A celebration of music from the creator of Alan Partridge, The Thick of It, Veep and The Death of Stalin. All my days, I've felt pressurized by the anonymous Keepers of the Cool who tell us what we should be wearing this year, what digital boxsets we should bunker ourselves in to enjoy, what amazing app is the only one we should be shrieking emotions at our recently acquired friends with. Thankfully, I have the one consolation that if I don't quite fit into all of this, everyone else probably feels the same way. So, I say defiantly, I get more moved and excited by classical music than by any other musical genre. I believe that it is there for us all, inviting us to reach out and touch it. In Hear Me Out Armando Iannucci brilliantly conveys the joy of his musical exploration, each discovery suggesting a fresh direction of travel, another piece, another composer, another time.

Drawing on a range of contemporary performance documentation, including concert programmes, newspaper reviews and periodical reports, this book addresses what it refers to as the Philharmonic 'myth': the notion that London experienced a period of orchestral inactivity between the departure of Haydn in 1795 and the founding of the Philharmonic Society some eighteen years later. The book illustrates that, far from constituting a radical new departure in patterns of London concert life, the Philharmonic Society built on the growing interest in orchestral music evident over the preceding years. At the same time, it suggests that the deliberate adoption of orchestral repertory marked the first institutional articulation of a professional opposition to the traditional dominance of fashionable Italian opera, and that the Philharmonic might therefore be seen to reflect the emergence of important new strands in musical, artistic and cultural leadership.

Following the successful volumes of Song on Record, this 1991 book surveys all the recordings of major choral works from the Monteverdi Vespers to Britten's War Requiem. Discussion of the various interpretations on record is preceded, in each chapter, by informed criticism of the work concerned, including - where appropriate - a clarification of editions, revisions, etc. (all the many changes in Messiah are, for instance, described in detail). The coverage of recordings is exhaustive and its value is enhanced by detailed discographies, with numbers of each recording. Each contributor is an authority within his or her specialist area and, collectively, their insights and observations make the book invaluable to record collectors, music lovers and all with an interest in changing tastes and styles of musical performance.

Conducting Opera discusses operas in the standard repertory from the perspective of a conductor with a lifetime of experience performing them. It focuses on Joseph Rescigno's approach to preparing and performing these masterworks in order to realize what opera can uniquely achieve: a fusion of music and drama resulting in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.Opening with a chapter discussing his performance philosophy, Rescigno then covers Mozart's most-performed operas, standards of the bel canto school including Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, five of Verdi's works including La traviata, a selection of Wagner's compositions followed by French Romantic operas such as Bizet's Carmen, Puccini's major works, and finally four operas by Richard Strauss. A useful appendix contains a convenient guide to the scores available online. Conducting Opera includes practical advice about propelling a story forward and bringing out the drama that the music is meant to supply, as well as how to support singers in their most difficult moments. Rescigno identifies particularly problematic passages and supplies suggestions about how to navigate them. In addition, he provides advice on staying true to the several styles under discussion.

The music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven forms a cornerstone of the modern repertoire, but very little is known about the context in which these composers worked. This volume of twelve essays by leading international scholars considers some of the musical traditions and practices of this little-understood period of music history. Beginning with the early decades of the eighteenth century, the volume documents selected aspects of musical life and style from the late Baroque period through to the early years of the nineteenth century. The four main areas covered in this exploration of music history are orchestral music, sacred music, opera and keyboard music. Georg Reutter (Haydn's teacher), Antonio Salieri (Mozart's colleague) and Woelffl (a rival of Beethoven) are just three of the period's prominent musicians who are discussed at length.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). An ideal introduction to the easiest keyboard sonatinas. Contents include: Sonatina in C 1st mvt (Gurlitt) * Sonatina in C (Duncombe) * Sonatina Op. 57 No. 1 (Biehl) * Sonatina in D (Saliutrinskaya) * Sonatina in C (Biehl) * Sonatina Op. 792, No. 8 (Czerny) * Sonatina in G (Attwood).

The history of classical music is littered with murder, adultery, bigamy, fraud, sado-masochism, riches, poverty, gluttony, nervous breakdowns, bizarre behaviour and terrible, terrible toilet humour (Mozart was the prime exponent of the latter). Classical music - nice? Not at all. It's the most immediate expression of mental and emotional extremes- often deceptive, sometimes dangerous and frequently a discomforting revelation. Swooning documents the all too human flaws in the lives of the great composers by loosely following the sequence of emotions as experienced in a love affair - one that doesn't work out, of course. In this fully revised and updated edition, Christopher Lawrence leads us through the listening experience, from anger and Beethoven to sadness and Tchaikovsky, triumph and Wagner and freedom and Mozart - it's all here in this whimsical guide to the conduct of a romance, with some handy hints on how to make it more, well, harmonious. One of Australia's favourite radio personalities, Christopher Lawrence boasts a career spanning more than 40 years of broadcasting. He is best known for his work with ABC Classic FM, presenting the network's Breakfast and Drive programs between 1994 and 2001. Three of the Swoon CDs that evolved out of his Breakfast program broke sales records in the Australian classical music industry, each achieving Platinum status. As an orchestral and opera recording producer Christopher has been awarded an International Emmy for Performing Arts, three ARIA Awards, a Churchill Fellowship, and the Editors' Choice Award at the Cannes Classical Awards in France. Christopher has written three best-selling books- Swooning; Hymns of the Forefathers, based on his documentary series about the history of hymns seen on ABC TV; and Swing Symphony. He can be heard on ABC Classic FM from 9 a.m. to midday presenting Mornings.

This is a study of the way in which popular words and music relate to American life. The question of what popular song was, and why it came into existence, as well as how each song fit within the context of the larger 20th Century society are considered and explained clearly and fruitfully. Songs of the Jazz Age and Swing Era are considered primarily in terms of song-types and their relation to the times. Post World War II songs are shown to have splintered into a multitude of different styles and variations within each style. Many 20th Century songs came to be closely identified with particular singers and performance groups, shifting the attention to the styles identified with particular performers and the audiences they reached. Tawa avoids overly-technical vocabulary, making this examination of hundreds of popular songs accessible to a wide variety of readers seeking to better their understanding of the often perplexing musical landscape of the time.

This book contains the first complete translation in English of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s major musical writings, complementing the well-known Tales. It offers, therefore, a long-awaited opportunity to assess the thought and influence of one of the most famous of all writers on music and the musical links with his fiction. Containing the first complete appearance in English of Kreisleriana, it reveals a masterpiece of imaginative writing whose title is familiar to musicians (from Robert Schumann’s piano cycle) and whose profound humour and irony can now be fully appreciated. This volume offers translations aiming at the greatest fidelity to Hoffmann, as well as musical accuracy in the reviews. David Charlton’s three introductory essays provide extensive information on the background to Romantic music criticism; on the origins and internal structure of Kreisleriana; and on Hoffmann and opera. A concluding essay by the late Friedrich Schnapp lists Hoffmann’s planned reviews and those mistakenly attributed to him.

What makes a classical song a song? In a wide-ranging 2004 discussion, covering such contrasting composers as Brahms and Berberian, Schubert and Kurtag, Jonathan Dunsby considers the nature of vocality in songs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The essence and scope of poetic and literary meaning in the Lied tradition is subjected to close scrutiny against the backdrop of 'new musicological' thinking and music-theoretical orthodoxies. The reader is thus offered the best insights available within an evidence-based approach to musical discourse. Schoenberg figures conspicuously as both songsmith and theorist, and some easily comprehensible Schenkerian approaches are used to convey ideas of musical time and expressive focus. In this work of scholarship and theoretical depth, Professor Dunsby's highly original approach and engaging style will ensure its appeal to all practising musicians and students of Romantic and modern music.

The book contains 15 monophonic and 6 polyphonic compositions which were cretaed and played in the Czech area during the Medieval. Vast majority of pieces is sacred but there ate four secular compositions, too and two instrumental music. Wishinh you lovely time with Medieval music.

Every voice studio and serious singer will need these new volumes, which are a happy complement to the G. Schirmer Opera Anthology. This impressive series takes a serious look at opera in Italian, resulting in the largest anthologies of arias ever published devoted to the topic. Arias include the most famous excerpts along with rare beauties. Each aria has been carefully researched and newly engraved. Plot notes and translations are included for all selections. Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini are liberally represented with essential as well as interesting arias. Also included are wonderful Baroque arias by Monteverdi, Cavalli, Handel, Vivaldi and Pergolesi. Beyond Mozart, classical era Italian arias by Gluck, Cimarosa and Paisiello may be found in the compilations. Other 19th and 20th century composers represented are Boito, Catalani, Cilea, Giordano, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Montemezzi, Ponchielli, Respighi and Wolf-Ferrari. Many of the arias have never before appeared in collections. There are 36-41 arias per volume.

Title: 12 Etudes Caracteristiques Composer: Adolf von Henselt Original Publisher: Ashdown Performer's Reprints are produced in conjunction with the International Music Score Library Project. These are out of print or historical editions, which we clean, straighten, touch up, and digitally reprint. Due to the age of original documents, you may find occasional blemishes, damage, or skewing of print. While we do extensive cleaning and editing to improve the image quality, some items are not able to be repaired. A portion of each book sold is donated to small performing arts organizations to create jobs for performers and to encourage audience growth.

A companion to his The Symphony: A Listener's Guide , Steinberg's new book covers the orchestral concerto repertoire from Bach to the present and featuring all instruments.

Performers include: * Early music ensembles, such as Chapelle Royale, Lionheart, Sequentia, and the Tallis Scholars * Singers Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Renee Fleming, and Joan Sutherland * Cellist Yo-Yo Ma * Pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Malcolm Bilson, and Artur Rubenstein * The Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra * Conductors Pierre Boulez, John Eliot Gardiner, James Levine, and Michael Tilson Thomas * String quartets, such as the Concord String Quartet and the Tokyo String Quartet * Jazz artists Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie

The Penguin Guide to the 1000 Finest Classical Recordings brings together the experience and enthusiasm of four of classical music's greatest experts, Ivan March, Edward Greenfield, Robert Layton and Paul Czajkowski, to create an essential guide to the best recordings. Downloads, CDs and DVD mean it is possible to listen to hundreds of thousands of classical recordings today - but how do you pick your way through the vast array of music now on offer? With clear, simple, easy-to-use A to Z listings of composers and performers, the pick of the latest CD releases, as well as established landmark recordings, short guides to ballet, opera and the history of recording, and indications of budget and mid-range price CDs, this guide offers a treasury of outstanding music, whether you are just starting to build a collection or tracking down a particular favourite.