This volume analyses the work of Nick Cave, a singular, idiosyncratic and brilliant musician, specifically through his engagements with theology and the Bible. It does so not merely in terms of his written work, the novels and plays and poetry and lyrics that he continues to produce, but also the music itself. Covering more than three decades of extraordinarily diverse creativity, the book has seven chapters focusing on: the modes in which Cave engages with the Bible; the total depravity of the worlds invoked in his novels and other written work; the consistent invocation of apocalyptic themes; his restoration of death as a valid dimension of life; the twists of the love song; the role of a sensual and heretical Christ; and then a detailed, dialectical analysis of his musical forms. The book draws upon a select number of theorists who provide the methodological possibilities of digging deep into the theological nature of Cave's work, namely Ernst Bloch, who is the methodological foundation stone, as well as Theodor Adorno, Theodore Gracyk and Jacques Attali.

The major choral works by Johann Sebastian Bach-the Christmas, Easter, and Ascension Oratorios, and the St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. John Passions-stand as the most frequently-performed and penetratingly discussed of the genre. Renowned Bach scholar Michael Marissen has assembled a compact, well-designed and ideally useful treatment of Bach's oratorios, providing the full German texts with literal English translations and copious annotations. He provides strict literal translations of these texts, with citations from the Luther Bible as it was known in Bach's day, along side extensive footnotes that provide information addressing the interests and concerns of today's Bach community. These are the first translations of the librettos from Bach's oratorios to accommodate the many sense-clarifying allusions to the readings of the Luther Bibles in Bach's day, to explore from historical dictionaries the meanings of previously unnoticed archaic usages, and to contrast relevant findings from modern biblical scholarship. Marissen's insights are particularly helpful, his thoroughness is impressive, and the book will be a longstanding, definitive, and essential reference for choral directors, performers, audience members, and Bach scholars alike.

The ultimate pick-me-up to save you from the nine-to-five heartbreak blues. The Little Guide to Dolly Parton is your bible of devastating Dolly-isms. Yes, that's right, the most iconic and acclaimed female country singer in the history of music is so inventive and brilliant with her clever wisecracks and sage advice that popular culture has crowned her with an -ism after her name. No one else is as worthy. For more than five decades, Dolly has been laying down her own brand of whip-smart wit and wisdom to the world, with many quotes and quips becoming as famous as her lyrical genius, for which she has won too many song writing awards and honours to mention. Stacked to the rafters with more than 150 bite-size bon-mots, one-liners and ripostes - as well profound and sincere observations - The Little Guide to Dolly Parton is your new favourite life companion. 'I never think of myself as a star because, as somebody once said, "A star is nothing but a big ball of gas" - and I don't want to be that.' Reflecting on stardom during an interview with Billboard, 2014. 'I'm proud of my hillbilly, white trash background. To me that keeps you humble; that keeps you good. And it doesn't matter how hard you try to outrun it - if that's who you are, that's who you are. It'll show up once in a while.' Discussing her background, during an interview with Southern Living, 2014.

"Music Divided" explores how political pressures affected musical life on both sides of the iron curtain during the early years of the cold war. In this groundbreaking study, Danielle Fosler-Lussier illuminates the pervasive political anxieties of the day through particular attention to artistic, music-theoretical, and propagandistic responses to the music of Hungary's most renowned twentieth-century composer, Bela Bartok. She shows how a tense period of political transition plagued Bartok's music and imperiled those who took a stand on its aesthetic value in the emerging socialist state. Her fascinating investigation of Bartok's reception outside of Hungary demonstrates that Western composers, too, formulated their ideas about musical style under the influence of ever-escalating cold war tensions. "Music Divided" surveys Bartok's role in provoking negative reactions to 'accessible' music from Pierre Boulez, Hermann Scherchen, and Theodor Adorno. It considers Bartok's influence on the youthful compositions and thinking of Bruno Maderna and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and it outlines Bartok's legacy in the music of the Hungarian composers Andras Mihaly, Ferenc Szabo, and Endre Szervanszky. These details reveal the impact of local and international politics on the selection of music for concert and radio programs, on composers' choices about musical style, on government radio propaganda about music, on the development of socialist realism, and on the use of modernism as an instrument of political action.

Having spent his entire career as a professional singer, songwriter, and musician, Thinking About Tomorrow is the amazing tale of rock and roll survivor Keith West. From being inspired by Elvis in the 1950s to pop stardom and working alongside the greats of the music world in the 1960s, Keith was at the eye of the storm alongside peers including The Who, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and many, many more. With his Tomorrow bandmates - Steve Howe, Junior and Twink - Keith was a pioneer of psychedelic music in the 1960s with songs such as My White Bicycle, and he also achieved international fame alongside Mark Wirtz with the song Excerpt from A Teenage Opera (popularly remembered by millions of music fans as Grocer Jack). Tomorrow evolved from the R&B and mod bands Four + 1 and The In Crowd and, while their recorded output is small, their influence on other artists and the way rock music would develop is widely-regarded as enormous. Steve Howe went on to continue his incredible guitar adventures in Yes and Asia, and Twink would continue to influence the rock world as a member of pioneering bands The Pretty Things, The Pink Fairies, and Hawkwind. Keith would go on to have a long career in the music business, embracing punk in the late 70s and indie music in the 80s and 90s. But this is no straightforward tale of rock and roll hedonism; the book also pulls back the curtain on the mysterious world of the music industry. It reveals how agents, managers, publishers, record companies, songwriters, artists and the media are all locked together in an endless pursuit of the elusive elixir of their professional lives - a hit. Yet, once lightning has struck, the tragic consequences, the tremendous opportunities and the money generated can still create ripples half a century later...

The anti-fascist cantata Il canto sospeso, the string quartet Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima and the 'Tragedy of Listening' Prometeo cemented Luigi Nono's place in music history. In this study, Carola Nielinger-Vakil examines these major works in the context of Nono's amalgamation of avant-garde composition with Communist political engagement. Part I discusses Il canto sospeso in the context of all of Nono's anti-fascist pieces, from the unfinished Fucik project (1951) to Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz (1966). Nielinger-Vakil explores Nono's position at the Darmstadt Music Courses, the evolution of his compositional technique, his penchant for music theatre and his use of spatial and electronic techniques to set the composer and his works against the diverging circumstances in Italy and Germany after 1945. Part II further examines these concerns and shows how they live on in Nono's work after 1975, culminating in a thorough analysis of Prometeo.

This is the new leading biography of guitarist, songwriter, arranger, producer and musician Mick Ronson. Most famous for his critical contribution to David Bowie's spectacular live band, the Hull-based Spiders from Mars, and studio albums including Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. Mick also helped produce Lou Reed's Transformer, released five solo studio albums, performing in bands with Ian Hunter, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan as well as working with many other musicians. 'I am very proud of my father's career achievements and the quality of the music he created both as a guitarist and as a producer. I'm sure I've passed on the 'Ronson' musical gene to my daughter who plays piano beautifully. Who knows maybe one day the musical legacy will continue.' Nick Ronson This is an authentic story of a boy from a council estate from Hull who achieved international rock god status. Set in a time of seismic social change, with colliding cultures of personal and community identity, image and fashion, gender roles and sexual freedom. This book explores Mick Ronson's life and career with his friends, fans and fellow musicians. This book is based on the successful show Turn and Face the Strange. With unique material and exclusive interviews with fellow musicians, friends and family and those who knew him.

Music in Chopin's Warsaw examines the rich musical environment of Fryderyk Chopin's youth-largely unknown to the English-speaking world-and places Chopin's early works in the context of this milieu. Halina Goldberg provides a historiographic perspective that allows a new and better understanding of Poland's cultural and musical circumstances. Chopin's Warsaw emerges as a vibrant European city that was home to an opera house, various smaller theaters, one of the earliest modern conservatories in Europe, several societies which organized concerts, musically active churches, spirited salon life, music publishers and bookstores, instrument builders, and for a short time even a weekly paper devoted to music. Warsaw was aware of and in tune with the most recent European styles and fashions in music, but it was also the cradle of a vernacular musical language that was initiated by the generation of Polish composers before Chopin and which found its full realization in his work. Significantly, this period of cultural revival in the Polish capital coincided with the duration of Chopin's stay there-from his infancy in 1810 to his final departure from his homeland in 1830. An uncanny convergence of political, economic, social, and cultural circumstances generated the dynamic musical, artistic, and intellectual environment that nurtured the developing genius. Had Chopin been born a decade earlier or a decade later, Goldberg argues, the capital-devastated by warfare and stripped of all cultural institutions-could not have provided support for his talent. The young composer would have been compelled to seek musical education abroad and thus would have been deprived of the specifically Polish experience so central to his musical style. A rigorously-researched and fascinating look at the Warsaw in which Chopin grew up, this book will appeal to students and scholars of nineteenth century music, as well as music lovers and performers.

A detailed and long-overdue study of Frank Bridge's music and its socio-cultural and aesthetic contexts The English composer, violist, and conductor Frank Bridge (1879-1941), a student of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, was one of the first modernists in British music, developing the most radical and lastingly modern musical languageof his generation. Bridge was also one of the most accomplished British composers of chamber music in the twentieth century. After the lyrical romanticism of the early period, a notable expansion of style can be observed as earlyas 1913, leading eventually to the radical language of the Piano Sonata and Third String Quartet, drawing on influences such as Debussy, Stravinsky and the Second Viennese School composers.However, Bridge became frustrated that his later, more complex music was often ignored in favour of his earlier 'Edwardian' works; this neglect of his mature music contributed to the growing obscurity into which his music and reputation fell in his last years and afterhis death. Symptomatically, Bridge is still often remembered primarily for privately tutoring Benjamin Britten, who later championed his teacher's music and paid homage to him in the 'Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge' (1937).This book, the first detailed, and long-overdue, study of Bridge's music and its relevant socio-cultural and aesthetic contexts, encourages a more thorough understanding of Bridge's style and development and will appeal to readers with interests in British music, early twentieth-century modernism and post-romanticism as well as genre and style. FABIAN HUSS is Visiting Fellow at the University of Bristol and has published widely on British music (particularly EJ Moeran), with an emphasis on cultural history, and aesthetic and analytical issues.

Master interviewer Balint Andras Varga poses three probing questions to renowned contemporary composers about their work, and carefully renders their answers in their own words. Do today's composers draw inspiration from life experiences or from, say, the natural world? What influences, past and present, have influenced recent composers? How essential is it for a composer to develop a personal style, and when does this degenerate into self-repetition? These are questions about which some of the most important composers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century often have quite strong feelings--but have seldom been asked. In this pathbreaking book, Balint Andras Varga puts these three questions to such renowned composers as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Alberto Ginastera, Sofia Gubaidulina, Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, Gyoergy Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Toru Takemitsu, and Iannis Xenakis. Varga's sensitive English renderings capture the subtleties of their sometimes confident, sometimes hesitant, answers. All statements from English-speaking composers -- such as Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, Steve Reich, Gunther Schuller, andSir Michael Tippett -- consist of the composers' own carefully chosen words. Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers is vital reading for anybody interested in the current state of music and the arts. TheHungarian music publisher Balint Andras Varga has spent nearly forty years working for and with composers. He has published several books, including extensive interviews with Lutoslawski, Berio, and Xenakis. His previous book forthe University of Rochester Press is Gyoergy Kurtag: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages.

Georgia's music history is diverse in that it covers gospel singer Thomas Dorsey, soul singer James Brown, opera singer Jessye Norman, country singer Alan Jackson, folk singer Hedy West and symphony and choral conductors Robert Shaw and Yoel Levi. They Heard Georgia Singing provides brief musical biographies of the men and women who have made major contributions to Georgia musical history either as natives or as personalities within the context of Georgia music.

Sir William Schwenk Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan created fourteen comic operas - witty satires set to sparkling music - that instantly won a large and enthusiastic audience and remain immensely popular today. Their talents brought the two men together and their temperaments finally drove them apart. Here, in forty interviews and recollections, is a record of what was said about them during and shortly after their lifetimes by friends, musicians, theatrical managers, singers, actors, and actresses, journalists and authors. For Gilbert and Sullivan devotees everywhere, this entertaining collection will provide fresh insights into the careers and collaborative achievements of one of the most successful - and enduring - enterprises of Victorian theatre.

THE ULTIMATE EDITION - EXPANDED AND UPDATED WITH MORE THAN 70,000 WORDS OF NEW MATERIALCritically acclaimed in its previous editions, The Complete David Bowie is recognized as the foremost source of analysis and information on every facet of Bowie's work. The A-Z of songs and the day-by-day dateline are the most complete ever published. From his boyhood skiffle performance at the 18th Bromley Scouts' Summer Camp, to the majesty of his final masterpiece Blackstar, every aspect of David Bowie's extraordinary career is explored and dissected by Nicholas Pegg's unrivalled combination of in-depth knowledge and penetrating insight.* The Albums - detailed production history and analysis of every album.*The Songs - hundreds of individual entries reveal the facts and anecdotes behind not just the famous recordings, but also the most obscure of unreleased rarities - from 'Absolute Beginners' to 'Ziggy Stardust', from 'Abdulmajid' to 'Zion'.* The Tours - set-lists and histories of every live show.* The Actor - a complete guide to Bowie's career on stage and screen.* Plus - the videos, the BBC radio sessions, the paintings, the internet and much more.

This is the only thoroughgoing study of the Monteverdi Vespers, vastly expanding on the author's 1978 set of essays on the subject, long since out of print. The volume studies the Vespers from the standpoint of its musical and liturgical origins and context, contains analytical essays on the music, and examines 17th-century performance practice as it pertains to the Vespers. Appendices include bibliographies and an analytical discography.

Jimi Hendrix has been for sure a unique guitarist and a master of rock music, who, with his early death, aged 27, entered the Rock'n'roll Hall of Fame with all the glory it takes. The never-heard-before result of his continuous improvement was contained in just three albums "Are You Experienced?", "Axis: Bold as Love" and "Electric Ladyland". A deep focus on the three most important years of Hendrix's career, closely followed by Assante, skilled author and real expert on rock music. Unedited photos, quotes, legendary interviews and deep research to outline the iconic figure of this rock legend.

The internment diary of Austrian composer Hans Gal (1890-1987) with a biographical study of his life and career. Includes a CD of first recordings of three of his works from the period. The Austrian composer Hans Gal (1890-1987) was one of many Jewish refugees who fled to Britain from Hitler's Third Reich only to find themselves interned in prison camps in Britain as 'enemy aliens' - the result of Churchill's panic decision to 'collar the lot'. Gal thus spent five months over the summer of 1940 in internment camps - first in Donaldson's Hospital in Edinburgh, then at Huyton, near Liverpool, and finally in the Central Promenade Camp on theIsle of Man. Many of Gal's fellow internees went on, like Gal himself, to become shaping forces in the intellectual life of Britain - but in captivity this colourful parade of characters had to put up with bureaucratic inertia and the indifference of their captors to their undeserved fate. The diary Gal kept during his captivity vividly describes the difficulties the internees had to overcome to live as normal a life as possible. Gal's contribution, of course, was music, and the CD with this book presents first recordings of the Huyton Suite he wrote for two violins and flute (the only instruments available to him), the satirical review What a Life! composed on the Isle of Man and the piano suite he drew from it. Introductory chapters by Gal's daughter and by Richard Dove present a biographical survey of Gal's life and career and an examination of British internment policy; the Foreword is bythe distinguished economist Sir Alan Peacock, who studied composition with Gal. Together they throw light on one of the more shameful British responses to the threat of Nazi invasion.

Cultural, historical and reception-related contexts are central to understanding Mozart, one of the greatest and most famous musicians of all time. Widening and refining the lens through which the composer is viewed, the essays in Mozart Studies 2 focus on themes, issues, works and repertories perennially popular among Mozart scholars of all kinds, pointing to areas primed for future study and also suitable for investigation by musicians outside the scholarly community. Following on from the first Mozart Studies volume, internationally renowned contributors bring new perspectives to bear on many of Mozart's most popular works, as well as the composer's letters, biography, and reception. Chapters are grouped according to topics covered and collectively affirm the vitality of Mozart scholarship and the significant role it continues to play in defining and redefining musicological priorities in general.

This is the only English translation of this important book by the world's most distinguished Bach scholar. This work is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive treatment of the Bach cantatas. It begins with a historical survey of the seventeenth-century background to the cantatas, and performance practice issues. The core of the book is a work-by-work study in which each cantata in turn is represented by its libretto, a synopsis of its movements, and a detailed analytical commentary. This format makes it extremely useful as a reference work for anyone listening to, performing in, or studying any of the Bach cantatas. All the cantata librettos are given in German-English parallel text. For the English edition the text has been carefully revised to bring it up to date, taking account of recent Bach scholarship.

Examines the life and compositional oeuvre of prolific eighteenth century musician, composer, and singer Marianna Martines (1744-1813). Marianna Martines (1744-1813) was one of the most accomplished, prolific, and highly honored female musicians of the eighteenth century. She spent most of her life in a remarkable household that included celebrated librettist Pietro Metastasio, who supervised her education and remained a powerful and supportive mentor. She studied with the young Joseph Haydn, and Vienna knew her as a gifted, aristocratic singer and keyboard player who performed for the pleasure of the Empress Maria Theresa. The regular private concerts she held in her home attracted the presence and participation of some of Vienna's leading musicians; Mozart enjoyed playing keyboard duets with her. She composed prolifically and in a wide variety of genres, vocal and instrumental, writing church music, oratorios, Italian arias, sonatas, and concertos. Much of that music survives, and those who study it, perform it, and listen to it will be impressed today by its craftsmanship and beauty. This book, the first volume fully devoted to Martines, examines her life and compositional oeuvre. Based largely on eighteenth-century printed sources, archival documents, and letters [including several by Martines herself, most of them published here for the first time] the book presents a detailed picture of the small but fascinating world in which she lived and demonstrates the skillfulness and creativity with which she manipulated the conventions of the gallant style. Focusing on a limited number of representative works, and using many musical examples, it vividly conveys the nature and extent of her compositional achievementand encourages the future performance of her works. The late Irving Godt was Professor of Music at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. John A. Rice, independent scholar, is a member of the Akademie fur Mozart-Forschungin Salzburg.

This is a full biography of the talented American woman composer Ruth Crawford Seeger. She was a prominent member of the American avant-garde composers in the 1920s, then married Charles Seeger and became very involved in the American folk song movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which also included Seeger's son Peter and John Lomax. The book also discusses the dilemma of a creative woman who was caught in domestic life and thus could never fully realize her musical potential.

In Dramaturgical Leaves: Essays about Musical Works for the Stage and Queries about the Stage, Its Composers and Performers, the third volume in Janita R. Hall-Swadley's The Collected Writings of Franz Liszt, Liszt heralds his admiration for early nineteenth-century opera and musical stage works. He honors Gluck, the musical prophet, as the cultivator of dramatic truth in the Romantic opera Orpheus, expounds on Beethoven's harmonic inventions and innovative treatment of form in Fidelio, and argues for the latter's incidental music to Goethe's Egmont as the epitome of music organicism, a complete unity of words and tone. He also comments on Weber's Euryanthe as offering the most progressive musical characterizations and declamation-even more so than his popular work Der Freischutz-and on how both works prefigure Wagner's music dramas; awards Mendelssohn, whose genius Liszt ranks only slightly less than Beethoven's, top honors for creating in Midsummer's Night Dream the highest standards of music poetry; suggests how Scribe and Meyerbeer's Robert the Devil paints a mental image of art's eternal flames, where poet and musician share equal space in the development of music tragedy; reveals how the poetic deficiencies in the libretto to Schubert's Alfonso and Estrella are too easily overlooked because of the music's melodic and lyrical supremacy; and offers in contrast Auber's Mute from Portici, a remarkable text by many historically picturesque musical motives that are universal and nationalistic at the same time. Finally Liszt offers an early gender study in music in his essay about Bellini's Montague and Capulet (as well as its impact on nineteenth-century audiences), a look at Boieldieu's White Lady as a sublime depiction of literary music, and Donizetti's Favorite as colored with a special type of imagery, a laterna magica, in Liszt's hand. The beloved soprano Pauline Viardot-Garcia receives special attention in an essay devoted entirely to her, and Liszt proffers a critique of entr'acte music as a pointless tradition that dethrones music and insults the artist and composer by making music a "palate cleanser." This volume includes a detailed discussion about what it meant to be patronized by Liszt and how his support-financial, literary, and musical-helped shape many a music career. It also offers commentary on how gender in opera was sometimes obscured not only for dramatic interest but also as part of the process of outlining a nation's identity,as well as a thorough study of Liszt's concepts of Gestalt theory, the Archetype, and his musical Weltanschauung (his musical "world view"), all revealing his contribution to 19th-century music philosophy as it relates to opera. Finally, a historical review of entr'acte music is presented-how it began and how it developed-to clarify Liszt's stance against it, making this volume a necessary read for music historians, serious musicians, and music connoisseurs alike.

The Music Man stands as one of the greatest achievements in American musical theatre, but few know about its rocky beginnings and the against-all-odds success story of its creator Meredith Willson. Mark Cabaniss steps back into the Golden Age of Broadway and brings to life the origins of this classic show, the music behind it, and the unlikely story of its creator. Interweaving behind-the-scenes accounts of people who worked with Willson, Cabaniss looks at his long and unusual career as a composer, conductor, radio personality, and flutist, which reached its pinnacle in The Music Man. No one initially believed in Willson's "Valentine to Iowa," seeing it as nothing but a corny flop or, worse, a recipe for disaster. But when the curtain fell on opening night, a star called The Music Man was born. Over 65 years later, that star is still marching right to this day, endeared by millions around the world. To understand Willson, his career, and his music is to understand how The Music Man came to be: he was truly the only person who could have ever written this show due to his unique background, talent, incredible persistence, and belief. The show's ultimate success and longevity was anything but inevitable-rather, it was truly a miracle.