A captivating and heartfelt memoir from a true music aficionado, a senior British diplomat and a nuclear environmental expert in Russia. Hearing Yehudi Menuhin play solo Bach and Bartok in Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre in 1959 would prove an epiphany for the seventeen-year-old Desmond Cecil. Already an advanced oboe student of Joy Boughton, he decided there and then, against all the odds, to become a violinist. This delightful autobiography tells the remarkable journey its author took in his quest to follow his passion to perform music. He decided, after Chemistry and PPE at Oxford, to move in 1965 to Switzerland for full-time violin study with the illustrious Max Rostal, staying there for five years as a professional violinist. Eventually realising he had started the violin too late to become a top soloist, he returned to the UK to join HM Diplomatic Service in 1970. A fluent linguist, he spent the next twenty-five years serving in embassies abroad and was eventually appointed CMG by HM The Queen. He took early retirement in 1995 to work as an international political/funding adviser for the UK and then the French state nuclear energy industries, with extensive experience of nuclear environmental clean-up in Russia after the dismantling of the Soviet Union. Along with fascinating insights into his musical, diplomatic and energy callings and sharp anecdotes of some of the important European and British politicians of the past forty years, Cecil also renders tender and charming stories of the many famous musicians he has known and performed with - nowadays on his own authentic Stradivari violin, formally entitled the '1724 Cecil'.

(Transient Glory). Based on a text by Tennessee Reed, the 11 year-old daughter of author Ishmael Reed. Three Heavens and Hells may be performed by a children's or adult chorus of treble voices. 22 minutes.

Paul Brian Heise's The Wound That Will Never Heal is an original allegorical reading of Richard Wagner's epic music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. Heise challenges the standard view that Wagner merely dramatizes the conflict between love and power and demonstrates instead that his greatest work is an allegory exploring humanity's longing for transcendent value and that quest's paradoxical establishment of a science-based secular society. By employing a more extensive analysis of primary evidence than any prior interpretation, The Wound That Will Never Heal is the first interpretation to propose and sustain a global and conceptually coherent account of the entire Ring.

(Criterion). 35 classics arranged for the intermediate player, including: Blue Danube Waltz (Strauss) * Canon in D (Pachelbel) * The Entertainer (Joplin) * March Militaire (Schubert) * Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven) * Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky) * Toreador Song (Bizet) * Skaters' Waltz (Waldteufel) * and more.

Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? In this book, author Alexandra Wilson traces La Boheme's rise to fame and demonstrates that its success grew steadily through stage performances, recordings, filmed versions and the endorsements of star singers. More recently, popular songs, film soundtracks and musicals that draw on the opera's music and themes added further to its immense cultural impact. This cultural history offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. Wilson argues that La Boheme's approach to realism and its flouting of conventions of the Italian operatic tradition made it strikingly modern for the 1890s. She explores how Puccini and his librettists engaged with gender, urban poverty and nostalgia-themes that grew out of the work's own time and continue to resonate with audiences more than 120 years later. Her analysis of the opera's depiction of Paris reveals that La Boheme was not only influenced by the romantic mythologies surrounding the city to this day but also helped shape them. Wilson's consideration of how directors have reinvented this opera for a new age completes this fascinating history of La Boheme, making it essential reading for anyone interested in this opera and the works it inspired.

The British composer, conductor, and pianist Thomas Ades has achieved a level of recognition and celebrity within the world of classical music today that is almost unmatched. Once seen as the heir to Benjamin Britten, both in his importance to British music and his reputation as the enfant terrible of the concert world, Ades is a fascinating figure of contemporary composition. Reaching for the music behind the celebrity, author Drew Massey deftly tackles the challenges of writing about a living figure with such far-reaching impact by focusing on representative moments in his compositional career and critical reception. In this series of five interlocking essays, Massey provides an illuminating look at the formal characteristics of Ades's music, considers his work from the perspective of a contemporary listener, and places it within the larger context of developments in twentieth-century British music. He not only traces the diverse historical forms and traditions that Ades taps into but also reflects on where he is steering the future of composition and performance. An analysis of the key transitions in the artist's critical reception completes this book as the most comprehensive study of this pivotal figure of contemporary classical music in the English language to this day.

Irony, one of the most basic, pervasive, and variegated of rhetorical tropes, is as fundamental to musical thought as it is to poetry, prose, and spoken language. In this wide-ranging study of musical irony, Michael Cherlin draws upon the rich history of irony as developed by rhetoricians, philosophers, literary scholars, poets, and novelists. With occasional reflections on film music and other contemporary works, the principal focus of the book is classical music, both instrumental and vocal, ranging from Mozart to Mahler. The result is a surprising array of approaches toward the making and interpretation of irony in music. Including nearly ninety musical examples, the book is clearly structured and engagingly written. This interdisciplinary volume will appeal to those interested in the relationship between music and literature as well as to scholars of musical composition, technique, and style.

Fifty etudes from the works of Berens, Bertini, Burgmuller, Czerny, Duvernoy, Heller, Kohler, Le Couppey, Lemoine, Loschhorn, Streabbog.

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2 is among the most popular and most frequently performed compositions by any great composer. Reflecting the depth of Beethoven's musical power, the Moonlight Sonata is one of the best-loved sonatas Beethoven ever composed. In this Belwin Classic Library edition, each page of the music is spaciously laid out, meticulous and uncluttered, with clear, clean engraving. All three movements are included: I. Adagio sostenuto, II. Allegretto, and III. Presto agitato.

In this book Steven Vande Moortele offers a comprehensive account of operatic and concert overtures in continental Europe between 1815 and 1850. Discussing a broad range of works by German, French, and Italian composers, it is at once an investigation of the Romantic overture within the context of mid-nineteenth century musical culture and an analytical study that focuses on aspects of large-scale formal organization in the overture genre. While the book draws extensively upon the recent achievements of the 'new Formenlehre', it does not use the overture merely as a vehicle for a theory of romantic form, but rather takes an analytical approach that engages with individual works in their generic context.

Get Started in Classical Music is a clear, concise yet comprehensive introduction to the world of classical music for the newcomer. It takes your listening experience as the starting point and fills in factual details along the way. New topics are introduced step by step and are always presented from the listener's point of view. These topics include: - Listening to music: developing skills - What is classical music? - The architecture of music: forms and structures - Historical background: different periods and different styles - The instruments of the orchestra - Starting a collection of recorded music Examples from well-known pieces are examined in a clear and non-technical way. Whether you dip into Get Started in Classical Music from time to time or read it straight through, you will feel that your musical horizons have been broadened and that you have gained the knowledge and confidence to extend your musical experiences further.

A companion to the Classic FM series Francesca Caccini. Barbara Strozzi. Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. Marianna Martines. Fanny Hensel. Clara Schumann. Lili Boulanger. Elizabeth Maconchy. Since the birth of classical music, women who dared compose have faced a bitter struggle to be heard. In spite of this, female composers continued to create, inspire and challenge. Yet even today so much of their work languishes unheard. Anna Beer reveals the highs and lows experienced by eight composers across the centuries, from Renaissance Florence to twentieth-century London, restoring to their rightful place exceptional women whom history has forgotten.

Written by fourteen leading experts in the field, this Companion covers almost every aspect of the harpsichord - the history of the instrument, tuning systems, the role of the harpsichord in ensemble, its use in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and includes separate chapters devoted to Domenico Scarlatti, J. S. Bach and Handel. Chapters featuring almost every national style are written by authors with close connections to the countries about which they are writing, including England, The Netherlands, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, as well as the less extensive harpsichord traditions of Russia, the Nordic and Baltic countries, and colonial Spanish and Portuguese America. With musical examples, illustrations, a timeline of the harpsichord, and an appendix of composers, reliable editions and original sources, this book is for all who love the harpsichord, or want to learn more about it.

Written by fourteen leading experts in the field, this Companion covers almost every aspect of the harpsichord - the history of the instrument, tuning systems, the role of the harpsichord in ensemble, its use in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and includes separate chapters devoted to Domenico Scarlatti, J. S. Bach and Handel. Chapters featuring almost every national style are written by authors with close connections to the countries about which they are writing, including England, The Netherlands, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, as well as the less extensive harpsichord traditions of Russia, the Nordic and Baltic countries, and colonial Spanish and Portuguese America. With musical examples, illustrations, a timeline of the harpsichord, and an appendix of composers, reliable editions and original sources, this book is for all who love the harpsichord, or want to learn more about it.

This volume is a multi-disciplinary study of the Neapolitan tradition of nineteenth-century song or "Canzona napoletana." It is based on primary (original music manuscripts) and secondary (correspondence, diaries, and varied historical materials) sources recovered from Neapolitan archives, libraries, and private collections. The book takes as its focus the figure of Guillaume Cottrau (1797-1847), a musician and publisher who left a significant breadth of original songs and arrangements issued in the song collection and series entitled Passatempi musicali. Cottrau was a cultural auteur, who integrated his diverse activities as editor, folklorist, and patron of salon music and musicians (including the commissioning of original works and adaptations) to establish a tradition of Neapolitan song. This repertory was disseminated throughout Europe and ultimately the United States to great acclaim through the publication of the Passatempi musicali. The songs presented in the Passatempi musicali remain within the international repertory affiliated with Neapolitan song, including "Fenesta vascia," "Lo guarracino," "Cannetella," and many others. They are, moreover, closely linked to the historical, cultural and linguistic identity of Naples and the Neapolitan diaspora. This volume is the first of its kind in the English language and offers original, unpublished research about the endeavors of Cottrau, the contemporary cultural environs, the artists and their music that established the international fame of the Neapolitan canzona.

Bringing together much-loved masterpieces with exciting new works, this accessible and inspiring guide is a celebration of classical music. With pieces ranging from Vaughan Williams's 'The Lark Ascending' and Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony to the scores for Avatar and Assassin's Creed, every entry puts the piece of music into context, providing fascinating insights into the inspirations behind each work and enhancing your listening experience. Organised into occasions and themes, the book features music to accompany you through your day, from getting up and getting dressed to running, reading, walking the dog, cooking, taking a bath, going to sleep and everything in between. You'll also find expert curations of the world's most romantic music and the greatest Christmas works as well as compositions that celebrate the natural world and mark births and marriages. Perfect for classical music enthusiasts as well as anyone looking for an enjoyable introduction to this genre, this is the definitive modern guide to classical music.

The image of Vienna as a musical city is a familiar one. This book explores the history of music in Vienna, focussing on three different epochs, 1700, 1800 and 1900. The image of Vienna as a musical city is a familiar one. Vienna has long been associated with many of the most significant composers in Western music - from Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, through the Strauss family, Brahms, Bruckner and Wolf, to Mahler, Lehar, Schoenberg and Webern. Today, venerable institutions like the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Staatsoper and the Vienna Boys' Choir, together with the shared pride of residents and visitors in its musical inheritance, ensure that the image of a musical city is undimmed. This book explores the history of music in Vienna, focussing on three different epochs, 1700, 1800 and 1900, an approach which allows the very different relationships between music and society that existed in each of these periods to be distinguished. Patronage, social function and audience are key considerations, set within wider political and cultural developments. The volume is populated by emperors, princes, performers, publishers and writers as well as composers, and deals with institutional and commercial characteristics alongside representative individual works. Music in Vienna focusses on the political and social role of music, broadening our understanding of the city as a musical capital. It will appeal to a wide readership, including music historians and political, cultural and social historians, as well as the interested general reader. DAVID WYN JONES is Professor of Music at Cardiff University.

This fourth edition of Art Song in the United States, 1759 2011 covers songs for solo voice and piano by American composers from the mid-18th through the early 21st centuries. The book is structured as an annotated bibliography with approximately 2,850 numbered entries listed alphabetically by composer and title and indexed in various ways to help teachers and singers locate the particular song they require for practice or performance. This edition adds eleven years worth of new works, anthologies, and collections (about 450 new entries), reflecting the relatively recent outpouring of song compositions by American composers and a wealth of new song anthologies and collections. This bibliography features information on each song or song cycle or set. Users will find critical data on the poet, publisher and copyright date, key, vocal range, vocal tessitura, meter(s), tempo, length, difficulty of vocal line and piano score, most suitable voice type, mood and subject of the text, and brief description of the vocal line and piano score. It also includes commentary on special difficulties for performers and possible uses of the song in programming. In addition, individual titles of composite works are given, and those that appear in collections are indexed to the list of collections in the front matter. Composer, poet, special characteristics/subject, and title indexes and even discographic lists recordings where available all aid researchers in finding songs. The primary audiences for this bibliography are voice teachers and singers in search of appropriate art songs for their students or themselves, as well as libraries with collecting interests in music and American literature."

Cesar Franck (1822 1890), Belgian born and French domiciled, was one of the most remarkable composers of the 19th century. A number of his works are commonly recorded such as his Symphony in D Minor, Symphonic Variations, Violin Sonata, and the ever-popular Panis Angelicus and yet 38 years have elapsed since a biography of him appeared in English. Now with Cesar Franck: His Life and Times, R. J. Stove fills this gap in the history of late 19th-century classical music with a full-length study of the man and his music. Drawing on sources never before cited in English, Stove paints a far more detailed picture of this great musician and deeply loved man, whose influence in both his native and adopted lands was exceptional. Stove carefully delves into intimate matters of Franck s life, including his resilience in the face of his exploitation as a child prodigy at the piano, his development from a shy and harassed piano teacher into one of the most sought-after luminaries of Paris s Conservatoire, and the truth behind Franck s alleged affair with one of his students. Throughout his study, Stove interweaves panoramic surveys of the political and social scene in Belgium and France, contextualizing Franck s achievements in his historical milieu, from his rise as a recognized master of the organ to his dealings with significant composers such as Liszt, Gounod, Saint-Saens, Massenet, Chabrier, and others. Cesar Franck: His Life and Times is an engagingly written biography sure to interest classical music listeners of all stripes."

Being an American Romantic composer, Gottschalk was one of the first classically trained pianists to incorporate examples of Creole, Latin American, and Afro American dance rhythms within European musical forms.