WE SANG BETTER consists of two volumes of very clear advice about singing from great singers of the past. Volume 1 (ISBN 978-84-940477-8-7) is entitled How we sang and contains 250 tips on how to sing from singers 1800 to 1960. This volume is 490 pages long, and contains 130 illustrations. Tamagno never scooped his notes - so said star soprano Amelita Galli-Curci of the famous tenor. In the two volumes of We Sang Better, 200 of the greatest singers explain their art in over 70,000 of their own words. In Volume 1 the singers show you their approach, their ideals, and how they learnt to sing. Anderson arranges their evidence coherently, in easily followed tips. Their advice was uniform - work patiently on developing your own natural voice, with no forcing. The singers then provide the details by which you grow your voice and acquire a firm but flexible technique. Finally you will have a singing voice that is: personal beautiful easy accurate true on the note, and carries well in a large hall with clear diction & the ability to move your audience. As Verdi said, any art worthy of the name must be natural, spontaneous and simple. These singers explain how they kept to this ideal, staying clear of scientific 'discoveries', over-muscularity, and teachers with set 'methods'. These singers worked with Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Auber, Meyerbeer, Weber, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Verdi, Wagner, Brahms, Gounod, Massenet, Debussy, Puccini, Strauss, Elgar, etc & kept to nearly all the recommendations that came from the castrati in the previous two centuries. James Anderson is a musician who has worked for the Arts Council of Great Britain and has run major European Festivals. Regretting the scarcity of supreme singing today, he has spent the last 30 years researching and collating this advice. He now helps young singers through the Singers Legacy website. For your information, the second volume (ISBN 978-84-940477-9-4) is entitled Why it was better and contains further evidence & reasoning from singers 1800 to 1960. Volume 2 is 260 pages long and has 20 illustrations.

Using an approach to music informed by T. W. Adorno, this book examines the real-world, political significance of seemingly abstracted things like musical and literary forms. Re-assessing music in James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Sylvia Townsend Warner, this book re-shapes temporal, aesthetic and political understandings of modernism, by arguing that music plays a crucial role in ongoing attempts to investigate language, rational thought and ideology using aesthetic forms.

A New York Times Notable Book

"This brilliant and magisterial book is a very good bet to...become the definitive study of Johannes Brahms."--The Plain Dealer

Judicious, compassionate, and full of insight into Brahms's human complexity as well as his music, Johannes Brahms is an indispensable biography.

Proclaimed the new messiah of Romanticism by Robert Schumann when he was only twenty, Johannes Brahms dedicated himself to a long and extraordinarily productive career.  In this book, Jan Swafford sets out to reveal the little-known Brahms, the boy who grew up in mercantile Hamburg and played piano in beer halls among prostitutes and drunken sailors, the fiercely self-protective man who thwarted future biographers by burning papers, scores and notebooks late in his life.  Making unprecedented use of the remaining archival material, Swafford offers richly expanded perspectives on Brahms's youth, on his difficult romantic life--particularly his longstanding relationship with Clara Schumann--and on his professional rivalry with Lizst and Wagner.  

"[Johannes Brahms] will no doubt stand as the definitive work on Brahms, one of the monumental biographies in the entire musical library."--London Weekly Standard

"It is a measure of the accomplishment of Jan Swafford's biography that Brahms's sadness becomes palpable.... [Swafford] manages to construct a full-bodied human being."--The New York Times Book Review

for SATB and organ or brass quartet and timpani Eleanor Daley sets this Wesley text in an antiphonal style between the SATB choir and organ (or brass quartet, parts available separately). The sound is majestic and declamatory, just as one would expect from an Easter fanfare, with a hint of modal harmony, resulting in a strong and accessible Eastertide anthem.

for SSAATTBarB unaccompanied Descendi in hortum meum is an original setting of the Song of Solomon, unique in that it is arranged for seven voices while still capturing the lush and beautiful essence of a garden in bloom and longing for the return of the beloved Shulamite. This general text of love and yearning is suitable throughout the church year, but also serves well as a concert piece for a community choir.

for SATB and organ or orchestra A stirring hymn, important to the Mormon religion but suitable for all denominations, conveys a spirit of faith and praise despite difficult times. This text is originally written by William Clayton, but has alternate lyrics in spots for maximal ecumenism. The piece is accessible to most church choirs and includes Wilberg's signature sound and a climactic ending. Orchestral material is available on hire.

for SATB and piano four-hands or orchestra A wonderful processional, Wilberg's Bring a torch, Jeannette, Isabella! is a joyful carol. A catchy, brightly articulated countermelody distinguishes this from other settings. The women sing alone, then the men, and all join together for a triumphant finish. Orchestral material is available on rental.

for SATB and organ or chamber orchestra This delightful setting of the French carol is perfectly suited to open a service or concert with its spirited choral parts, energetic articulations, and quick glissandi in the organ. A new English translation is written by David Warner. Orchestral material is available on rental.

Artists today are at a crossroads. With funding for the arts and humanities endowments perpetually under attack, and school districts all over the United States scrapping their art curricula altogether, the place of the arts in our civic future is uncertain to say the least. At the same time, faced with the problems of the modern world--from water shortages and grave health concerns to global climate change and the now constant threat of terrorism--one might question the urgency of this waning support for the arts. In the politically fraught world we live in, is the "felt" experience even something worth fighting for? In this soul-searching collection of vignettes, Patrick Summers gives us an adamant, impassioned affirmative. Art, he argues, nurtures freedom of thought, and is more necessary now than ever before. As artistic director of the Houston Grand Opera, Summers is well positioned to take stock of the limitations of the professional arts world--a world where the conversation revolves almost entirely around financial questions and whose reputation tends toward elitism--and to remind us of art's fundamental relationship to joy and meaning. Offering a vehement defense of long-form arts in a world with a short attention span, Summers argues that art is spiritual, and that music in particular has the ability to ask spiritual questions, to inspire cathartic pathos, and to express spiritual truths. Summers guides us through his personal encounters with art and music in disparate places, from Houston's Rothko Chapel to a music classroom in rural China, and reflects on musical works he has conducted all over the world. Assessing the growing canon of new operas performed in American opera houses today, he calls for musical artists to be innovative and brave as opera continues to reinvent itself. This book is a moving credo elucidating Summers's belief that the arts, especially music, help us to understand our own humanity as intellectual, aesthetic, and ultimately spiritual.

Play Piazzolla is a unique collection of 13 tangos by the Argentinian master of tango nuevo arranged for easy solo guitar.

"Whether you know a lot about music or nothing at all, Miles Hoffman will help you think about what you listen to and how you listen. This book is a great achievement. There's nothing else out there like it." -- Wynton Marsalis, composer, trumpeter, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in music
An irresistible tour through the lexicon of classical music, The NPR Classical Music Companionoffers an essential education certain to increase any listener's understanding and appreciation of this potentially daunting musical genre. Miles Hoffman sheds light on more than 130 words and concepts that listeners may encounter in CD booklets, on the radio, in classical concert programs, or in newspaper reviews. These wholly delightful, accessible entries touch on fascinating topics, including what makes a good or a bad conductor, what musical term is most often misused, and why opera was invented. Whether you are an experienced concertgoer or have only recently been introduced to the music of Mozart and Beethoven, Hoffman's clear explanations will both enlighten and entertain.
"A musical guide filled with wit and unique charm. There are delicious musical morsels to delight everyone, from the novice to the scholar." -- Eugenia Zukerman, author, flutist, and arts correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning
" Hoffman] takes the myth and starch out of classical music." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Carefully researched . . . informal and informative. . . a reader-friendly book." -- Washington Post
Miles Hoffman is music commentator for National Public Radio(R) 's Morning Edition(R). A graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, he is the violist and artistic director of the American Chamber Players.

First published in 1996, this volume counters the attitude of paying more attention to the performer than to the piece. Too often, Anthony Hopkins argues, music is simply regarded as a pleasant background noise to accompany our other activities, whereas Beethoven offers much more than that. Hopkins aim to promote hearing, rather than listening. He examines Beethoven's piano concertos numbers 1 through 5, along with the violin concerto in D Major, Op. 61, and the Triple Concerto, Op. 56.

Why do we feel the need to perform music in a historically informed style? Is this need related to wider cultural concerns? In this challenging study, John Butt sums up recent debates on the nature of the early music movement, calling upon a seemingly inexhaustible fund of ideas gleaned from historical musicology, analytic philosophy, literary theory, historiography and theories of modernism and postmodernism. He develops the critical views of both supporters and detractors, claiming ultimately that it has more intellectual and artistic potential than its detractors may have assumed.

Renowned composer Jennifer Higdon is best known for her symphonic pieces "Blue Cathedral," "Concerto for Orchestra," "City Scape," "Concerto 4-3" and "Violin Concerto" (2010 Pulitzer Prize). These compositions illustrate her breadth of style and avant-garde technique, inspired by bluegrass and folk melodies. The author examines these works-with commentary by Higdon-as well as the music of her first opera, with a focus on compositional history, musical characteristics, formal analysis and critical reception.

In part a compendium of information currently available, in part a dialectical examination of musical causation and function, this book contains a wide-ranging survey of musics of the world, in historical and social contexts, from ancient times to the present day. It aims to lead students, teachers, and, in general, those who practise Western music towards a deeper understanding of the various musical traditions that contribute to the modern, multi-cultural environment. It is preceded by a thought-provoking essay on music and ethnomusicology by Laurence Picken.

Liszt's fourth entry in his revolutionary series of thirteen symphonic poems, "Orpheus" was penned to serve as an introduction to the Weimar premiere of Gluck's opera on the same story "Ofeo ed Euridice." Composed from 1853-54, it was given its premiere in Weimar 16 February 1854 with the composer conducting the Weimar Hofkapelle. This new study score is a digitally-restored reissue of the score edited by Otto Taubmann in the second volume of the Liszt-Stiftung edition, published in 1908. As with all PLP scores a percentage of each sale is donated to the amazing online archive of free music scores and recordings, IMSLP - Petrucci Music Library.

This work was once credited to Mozart but later discounted as being by him and attributed instead to the composer Jan Zach (1699-1773). Rcent Zach scholarship has largely discredited the idea of Zach being the composer. In any case, this work has remained quite popular for good reason regardless of who the actual composer may have been. This new, beautifully engraved vocal score edited by Richard Sargeant will be welcomed by choruses worldwide interested in performance or study of this delightful piece of Latin church music from Mozart's time.