'In this highly readable biography of Nellie Melba...Robert Wainwright tells the story of the girl with the incredible voice who, by sheer force of her personality and power of her decibels, took the operatic world by storm and managed to escape from her violent husband' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, DAILY MAIL Nellie Melba is remembered as a squarish, late middle-aged woman dressed in furs and large hats, an imperious Dame whose voice ruled the world for three decades and inspired a peach and raspberry dessert. But to succeed, she had to battle social expectations and misogyny that would have preferred she stay a housewife in outback Queensland rather than parade herself on stage. She endured the violence of a bad marriage, was denied by scandal a true love with the would-be King of France, and suffered for more than a decade the loss of her only son - stolen by his angry, vengeful father. Despite these obstacles, she built and maintained a career as an opera singer and businesswoman on three continents which made her one of the first international superstars. Award-winning biographer Robert Wainwright presents a very different portrait of this great diva, one that celebrates both her musical contributions and her rich and colourful personal life.

The chansons in this collection are examples of polyphonic settings of French secular verse, nearly ten thousand of which appear in printed or manuscript sources during the sixteenth century. The eighty-four pieces were chosen for their musical value; great masters as well as lesser known composers, who made significant contributions to the genre, are represented. Primarily, the chansons are for four mixed voices. A number of settings for other combinations, from two-part to seven-part, are also included. he

This book answers questions from real classical music lovers about things they have always wondered but didn't know whom to ask. The information in this book is not readily found in music history or appreciation books, nor can it be found on line. Questions explored are: Do string players in orchestras get paid more because they play more than other instruments? Why does an orchestra tune to an oboe when there are electronic tuners? How does a composer decide what key to compose in? Why is the 1812 Overture played on the 4th of July? And many, many more! The answers represent behind the scenes, real world, insights into how classical musicians view and discuss these questions. There is even some insight into the jokes classical musicians find funny. This book is intended for the person who loves listening to classical music, either live or recorded and will provide hours of enjoyment as the reader invariably shakes his or her head and asks in wonderment "Who knew!"

A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com," a website where "cybervisitors" can get answers to questions that trouble them. But when one questioner asks the true meaning of Christmas, the kids seek to unravel the mystery by journeying back through the prophecies of the Old Testament. What they find is a series of "S" words that reveal a "spectacular story " With creative characters, humorous dialogue and great music, The "S" Files is a children's Christmas musical your kids will love performing.

For violin and orchestra (piano reduction).

Redefining Music Studies in an Age of Change: Creativity, Diversity, Integration takes prevailing discourse about change in music studies to new vistas, as higher education institutions are at a critical moment of determining just what professional musicians and teachers need to survive and thrive in public life. The authors examine how music studies might be redefined through the lenses of creativity, diversity, and integration. which are the three pillars of the recent report of The College Music Society taskforce calling for reform. Focus is on new conceptions for existent areas-such as studio lessons and ensembles, academic history and theory, theory and culture courses, and music education coursework-but also on an exploration of music and human learning, and an understanding of how organizational change happens. Examination of progressive programs will celebrate strides in the direction of the task force vision, as well as extend a critical eye distinguishing between premature proclamations of "mission accomplished" and genuine transformation. The overarching theme is that a foundational, systemic overhaul has the capacity to entirely revitalize the European classical tradition. Practical steps applicable to wide-ranging institutions are considered-from small liberal arts colleges, to conservatory programs, large research universities, and regional state universities.

Redefining Music Studies in an Age of Change: Creativity, Diversity, Integration takes prevailing discourse about change in music studies to new vistas, as higher education institutions are at a critical moment of determining just what professional musicians and teachers need to survive and thrive in public life. The authors examine how music studies might be redefined through the lenses of creativity, diversity, and integration. which are the three pillars of the recent report of The College Music Society taskforce calling for reform. Focus is on new conceptions for existent areas-such as studio lessons and ensembles, academic history and theory, theory and culture courses, and music education coursework-but also on an exploration of music and human learning, and an understanding of how organizational change happens. Examination of progressive programs will celebrate strides in the direction of the task force vision, as well as extend a critical eye distinguishing between premature proclamations of "mission accomplished" and genuine transformation. The overarching theme is that a foundational, systemic overhaul has the capacity to entirely revitalize the European classical tradition. Practical steps applicable to wide-ranging institutions are considered-from small liberal arts colleges, to conservatory programs, large research universities, and regional state universities.

Classical music can be a dangerous pastime... What with love affairs, their conductor dropping dead, a stolen cello and no money, Stockwell Park Orchestra is having a fraught season. After Mrs Ford-Hughes is squashed and injured by a dying guest conductor mid-concert, she and her husband withdraw their generous financial backing, leaving the orchestra broke and unsure of its future. Cellist Erin suggests a recovery plan, but since it involves their unreliable leader, Fenella, playing a priceless Stradivari cello which then goes missing, it's not a fool-proof one. Joshua, the regular conductor, can't decide which affair to commit to, while manager David's nervous tic returns at every doom-laden report from the orchestra's treasurer. There is one way to survive, but is letting a tone-deaf diva sing Strauss too high a price to pay? And will Stockwell Park Orchestra live to play another season? What people are saying about Life, Death and Cellos: "I was charmed... a very enjoyable read." Marian Keyes "Life, Death and Cellos is a witty and irreverent musical romp, full of characters I'd love to go for a pint with. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the Stockwell Park Orchestra and can't wait for the next book in the series." Claire King, author of The Night Rainbow "Life, Death and Cellos is that rare thing - a funny music book. Rogers knows the world intimately, and portrays it with warmth, accuracy and a poetic turn of phrase. Sharp, witty and richly entertaining." Lev Parikian, author of Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? "With its retro humour bordering on farce, this novel offers an escape into the turbulent (and bonkers) world of the orchestra." Isabel Costello, author of Paris Mon Amour "Dodgy post-rehearsal curries, friendly insults between musicians, sacrosanct coffee-and-biscuit breaks, tedious committee meetings: welcome to the world of the amateur orchestra. Throw in a stolen Stradivarius, an unexpected fatality and the odd illicit affair and you have Life, Death and Cellos, the first in a new series by Isabel Rogers." Rebecca Franks, BBC Music Magazine "...a very funny tale of musical shenanigans set in the febrile atmosphere of the Stockwell Park Orchestra" Ian Critchley

"La Musica de Haydn en la "Creacion" no es patetica como la de Haendel en sus Oratorios: tiene siempre ese verdor de primavera, esa sutileza que entrega la linea ondulante en la danza de la Corte, esa inspiracion de frescura y optimismo que solo se encuentra en algunos pintores del Renacimiento y en los poetas bucolicos de la Helade y del Lacio."

Only Nick Tosches, bestselling author of Dino and The Devil and Sonny Liston, could have woven this irresistible tale: part mystery, part biography, part meditation on the meaning and power of music.

A forgotten singer from the early days of jazz is at the center of this riveting narrative. For twenty years, Nick Tosches searched for facts about the life of Emmett Miller, a yodeling blackface performer whose songs prefigured jazz, country, blues, and much of the popular music of the twentieth century. Beginning with a handful of 78-rpm records and ending at a tombstone in a Macon, Georgia graveyard, Tosches pieces together a life—and illuminates the spirit of musicmakers from Cab Calloway to Bob Dylan, from Homer to the Rolling Stones.

This is a brilliant, inspired journey by one of the most original writers at work today.

The first regional history of music in England. Music in the West Country is the first regional history of music in England. Ranging over seven hundred years, from the minstrels, waits, and cathedral choristers of the fourteenth century to the Bristol Sound of the late twentieth, the book explores the region's soundscape, from its gateway cities of Bristol and Salisbury in the east to the Isles of Scilly in the west, and examines music-making in tiny villages as well as conditions in important centres such as Bath, Exeter, Plymouth, and Bournemouth. What emerges is both a study of the typical - musical practices which would apply to any English region - and a portrait of the unique - features born of the region's physicalisolation and charm, among them the growth of festival culture, the mythologising of folk music, the late survival of parish psalmody and nonconformist carolling, and the unique continuance, today, of a professional resort orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Banfield's vividly written and extremely readable history of music in the west country considers an array of subjects, firmly centred on people's stories: musical inventions and theidea of tradition, music as cultural capital, the economics of musical employment and the demographics of musicianship, musical networks, the relationship of the hinterlands to the metropolis, the influence of topography, the importance of institutions and events, and the question of how to measure value. A study in prosopography, it shows how people went about their lives with music and explores how things changed for them - or did not. STEPHENBANFIELD is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Bristol.

The definitive study of the LaSalle Quartet, for forty years the premier exponent of 'the new music' for string quartet. The LaSalle Quartet (1946-1987) was the premier exponent of 'the new music' for string quartet. Founded in 1946 at the Julliard School in New York, it became famous for its performances of works by the Second Viennese School and its commissioning of many new pieces by contemporary post-war composers. As a result, the quartets by Lutoslawski, Ligeti and Nono have since entered the standard repertory, sitting comfortably next to those by Schoenberg, Berg andWebern. The LaSalle Quartet's brilliant advocacy of the quartets by Alexander Zemlinsky resulted in best-selling recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. In an informative and critical dialogue between new and old, the LaSalleQuartet was also an incisive interpreter of the classical quartet repertory; many of its recordings are still in print. Its record as a teaching quartet is equally impressive, numbering among its students at the University of Cincinnati the Alban Berg, Brahms, Prazak, Artis, Buchberger, Ponche and Vogler Quartets. The LaSalle Quartet's founder and first violinist, Walter Levin, is himself a highly influential teacher whose students have included the conductor James Levine and the violinist Christian Tetzlaff, as well as many third-generation string quartets. This book, based on extensive interviews with Walter Levin conducted by Robert Spruytenburg over five years, is in equal measure autobiography, history of the Quartet, reminiscences of the contemporary composers who figured so prominently in its career, and penetrating commentary on the LaSalle Quartet's wide-ranging repertory. All these aspectsare artfully woven into a uniquely valuable, informative and entertaining document of musical life in the twentieth century. ROBERT SPRUYTENBURG lives in Basel. He was introduced to Walter Levin in 1988 and took part inhis chamber music courses. Since 2003, Spruytenburg has been working on the LaSalle Quartet's archives located at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel. He is a frequent contributor to classical music programmes for Swiss radio.

Oxford's highly successful listener's guides--The Symphony, The Concerto, and Choral Masterworks--have been widely praised for their blend of captivating biography, crystal clear musical analysis, and delightful humor. Now James Keller follows these greatly admired volumes with Chamber Music. Approaching the tradition of chamber music with knowledge and passion, Keller here serves as the often-opinionated but always genial guide to 192 essential works by 56 composers, providing illuminating essays on what makes each piece distinctive and admirable. Keller spans the history of this intimate genre of music, from key works of the Baroque through the emotionally stirring "golden age" of the Classical and Romantic composers, to modern masterpieces rich in political, psychological, and sometimes comical overtones. For each piece, from Bach through to contemporary figures like George Crumb and Steve Reich, the author includes an astute musical analysis that casual music lovers can easily appreciate yet that more experienced listeners will find enriching. Keller shares the colorful, often surprising stories behind the compositions while revealing the delights of an art form once described by Goethe as the musical equivalent of "thoughtful people conversing."

The Crisis of Classical Music in America by Robert Freeman focuses on solutions for the oversupply of classically trained musicians in America, problem that grows ever more chronic as opportunities for classical musicians to gain full-time professional employment diminishes year upon year. An acute observer of the professional music scene, Freeman argues that music schools that train our future instrumentalists, composers, conductors, and singers need to equip their students with the communications and analytical skills they need to succeed in the rapidly changing music scene. This book maps a broad range of reforms required in the field of advanced music education and the organizations responsible for that education. Featuring a foreword by Leonard Slatkin, music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, The Crisis of Classical Music in America speaks to parents, prospective and current music students, music teachers and professors, department deans, university presidents and provosts, and even foundations and public organizations that fund such music programs. This book reaches out to all of these stakeholders and argues for meaningful change though wide-spread collaboration.

We're all familiar with the image of a fierce and scowling Beethoven, struggling doggedly to overcome his rapidly progressing deafness. That Beethoven continued to play and compose for more than a decade after he lost his hearing is often seen as an act of superhuman heroism. But the truth is that Beethoven's response to his deafness was entirely human. And by demystifying what he did, we can learn a great deal about Beethoven's music. Perhaps no one is better positioned to help us do so than Robin Wallace, who not only has dedicated his life to the music of Beethoven but also has close personal experience with deafness. One day, Wallace's late wife, Barbara, found she couldn't hear out of her right ear-the result of radiation administered to treat a brain tumor early in life. Three years later, she lost hearing in her left ear as well. Over the eight and a half years that remained of her life, despite receiving a cochlear implant, Barbara didn't overcome her deafness or ever function again like a hearing person. Wallace shows here that Beethoven didn't do those things, either. Rather than heroically overcoming his deafness, Beethoven accomplished something even more challenging: he adapted to his hearing loss and changed the way he interacted with music, revealing important aspects of its very nature in the process. Wallace tells the story of Beethoven's creative life, interweaving it with his and Barbara's experience to reveal aspects that only living with deafness could open up. The resulting insights make Beethoven and his music more accessible and help us see how a disability can enhance human wholeness and flourishing.

Few genres of the last 250 years have proved so crucial to the course of music history, or so vital to public musical experience, as the symphony. This Companion offers an accessible guide to the historical, analytical and interpretative issues surrounding this major genre of Western music, discussing an extensive variety of works from the eighteenth century to the present day. The book complements a detailed review of the symphony's history with focused analytical essays from leading scholars on the symphonic music of both mainstream composers, including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and lesser-known figures, including Carter, Berio and Maxwell Davies. With chapters on a comprehensive range of topics, from the symphony's origins to the politics of its reception in the twentieth century, this is an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the history, analysis and performance of the symphonic repertoire.

Early Keyboard Instruments discusses a variety of issues involved in the performance of keyboard music from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. It brings together a range of topics that have come to the fore in recent decades and forms a useful introduction to historical performance issues for the student performer or amateur, whether playing on period instruments or on the modern piano.

Voices Found: Free Jazz and Singing contributes to a wave of voice studies scholarship with the first book-length study of free jazz voice. It pieces together a history of free jazz voice that spans from sound poetry and scat in the 1950s to the more recent wave of free jazz choirs. The author traces the developments and offers a theory, derived from interviews with many of the most important singers in the history of free jazz voice, of how listeners have experienced and evaluated the often unconventional vocal sounds these vocalists employed. This theory explains that even audiences willing to enjoy harsh sounds from saxophones or guitars often resist when voices make sounds that audiences understand as not-human. Experimental poetry and scat were combined and transformed in free jazz spaces in the 1960s and 1970s by vocalists like Yoko Ono (in solo work and her work with Ornette Coleman and John Stevens), Jeanne Lee (in her solo work and her work with Archie Shepp and Gunter Hampel), Leon Thomas (in his solo work as well as his work with Pharoah Sanders and Carlos Santana), and Phil Minton and Maggie Nicols (who devoted much of their energy to creating unaccompanied free jazz vocal music). By studying free jazz voice we can learn important lessons about what we expect from the voice and what happens when those expectations are violated. This book doesn't only trace histories of free jazz voice, it makes an attempt to understand why this story hasn't been told before, with an impressive breadth of scope in terms of the artists covered, drawing on research from the US, Canada, Wales, Scotland, France, The Netherlands, and Japan.

The traditions of piano teaching have remained virtually unchanged for generations, beginning with the influential technique of Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), the first composer-pedagogue of the instrument. His was followed by an explosion of sometimes bizarre teaching systems, perhaps most notably Hanon's "The Virtuoso Pianist"-exacting drills of reinforcement by repetition, often to the disillusionment of beginners. Some 150 years later, these methods-considered absurd or abusive by many students-have evolved and persevered as part of music curricula in higher education. Reflecting the author's belief that learning piano is both gratifying and exasperating, this book critically examines two centuries of teaching practices and encourages instructors to seek more efficient and inspiring exercises.