of the King's/Queen's music.

Kylie Minogue's self-titled debut album produced hits, controversy and a perfect mainstream storm. The then soap and children's television star 'crossed over' to music with hit writer/producers SAW - and the shamelessly commercial approach of all involved saw the 'real' music industry get its back up. This book interrogates the way that commercial pop albums are remembered in both the popular music press and in academic research. Is there a way of dealing with 'mainstream' pop without denigrating the music and (just as importantly) without validating it according to the terms of a 'high art' canon? This text sheds light on the way that notions of 'mainstream' and 'other' play out in a local context-specifically, Australia and New Zealand music on a global stage.

This is a guide to research on the great composer, Maurice Ravel. It includes over 2000 annotated entries of the scholarly literature on Ravel, including catalogues, facsimilies of autographs, music editions, textual criticism, bibliographies, monographs, articles, and dissertations covering his life and music.

This book is the first biography of 20th-century pianist Rudolf Serkin, providing a narrative of Serkin's life with emphasis on his European roots and the impact of his move to America. With the help of interviews, the authors focus on three key aspects of Serkin's work, particularly as it unfolded in America: his art and career as a pianist, his activities as a pedagogue, including his long association with the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and his key role in institutionalizing a redefinition of musical values in America through his work as artistic director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Vermont. The book concludes with a discography by Paul Farber that documents an essential part of Serkin's achievement.

The first full-length volume on the life work of one of the most well-known and prolific masters of our time, "William Thomas McKinley: A Bio-Bibliography" provides both musicologists and performers with a guide toward further exploration of the composer and his music. Included within are a complete biography on McKinley, the man and performer; a discography of both McKinley's compositions and his performances; and an in-depth catalog of his works. Each entry of the catalog contains a complete manuscript description, a detailed listing of any sketches or drafts which exist, a piece-specific bibliography, a complete performance history, and editorial notes. Also included are the composer's own writings about his works in the form of his program notes. Program notes by other authors are included as well, as they are the product of interviews with the composer.

The book has been organized with easy access and a larger audience of performers, musicologists, and other interested parties firmly in mind. The works numbering system has been completely restructured from previous bio-bibliographies in order to provide performers with quicker access to works for their particular instrument or group of instruments. Works are cross-listed in several ways and the book is thoroughly indexed, making for easy information access.

A complete biographical reference work covering all aspects of the classical music world.
* Over 8,000 detailed biographical entries
* Covers the classical and light classical fields
* Entries range from composers to conductors and managers
* Includes up-and-coming musicians as well as well-established names
Contents include:
* Profiles of composers, musicians, singers, arrangers, writers, conductors, soloists and managers throughout the world
* Listings of orchestras and festivals
* Lists of music libraries, conservatoires, music organizations and opera companies
* Details of major competitions and awards
* Lists of Masters of the King's/Queen's music

Elliott Smith was one of the most gifted songwriters of the nineties, adored by worshipful fans for his subtly melancholic words and melodies. The sadness had its sources in the life. There was trauma from an early age, years of drug abuse and a chronic sense of disconnection that sometimes seemed almost self-engineered. Smith died violently in Los Angeles in 2003, under what some believe to be questionable circumstances, of a single fatal stab wound to the chest. By this time fame had found him, and record buyers who shared the listening experience felt he spoke directly to them from beyond: lonely, lovelorn, frustrated, fighting until he could fight no more. And yet, although his achingly intimate lyrics carried the weight of truth, Smith remained unknowable. In Torment Saint, William Todd Schultz gives us the first proper biography of the rock star, a decade after his death, imbued with affection, authority, sensitivity and long-awaited clarity. Torment Saint draws on Schultz's careful, deeply knowledgeable readings and insights, as well as on more than 150 hours of interviews with close friends, lovers, bandmates, peers, managers, label owners, and recording engineers and producers. This book unravels the remaining mysteries of Smith's life and his shocking, too-early end. It will be an indispensable examination of his life and legacy, both for Smith's legions of fans as well as readers still discovering his songbook.

'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.

One of the hardest headbangers of heavy metal shares his uplifting and empowering memoir about overcoming addiction and discovering a life of faith.
In" My Life with Deth," cofounder and bassist of Mega-deth David Ellefson reveals the behind-the-scenes details of life in one of the world's most popular heavy metal bands. If you're looking for eye-opening revelations, they're here, including the drug habits that brought the band members to their knees.
But "My Life with Deth" is far more than just another memoir of debauchery. Ellefson also shares the story of his faith journey, which began when he decided his only choice for survival was to get free from his addic-tion.
Whether religious or not, you'll be enthralled and inspired by this tell-all book on discovering meaning in a life of rock and roll. You'll find insightful comments from some of the biggest names in heavy metal, along with universal life lessons. With a delicate balance between humor and earnestness, anyone "can appreciate Ellefson's unpretentious tone and the delightful irony of a serious Christian who helped define seriously heavy metal music" ("Publisher's Weekly").

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky remains to this day one of the most-performed Russian composers. Based on recent studies and source editions, this book demonstrates the close interrelationship between Tchaikovsky's life and his work. The author portrays the versatility of the musician who died at the mere age of 53 under controversial circumstances in St. Petersburg. About the German edition of this book: "[...] Constantin Floros devotes himself initially to the biography and then to the compositional oeuvre, divided according to genre and supplemented by concrete illustrations, thus giving greater significance to the music." (Forum Musikbibliothek 27, 2006) "[...] the music gets more weight of its own in the more detailed analyses - illustrated with revealing note citations - which yet always remain readily accessible." (Steffen A. Schmidt, Das Orchester 02/2007)

'They are not for you but for a later age!' Ludwig van Beethoven, on the Opus 59 quartets Beethoven's sixteen string quartets are some of the most extraordinary and challenging pieces of music ever written. They have inspired artists of all kinds - not only musicians - and have been subject to endless reinterpretation. What does it feel like to be a musician taking on these iconic works? And how do the four string players who make up a quartet interact, both musically and personally? The Takács is one of the world's pre-eminent string quartets. Performances of Beethoven have shaped their work together for over forty years. Using the history of both the Takács Quartet and the Beethoven quartets as the backbone to his story, Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the Takács since 1993, recounts the exhilarating challenge of tackling these pieces. Beethoven for a Later Age takes the reader inside the daily life of a quartet, vividly showing the necessary creative tension between individual and group expression and how four people can enjoy making music together over a long period of time. The key, the author argues, is in balancing continuity with change and experimentation - a theme that lies at the heart of Beethoven's remarkable compositions. No other composer has posed so many questions about the form and emotional content of a string quartet, and come up with so many different answers. In an accessible style, suitable for novices and chamber music enthusiasts alike, Dusinberre illuminates the variety and inherent contradictions of Beethoven's quartets, composed against the turbulent backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath, and shows that engaging with this radical music continues to be as invigorating now as it was for its first performers and audiences.

A complete biographical reference work covering all aspects of the classical music world.
* Over 8,000 detailed biographical entries
* Covers the Classical and Light Classical fields
* Entries range from composers to conductors and managers
* Includes up-and-coming musicians as well as well- established names.
Contents
* Profiles composers, musicians, singers, arrangers, writers, conductors, soloists and managers throughout the world
* Includes listings of orchestras and festivals
* Lists music libraries, conservatoires, music organizations and opera companies
* Details major competitions and awards
* Lists Masters of the King's/Queen's music.