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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Composers & musicians

Berio's Sequenzas - Essays on Performance, Composition and Analysis (Hardcover, New Ed): Janet K. Halfyard Berio's Sequenzas - Essays on Performance, Composition and Analysis (Hardcover, New Ed)
Janet K. Halfyard
R4,227 Discovery Miles 42 270 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Between 1958 and 2002, Luciano Berio wrote fourteen pieces entitled Sequenza, along with several versions of the same work for different instruments, revisions of the original pieces and also the parallel Chemins series, where one of the Sequenzas is used as the basis for a new composition on a larger scale. The Sequenza series is one of the most remarkable achievements of the late twentieth century. It is a collection of virtuoso pieces that explores the capabilities of a solo instrument and its player, making extreme technical demands of the performer whilst developing the musical vocabulary of the instrument in compositions so assured and so distinctive that each piece both initiates and potentially exhausts the repertoire of a new genre.The Sequenzas have significantly influenced the development of composition for solo instruments and voice, and there is no comparable series of works in the output of any other composer. Series of pieces tend to be linked by the instruments for which the composer writes, but this is a series in which the pieces are linked instead by the variety of instruments for which Berio composed. The varied approaches taken by the contributors in discussing the pieces demonstrate the richness of this repertoire and the many levels on which Berio and these landmark compositions can be considered. Contributions are arranged under three main headings: Performance Issues; Berio's Compositional Process and Aesthetics; Analytical Approaches.

Music and Copyright: The Case of Delius and His Publishers (Hardcover, New Ed): Robert Montgomery, Robert Threlfall Music and Copyright: The Case of Delius and His Publishers (Hardcover, New Ed)
Robert Montgomery, Robert Threlfall
R3,945 Discovery Miles 39 450 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Delius was born in 1862, twenty-four years before the signing in 1886 of the Berne Convention, the international convention for the protection of literary and artistic works of which Great Britain was a founder member. During Delius's lifetime came the birth of the record industry, the development of exercising the performing right, the introduction of the mechanical right, and the advent of films and broadcasting. Robert Montgomery and Robert Threlfall chronicle Delius's dealings with his publishers and the Performing Right Society (PRS) through his copious correspondence. Virtually all of the very early letters have been lost, but his correspondence in German with Harmonie Verlag of Berlin, Tischer & Jagenberg of Cologne, and Universal Edition of Vienna is almost complete. This book provides a selection of translations of these letters, most of which have never been seen before, and offers a unique insight into how a leading twentieth-century composer earned his living from composition in the changing environment of the world of music. Some of the problems that Delius encountered were because the administrative procedures brought in by Berne were in their infancy. Equally important in building a picture of Delius's publishing affairs is the Delius file in the PRS archive, to which Jelka Delius wrote in English, and which contains both sides of the correspondence. The book also covers the period after Delius's death when the Delius Trust, as the legal representative of his estate, took over responsibility for administering copyrights and promoting his music. The book provides a valuable model for the methodology involved in presenting a history of music publishing. It will provide a useful springboard for scholars to look at other composers in terms of their published material and how this relates to the general dissemination of their work.

Mendelssohn Essays (Paperback, New Ed): R Larry Todd Mendelssohn Essays (Paperback, New Ed)
R Larry Todd
R1,637 Discovery Miles 16 370 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

When R. Larry Todd's biography, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music, appeared in 2003, it won acclaim from several critics as a definitive biography. In researching Mendelssohn's life over the last two and a half decades, Todd uncovered much new information about the composer and his music, his family and his peers, and his complex reception history. Now, as we approach the 2009 bicentenary of Mendelssohn's birth, the author has chosen and compiled fifteen essays written between 1980 and 2005, including five previously unpublished, that examine several aspects of the composer whom Goethe and Heine likened to a second Mozart. Mendelssohn Essays explores Mendelssohn's precocity, his musical impressions of British culture, the role of the visual in his music, his compositional response to Bach's St. Matthew Passion, and incomplete drafts from his musical estate of three instrumental works. In addition, a group of three essays focuses on the music of Mendelssohn's sister Fanny Hensel, perhaps the most gifted woman composer of the century, and a significant, complex figure in the formation of the Mendelssohnian style.

Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature - Music, Art and Literature (Hardcover, New Ed): Nigel Simeone Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature - Music, Art and Literature (Hardcover, New Ed)
Nigel Simeone
R4,347 Discovery Miles 43 470 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

When Olivier Messiaen died in 1992, the prevailing image was of a man apart; a deeply religious man whose only sources of inspiration were God and Nature and a composer whose music progressed along an entirely individual path, artistically impervious to contemporaneous events and the whims both of his contemporaries and the critics. Whilst such a view contains a large element of truth, the past ten years has seen an explosion of interest in the composer, and the work of a diverse range of scholars has painted a much richer, more complex picture of Messiaen. This volume presents some of the fruits of this research for the first time, concentrating on three broad, interrelated areas: Messiaen's relationship with fellow artists; key developments in the composer's musical language and technique; and his influences, both sacred and secular. The volume assesses Messiaen's position as a creative artist of the twentieth century in the light of the latest research. In the process, it identifies some of the key myths, confusions and exaggerations surrounding the composer which often mask equally remarkable truths. In attempting to reveal some of those truths, the essays elucidate a little of the mystery surrounding Messiaen as a man, an artist, a believer and a musician. Specifically, the volume covers Messiaen's attitudes and associations to Cocteau, Stravinsky's Les Noces, Dutilleux and Toesca, as well as exploring his teaching techniques, the Traite de rythme, de couleur et d'ornithologie, Messiaen's harmony, performing and transcription techniques, composing for Ondes Martenot, his association with ballet, Saint FranAois d'Assise and the influence of his faith. Messiaen himself contributes directly in the form of a speech that he gave about the tapestry-maker Jean LurAat, and the collection also includes the first literary translation of L'Acme en bourgeon; the garland of poems written by Messiaen's mother, Cecile Sauvage, when she was expecting him. The composer described these poems as 'the only influence' in his life, making L'Acme en bourgeon a fascinating centrepiece to a rich and rewarding collection of essays.

Charles Valentin Alkan - His Life and His Music (Hardcover, New Ed): William Alexander Eddie Charles Valentin Alkan - His Life and His Music (Hardcover, New Ed)
William Alexander Eddie
R3,925 Discovery Miles 39 250 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

A 'conservative radical' is William Alexander Eddie's description of the French virtuoso composer-pianist Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888). Judaic culture, the French baroque and German classicism were the main influences on Alkan's musical style, with more radical musical tendencies found in many of the Esquisses op 63. This comprehensive survey takes as its focus a stylistic analysis of Alkan's compositions from the apprentice works to the later 'massed style' etudes; the latter are of considerable length and pianistic difficulty. There is also consideration of Alkan's achievements as pianist and teacher, and the sections on performance practice in Alkan will be of interest to pianists today. A full investigation of Alkan's reception history is also included and useful appendices provide a guide to further archival research. A list of works and basic discography complete this new study of an important French composer.

Innocent When You Dream - Tom Waits: The Collected Interviews (Paperback, New ed): Mac Montadon Innocent When You Dream - Tom Waits: The Collected Interviews (Paperback, New ed)
Mac Montadon 2
R303 Discovery Miles 3 030 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Tom Waits in his own words: a collection of three decades' worth of interviews with Tom Waits 'I've never met anyone who made it with a chick because they owned a Tom Waits album. I've got all three, and it's never helped me,' Tom Waits. Born, seemingly, in the back of a taxi cab outside a hospital in California, in December 1949, the young Tom Waits graduated through the jobs of janitor, dishwasher and cook to the position of doorman at a small L.A. club. Existing on a diet of whiskey, cigarettes and beat writing, he now added folk and jazz to his formative influences. In 1969, Captain Beefheart manager Herb Cohen discovered him - and five years later he released his first album, Closing Time, a record soaked in equal parts bourbon and melancholy. His drunken bohemian persona kicked in after this ('The Piano Has Been Drinking, Not Me'), and his familiar hoary rasp ('a voice that could guide ships through dense fog'), tales of losers, outsiders, hobos, dingy bar-room joints and seedy diners became the stuff of cult legend, covered by the likes of the Eagles, championed by Elton John, and instantly recognisable from a thirty-year career that has seeped through music (over 20 albums), theatre and film. Waits has never written an autobiography, has notoriously played fast and loose with the truth, but this collection of interviews is practically Tom Waits in his own words. Witty, enigmatic and currently fired up about the state of America (his latest album 'Real Gone' has been his most successful yet), Innocent When You Dream is a must-have for any Waits fan.

The Train of Ice and Fire - Mano Negra in Colombia (Hardcover): Ramon Chao The Train of Ice and Fire - Mano Negra in Colombia (Hardcover)
Ramon Chao; Translated by Ann Wright
R462 R414 Discovery Miles 4 140 Save R48 (10%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

'Maybe it was the best adventure I ever had.' - Manu Chao Colombia, November 1993: A reconstructed old passenger train, bespangled with yellow butterflies, is carrying one hundred musicians, acrobats and artists on a daring adventure through the heart of a country soaked in violence. The intention is to put on free shows for locals at railway stations along the way: vibrant spectacles involving music, trapeze, tattoo-art, an ice museum and, star of the show, Roberto the fire-breathing dragon. Leading this crusade of hope is Manu Chao with his band Mano Negra. Ramon Chao is on board to chronicle the journey. As the train climbs 1,000 kilometres from Santa Marta on the Caribbean Coast to Bogota in the Altiplano, Ramon keeps one eye on the fluctuating morale of the train's eccentric cargo, and the other on the ever-changing physical and social landscape. As the papa of the train, he endures personal discomfort, internal strife, derailments, stowaways, disease, guerrillas and paramilitaries.When the train arrives in Aracataca, the real-life Macondo of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Mano Negra disintegrates, leaving Manu to pick up the pieces with those determined to see this once-in-a-lifetime adventure through to the end. "The Train of Ice and Fire" is a book about hope and dreams in troubled times. It is about a father accompanying his son through an experience which will change his life. But most of all it is about Colombia, the flora, the fauna, the history, the politics and, more than any of that, it is a book about people.

Deems Taylor - Selected Writings (Hardcover, New): James Pegolotti Deems Taylor - Selected Writings (Hardcover, New)
James Pegolotti
R3,920 Discovery Miles 39 200 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Deems Taylor (1885-1966) was a composer, music critic, author, commentator, translator, and artist. He was the first American composer commissioned to write an opera by New York's Metropolitan Opera, and composed orchestral and solo works that remain part of the repertoire. He gained fame initially introducing the regular radio broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic in the mid-'30s; his fame was so great, that animator Walt Disney invited him to be the on-screen host of Fantasia. Taylor wrote for many popular journals, including Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, as well as the daily press, and his work was collecting in many best-selling books. Taylor's biographer, James Pegolotti, has made a fresh selection of the best of Taylor's writings on music for this new volume. Divided into parts reflecting a chronological look at Taylor's entire career, the work exposes the reader to Taylor's wit and keen intellect. Pegolotti has written brief introductions for each section, placing Taylor's work in the context of its time. Deems Taylor: Selected Writings brings into full view a forgotten important music reviewer and social commentator of the first half of the twentieth century.

Rocks - My Life in and out of Aerosmith (Paperback): Joe Perry Rocks - My Life in and out of Aerosmith (Paperback)
Joe Perry; As told to David Ritz 1
R365 R236 Discovery Miles 2 360 Save R129 (35%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Aerosmith's lead guitarist Joe Perry opens up for the first time to tell the riveting inside story of his lifeinside the band, featuring everyone from Jimmy Page to Alice Cooper, Bette Midler to Chuck Berry, John Belushi to Al Hirschfeld. Before the platinum records or the Super Bowl half-time show or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joe Perry was a boy growing up in small town Massachusetts. But the guitar became his passion, an object of lust, an outlet for his restlessness and his rebellious soul. That passion quickly blossomed into an obsession, and he got a band together. One night after a performance he met a brash young musician named Steven Tyler; before long, Aerosmith was born. What happened over the next forty-five years has become the stuff of legend: the knock-down, drag-out, band splintering fights; the drugs, the booze, the rehab; the packed arenas and timeless hits; the reconciliations and the comebacks. Full of humour, insight and brutal honesty about life in and out of one of the biggest bands in modern history, Rocks is also the story of a dedicated family man in a thirty-year marriage who has navigated the pressures of an extreme lifestyle. In Perry's own words, it tells the whole story.

The Little Guide to Britney Spears - Stronger than Yesterday (Hardcover): Orange Hippo! The Little Guide to Britney Spears - Stronger than Yesterday (Hardcover)
Orange Hippo!
R188 R155 Discovery Miles 1 550 Save R33 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

'Success is a state of mind... Success isn't about conquering something; it's being happy with who you are.' - Stylist Magazine, 2011. Multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning pop icon Britney Spears is one of the most successful and celebrated entertainers in pop history selling nearly 150 million records worldwide. Born in Mississippi and raised in Louisiana, Britney started out as a dancer and gymnast, before landing a role at twelve years old in 'The All New Mickey Mouse Club'. She became a household name as a teenager when she released her first single '...Baby One More Time'. This collection of Britney's relatable, inspiring and hugely optimistic quotes reveals a caring, generous personality who champions following your dreams. Despite a very public and at times troubling life, this is a book which sparkles with positivity and happiness; the 'Princess of Pop' offers you the best advice and lifts you up when you're down. Sample Quotes: 'Performing is my therapy, to become different people onstage.' USA Today, 2013 'I have my relationship with God and myself, and that's what matters to me. I really don't care what most people think.' - V Magazine, 2016

Europe, Empire, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century British Music (Hardcover, New Ed): Julian Rushton Europe, Empire, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century British Music (Hardcover, New Ed)
Julian Rushton
R4,215 Discovery Miles 42 150 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This volume illuminates musical connections between Britain and the continent of Europe, and Britain and its Empire. The seldom-recognized vitality of musical theatre and other kinds of spectacle in Britain itself, and also the flourishing concert life of the period, indicates a means of defining tradition and identity within nineteenth-century British musical culture. The objective of the volume has been to add significantly to the growing literature on these topics. It benefits not only from new archival research, but also from fresh musicological approaches and interdisciplinary methods that recognize the integral role of music within a wider culture, including religious, political and social life. The essays are by scholars from the USA, Britain, and Europe, covering a wide range of experience. Topics range from the reception of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt in England, a musical response to Shakespeare, Italian opera in Dublin, exoticism, gender, black musical identities, British musicians in Canada, and uses of music in various theatrical genres and state ceremony, and in articulating the politics of the Union and Empire.

Johannes Brahms and Klaus Groth - The Biography of a Friendship (Hardcover, New Ed): Peter Russell Johannes Brahms and Klaus Groth - The Biography of a Friendship (Hardcover, New Ed)
Peter Russell
R4,495 Discovery Miles 44 950 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Over the past twenty years musicologists and theorists have been intensely preoccupied with Brahms's compositions. The same, however, could not be said for biographical issues. The relationship between the composer Johannes Brahms and the poet Klaus Groth, both important creative forces with strong roots in the Dithmarschen region of northern Germany, was a very special one that deserves greater recognition. In his lifetime Klaus Groth was a celebrated German poet because of his works in Plattdeutsch, a dialect with which Brahms was familiar. Unlike any of Brahms's other friends, Groth and his family had ties to the family of Brahms's father that extended back a number of generations. That he came from the same region as Brahms seems to have endeared the poet to the composer. Aside from Daumer, Brahms chose to set Groth's poems more frequently than those of any other writer. Both Groth and his wife Doris were greatly indebted for these settings, and they showered Brahms with praise. Peter Russell has made careful selections from the 89 letters that have been preserved, placing them in the context of the personalities, lives and works of both men. Alongside the letters, Russell provides a substantial commentary that includes analyses of Brahms's music and critical assessment of Groth's poems. The book includes two appendices: Brahms's settings of Groth's poems and a list of Groth's publications in Brahms's library.

The Music of Mauricio Kagel (Hardcover, New Ed): Bj Rn Heile The Music of Mauricio Kagel (Hardcover, New Ed)
Bj Rn Heile
R4,343 Discovery Miles 43 430 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Mauricio Kagel was undoubtedly one of the major figures in the new music of the last fifty years. Growing up in the rich cultural atmosphere of Buenos Aires in the 1940s and '50s, where the writer Jorge Luis Borges was one of his teachers, he became a member of avant-garde circles as well as receiving a rigorous musical education. By 1957 Kagel had acted on the advice of Pierre Boulez to move to Europe to pursue a career as a composer. He quickly established himself at Cologne, the rallying point for young composers at the time, and became one of the leading, if controversial, figures at the famous Darmstadt summer courses. He embraced multiple serialism, aleatory technique and electronics, but he is best known for his pioneering explorations in music theatre, radio play, film and mixed media. BjArn Heile charts Kagel's compositional development, considering the aesthetic and ideological issues the composer raises in his work. Focusing on Kagel's use of music as a means of intellectual inquiry, Heile shows Kagel to constantly question the nature of music and its role in society. Kagel's broadening of the concept of music to include theatre, film and other media, his disdain for purism as well as his subversive humour and sense of the absurd have challenged reified notions of music and art. Heile considers Kagel's background as Argentine immigrant to Europe (born to Russian-Jewish immigrants to Argentina) to situate the composer's aesthetic. What emerges is the breadth of Kagel's imagination and the multiplicity of contexts he drew from, which were both distinctive and, in the age of pluralist multiculturalism and globalization, exemplary. As Heile demonstrates, it was Kagel's enlarged notion of music as inherently multimedial that may be his most important contribution to new music, and on which his reputation ultimately rests.

The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach (Hardcover, 2nd edition): David Schulenberg The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach (Hardcover, 2nd edition)
David Schulenberg
R4,109 Discovery Miles 41 090 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach provides an introduction to and comprehensive discussion of all the music for harpsichord and other stringed keyboard instruments by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Often played today on the modern piano, these works are central not only to the Western concert repertory but to musical pedagogy and study throughout the world.
Intended as both a practical guide and an interpretive study, the book consists of three introductory chapters on general matters of historical context, style, and performance practice, followed by fifteen chapters on the individual works, treated in roughly chronological order. The works discussed include all of Bach's individual keyboard compositions as well as those comprising his famous collections, such as the Well-Tempered Clavier, the English and French Suites, and the Art of Fugue.

George Michael - You Have Been Loved (Hardcover): Carolyn McHugh George Michael - You Have Been Loved (Hardcover)
Carolyn McHugh
R660 Discovery Miles 6 600 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

George Michael was an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and philanthropist who rose to fame as a member of the music duo Wham! and later embarked on a solo career. Michael has sold over 115 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His first solo single "Careless Whisper" reached number one in over 20 countries, including the US. Michael's debut solo album Faith was released in 1987, staying at number one on the Billboard 200 for 12 weeks, and winning Album of the Year at the 31st Grammy Awards. Three years later Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990) was released which included the Billboard Hot 100 number one "Praying for Time." "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," a 1991 duet with Elton John, was also a transatlantic number one. Michael, who came out as gay in 1998, was an active LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/ AIDS charity fundraiser. His most famous songs were with Wham! and as a solo artist, but he also collaborated with such musical royalty as Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Queen, Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston, Paul McCartney, and Beyonce. This is his story.

Beethoven in Russia - Music and Politics (Paperback): Frederick W. Skinner Beethoven in Russia - Music and Politics (Paperback)
Frederick W. Skinner
R942 Discovery Miles 9 420 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

How did Ludwig van Beethoven help overthrow a tsarist regime? With the establishment of the Russian Musical Society and its affiliated branches throughout the empire, Beethoven's music reached substantially larger audiences at a time of increasing political instability. In addition, leading music critics of the regime began hearing Beethoven's dramatic works as nothing less than a call to revolution. Beethoven in Russia deftly explores the interface between music and politics in Russia by examining the reception of Beethoven's works from the late 18th century to the present. In part 1, Frederick W. Skinner's clear and sweeping review examines the role of Beethoven's more dramatic works in the revolutionary struggle that culminated in the Revolution of 1917. In part 2, Skinner reveals how this same power was again harnessed to promote Stalin's campaign of rapid industrialization. The appropriation of Beethoven and his music to serve the interests of the state remained the hallmark of Soviet Beethoven reception until the end of communist rule. With interdisciplinary appeal in the areas of history, music, literature, and political thought, Beethoven in Russia shows how Beethoven's music served as a call to action for citizens and weaponized state propaganda in the great political struggles that shaped modern Russian history.

I'll Be There - My Life with the Four Tops (Hardcover): Duke Fakir, Kathleen McGhee-Anderson I'll Be There - My Life with the Four Tops (Hardcover)
Duke Fakir, Kathleen McGhee-Anderson
R629 R518 Discovery Miles 5 180 Save R111 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Spanning over decades, this is the remarkable, heartfelt memoir from Abdul 'Duke' Fakir, the last surviving member of The Four Tops. Amidst a backdrop of Detroit, I'll Be There features revealing anecdotes from the group's formation, their early days as backup singers for the likes of Jackie Wilson, and their years working with Berry Gordy at the legendary Motown Records. With era-defining number ones like 'I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)' and 'Reach Out I'll Be There' came stardom and also a more enduring reward: the love of four men who become tighter than brothers. Together they comprise one of the most celebrated R&B groups of all time. But remarkable musical success didn't spare Fakir the pain of marital distress, soured investment deals, struggles with sobriety and the sudden loss of his brothers, all of which he covers in this confessional, unmissable book.

The Little Book of Prince - Wisdom and Wonder from the Lovesexy Superstar (Hardcover): Malcolm Croft The Little Book of Prince - Wisdom and Wonder from the Lovesexy Superstar (Hardcover)
Malcolm Croft 1
R192 R159 Discovery Miles 1 590 Save R33 (17%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

The Little Book of Prince is filled with quotations by one of the most innovative artists in history. A perfect companion for fans everywhere, this collection of bite-sized quips helps capture exactly what made him so special. Packed with words of wit and wisdom from Prince Rogers Nelson, you'll find more than 170 amusing and inspiring sound bites inside. 'Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people.' Prince.

Musical Biography - Towards New Paradigms (Hardcover, New edition): Jolanta T. Pekacz Musical Biography - Towards New Paradigms (Hardcover, New edition)
Jolanta T. Pekacz
R4,360 Discovery Miles 43 600 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Musical biography has rarely been an object of theoretical and methodological reflection. Our present-day perception of the lives of prominent composers and performers of the past has been largely formed by cultural and political assumptions of nineteenth-century biographers and their twentieth-century followers. While older biographies are being scrutinized for veracity and updated with new evidence, their historiographical premisses and narrative techniques remain largely unchallenged. The epistemological upheavals in the humanities since the 1960s have generated a body of theoretical thought that has undermined many of the assumptions of traditional biography. Consequently, many of these assumptions have lost their hold as viable underpinnings for present-day scholarly biography. For example, the accumulation of facts is no longer believed to bring us closer to an understanding of the subject; nor are the traditional views of the unified self and the self as a foundational idea taken for granted. This volume brings together musicologists and historians who explore, through individual case studies, the rich potential of these new theories for writing musical lives. theories illuminate our critical reassessment of older biographies-and the interpretations of musical works these biographies were used to construe-and help forge new approaches to musical biography. The authors also explore the functions musical biographies served in different historical contexts, the relevance of biography for musical criticism, the reliability of archival evidence, the ethics of biography, the demands placed on biography by feminist and gender history, and the new possibilities offered by cinema. The contributors to this volume challenge the view that biography has little importance for music history, analysis, and criticism. Collectively, they reassert biography's centrality and relevance, and demonstrate biography's potential to speak not only to the crucial questions that music analysis and criticism raise, and to questions of music as a formative experience, but also to more general epistemological questions about the nature of music history itself.

Beethoven's Conversation Books - Volume 4: Nos. 32 to 43 (May 1823 to September 1823) (Hardcover): Theodore Albrecht Beethoven's Conversation Books - Volume 4: Nos. 32 to 43 (May 1823 to September 1823) (Hardcover)
Theodore Albrecht; Translated by Theodore Albrecht
R1,347 Discovery Miles 13 470 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

A complete new edition of Beethoven's conversation books, in 12 volumes, now translated into English in their entirety for the first time. Covering a period associated with the revolutionary style of what we call "late Beethoven", these lively and compelling conversations are now finally accessible in English for the scholar and Beethoven-lover. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is recognized the world over as a composer of musical masterpieces exhibiting heroic strength, particularly in the face of his increasing deafness from ca. 1798. By 1818, the Viennese composer had begun carrying blank booklets with him, for his acquaintances to jot their sides of conversations, while he answered aloud. Often, he himself used the pocket-sized booklets to make shopping lists and other reminders, including occasional early sketches for his compositions. Today, 139 of these booklets survive, covering the years 1818 up to the composer's death in 1827 and including such topics as music, history, politics, art, literature, theatre, religion, and education as perceived on a day-to-day basis in post-Napoleonic Europe. An East German edition, begun in the 1960s and essentially complete by 2001, represents a diplomatic transcription of these documents. It is a masterpiece of pure scholarship but is difficult to use for anyone who is not a specialist. Moreover, Beethoven scholarship has moved on significantly since the long-ranging genesis of the German edition. These important booklets are here translated into English in their entirety for the first time. The volumes in this series include an updated editorial apparatus, with revised and expanded notes and many new footnotes exclusive to this edition, and brand new introductions, which together place many of the quickly changing conversational topics into context. Due to the editor's many years of research in Vienna, his acquaintance with its history and topography, as well as his familiarity with obscure documentary resources, this edition represents an entirely new venture in source studies - vitally informative for scholars not only in music but also in a wide variety of disciplines. At the same time, these often lively and compelling conversations are now finally accessible for the English-speaking music lover or history buff who might want to dip into them and hear what Beethoven and his friends were discussing at the next table.

Musical Journeys: Performing Migration in Twentieth-Century Music (Hardcover): Florian Scheding Musical Journeys: Performing Migration in Twentieth-Century Music (Hardcover)
Florian Scheding
R2,004 Discovery Miles 20 040 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

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

El Secreto de Selena (Selena's Secret) - La Reveladora Historia Detras Su Tragica Muerte (Spanish, Paperback, Reissue... El Secreto de Selena (Selena's Secret) - La Reveladora Historia Detras Su Tragica Muerte (Spanish, Paperback, Reissue ed.)
Maria Celeste Arraras
R438 R362 Discovery Miles 3 620 Save R76 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Goodbye Russia - Rachmaninoff in Exile (Hardcover, Main): Fiona Maddocks Goodbye Russia - Rachmaninoff in Exile (Hardcover, Main)
Fiona Maddocks
R618 Discovery Miles 6 180 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In 1940 Sergei Rachmaninoff, living in exile in America, broke his creative silence and composed a swan song to his Russian homeland. What happened in those final haunted years and how did he come to write his farewell masterpiece, the Symphonic Dances? Rachmaninoff left Petrograd in 1917 in the throes of the Russian Revolution. He was 44 years old, at the peak of his powers as composer-conductor-performer, moving in elite Tsarist circles, as well as running the family estate, his refuge and solace. He had already written the music which, today, has made him one of the most popular composers of all time: the second and third Piano Concertos and two symphonies. The story of his years in exile in America and Switzerland, has only been told in passing. Reeling from the trauma of a life in upheaval, he wrote almost no music and quickly had to reinvent himself as a fĂȘted virtuoso pianist, building up untold wealth and meeting the stars- from Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin to his Russian contemporaries and polar opposites, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. Yet the melancholy of leaving his homeland never lifted. Using a wide range of sources, including important newly translated texts, Maddocks' immensely readable book conjures impressions of this enigmatic figure, his friends and the world he encountered. It explores his life as an emigrĂ© artist and how he clung to an Old Russia which no longer existed. That forging of past and present meets in his Symphonic Dances (1940), his last composition, written on Long Island shortly before his death in Beverly Hills, surrounded by a close-knit circle of Russian exiles.

Fanny Hensel - A Research and Information Guide (Hardcover): Laura Stokes Fanny Hensel - A Research and Information Guide (Hardcover)
Laura Stokes
R4,045 Discovery Miles 40 450 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Fanny Hensel: A Research and Information Guide provides scholars in Hensel studies with a resource to navigate the research surrounding the composer's over 450 musical works. As part of the larger blossoming of women's music history, new research in the 1980s and 1990s promoted an awareness of Hensel's output, in particular in the genres of the lied and the solo piano work. This research guide includes an introductory chapter, a summary paragraph at the beginning of each chapter, and annotations for more than 500 entries, focusing on scholarly works as well as selected articles from trade publications, catalogs, and Internet resources.

A Soviet Credo: Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony (Hardcover, New Ed): Pauline Fairclough A Soviet Credo: Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony (Hardcover, New Ed)
Pauline Fairclough
R4,347 Discovery Miles 43 470 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Composed in 1935-36 and intended to be his artistic 'credo', Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony was not performed publicly until 1961. Here, Dr Pauline Fairclough tackles head-on one of the most significant and least understood of Shostakovich's major works. She argues that the Fourth Symphony was radically different from its Soviet contemporaries in terms of its structure, dramaturgy, tone and even language, and therefore challenged the norms of Soviet symphonism at a crucial stage of its development. With the backing of prominent musicologists such as Ivan Sollertinsky, the composer could realistically have expected the premiere to have taken place, and may even have intended the symphony to be a model for a new kind of 'democratic' Soviet symphonism. Fairclough meticulously examines the score to inform a discussion of tonal and thematic processes, allusion, paraphrase and reference to musical types, or intonations. Such analysis is set deeply in the context of Soviet musical culture during the period 1932-36, involving Shostakovich's contemporaries Shebalin, Myaskovsky, Kabalevsky and Popov. A new method of analysis is also advanced here, where a range of Soviet and Western analytical methods are informed by the theoretical work of Shostakovich's contemporaries Viktor Shklovsky, Boris Tomashevsky, Mikhail Bakhtin and Ivan Sollertinsky, together with Theodor Adorno's late study of Mahler. In this way, the book will significantly increase an understanding of the symphony and its context.

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