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Books > Music > Western music, periods & styles > Romantic music (c 1830 to c 1900)

Horn Teaching at the Paris Conservatoire, 1792 to 1903 - The Transition from Natural Horn to Valved Horn (Hardcover): Jeffrey... Horn Teaching at the Paris Conservatoire, 1792 to 1903 - The Transition from Natural Horn to Valved Horn (Hardcover)
Jeffrey Snedeker
R4,474 Discovery Miles 44 740 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

The transition from the valveless natural horn to the modern valved horn in 19th-century Paris was different from similar transitions in other countries. While valve technology was received happily by players of other members of the brass family, strong support for the natural horn, with its varied color palette and virtuoso performance traditions, slowed the reception and application of the valve to the horn. Using primary sources including Conservatoire method books, accounts of performances and technological advances, and other evidence, this book tells the story of the transition from natural horn to valved horn at the Conservatoire, from 1792 to 1903, including close examination of horn teaching before the arrival of valved brass in Paris, the initial reception and application of this technology to the horn, the persistence of the natural horn, and the progression of acceptance, use, controversies, and eventual adoption of the valved instrument in the Parisian community and at the Conservatoire. Active scholars, performers, and students interested in the horn, 19th-century brass instruments, teaching methods associated with the Conservatoire, and the intersection of technology and performing practice will find this book useful in its details and conclusions, including ramifications on historically-informed performance today.

The Consolations of History: Themes of Progress and Potential in Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung (Paperback): Alexander... The Consolations of History: Themes of Progress and Potential in Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung (Paperback)
Alexander Shapiro
R1,392 Discovery Miles 13 920 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

In this book on Richard Wagner's compelling but enigmatic masterpiece Goetterdammerung, the final opera of his monumental Ring tetralogy, Alexander H. Shapiro advances an ambitious new interpretation which uncovers intriguing new facets to the work's profound insights into the human condition. By taking a fresh look at the philosophical and historical influences on Wagner, and critically reevaluating the composer's intellectual worldview as revealed in his own prose works, letters, and diary entries, the book challenges a number of conventional views that continue to impede a clear understanding of this work's meaning. The book argues that Goetterdammerung, and hence the Ring as a whole, achieves coherence when interpreted in terms of contemporary nineteenth-century theories of progress, and, in particular, G.W.F. Hegel's philosophies of mind and history. A central target of the book is the article of faith that has come to dominate Wagner scholarship over the years - that Wagner's encounter in 1854 with Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy conclusively altered the final message of the Ring from one of historical optimism to existential pessimism. The author contends that Schopenhauer's uncompromising denigration of the will and denial of the possibility for human progress find no place in the written text of the Ring or in a plausible reading of the final musical setting. In its place, the author discovers in the famous Immolation Scene a celebration of mankind's inexhaustible capacity for self-improvement and progress. The author makes the further compelling case that this message of progress is communicated not through Siegfried, the traditional male hero of the drama, but through Brunnhilde, the warrior goddess who becomes a mortal woman. In her role as a battle-tested world-historical prophet she is the true revolutionary change agent of Wagner's opera who has the strength and vision to comprehend and thereby shape human history. This highly lucid and accessible study is aimed not only at scholars and researchers in the fields of opera studies, music and philosophy, and music history, but also Wagner enthusiasts, and readers and students interested in the history and philosophy of the nineteenth century.

Music and Sentimentalism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Hardcover): Stephen Downes Music and Sentimentalism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Hardcover)
Stephen Downes
R4,479 Discovery Miles 44 790 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

In a wide-ranging study of sentimentalism's significance for styles, practices and meanings of music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a series of interpretations scrutinizes musical expressions of sympathetic responses to suffering and the longing to belong. The book challenges hierarchies of artistic value and the associated denigration of sentimental feeling in gendered discourses. Fresh insights are thereby developed into sentimentalism's place in musical constructions of emotion, taste, genre, gender, desire, and authenticity. The contexts encompass diverse musical communities, performing spaces, and listening practices, including the nineteenth-century salon and concert hall, the cinema, the intimate stage persona of the singer-songwriter, and the homely ambiguities of 'easy' listening. Interdisciplinary insights inform discussions of musical form, affect, appropriation, nationalisms, psychologies, eco-sentimentalism, humanitarianism, consumerism, and subject positions, with a particular emphasis on masculine sentimentalities. Music is drawn from violin repertory associated with Joseph Joachim, the piano music of Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt, sentimental waltzes from Schubert to Ravel, concert music by Bartok, Szymanowski and Gorecki, the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of The Remains of the Day, Antonio Carlos Jobim's bossa nova, and songs by Duke Ellington, Burt Bacharach, Carole King, Barry Manilow and Jimmy Webb. The book will attract readers interested in both the role of music in the history of emotion and the persistence and diversity of sentimental arts after their flowering in the eighteenth-century age of sensibility.

Composing the Canon in the German Democratic Republic - Narratives of Nineteenth-Century Music (Hardcover): Elaine Kelly Composing the Canon in the German Democratic Republic - Narratives of Nineteenth-Century Music (Hardcover)
Elaine Kelly
R2,009 Discovery Miles 20 090 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

When the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was founded in 1949, its leaders did not position it as a new state. Instead, they represented East German socialism as the culmination of all that was positive in Germany's past. The GDR was heralded as the second German Enlightenment, a society in which the rational ideals of progress, Bildung, and revolution that had first come to fruition with Goethe and Beethoven would finally achieve their apotheosis. Central to this founding myth was the Germanic musical heritage. Just as the canon had defined the idea of the German nation in the nineteenth-century, so in the GDR it contributed to the act of imagining the collective socialist state.
Composing the Canon in the German Democratic Republic uses the reception of the Germanic musical heritage to chart the changing landscape of musical culture in the German Democratic Republic. Author Elaine Kelly demonstrates the nuances of musical thought in the state, revealing a model of societal ascent and decline that has implications that reach far beyond studies of the GDR itself. The first book-length study in English devoted to music in the GDR, Composing the Canon in the German Democratic Republic is a seminal text for scholars of music in the Cold War and in Germany more widely.

Edvard Grieg and his Songs (Paperback): Sandra Jarrett Edvard Grieg and his Songs (Paperback)
Sandra Jarrett
R1,066 Discovery Miles 10 660 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Originally published in 2003, Edvard Grieg and his Songs examines the lifetime of Edvard Grieg. His songs were among his most popular and well-known works and both historians and critics have seen in them, Grieg at his most sophisticated and innovative. Important in and of themselves, the songs also illuminate critical aspects of his other works such as his musical impressionism, his use of folk music as a source of inspiration, and his novel approach towards harmony. Fifty of Grieg's most important songs form the focus of this book. Each song is discussed individually and within the wider context of the composer's output. The book provides a translation of the lyrics, and analysis of the poem and a description of the song's form, melody, tessitura, harmony, rhythm and accompaniment, together with suggestions for interpretation. In addition to this, the book gives a brief biography of Grieg, with a chapter that analyses his approach to song writing.

Music History and Cosmopolitanism (Paperback): Anastasia Belina, Kaarina Kilpioe, Derek B. Scott Music History and Cosmopolitanism (Paperback)
Anastasia Belina, Kaarina Kilpioe, Derek B. Scott
R1,400 Discovery Miles 14 000 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This collection of essays is the first book-length study of music history and cosmopolitanism, and is informed by arguments that culture and identity do not have to be viewed as primarily located in the context of nationalist narratives. Rather than trying to distinguish between a true cosmopolitanism and a false cosmopolitanism, the book presents studies that deepen understanding of the heritage of this concept - the various ways in which the term has been used to describe a wide range of activity and social outlooks. It ranges over a two hundred-year period, and more than a dozen countries, revealing how musicians and audiences have responded to a common humanity by embracing culture beyond regional or national boundaries. Among the various topics investigated are: musical cosmopolitanism among composers in Latin America, the Ottoman Empire, and Austro-Hungarian Empire; cosmopolitan popular music historiography; cosmopolitan musical entrepreneurs; and musical cosmopolitanism in the metropolises of New York and Shanghai.

Chopin's Prophet - The Life of Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann (Paperback): Gregor Benko, Edward Blickstein Chopin's Prophet - The Life of Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann (Paperback)
Gregor Benko, Edward Blickstein
R1,584 Discovery Miles 15 840 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Vladimir de Pachmann was perhaps history's most notorious pianist. Widely regarded as the greatest player of Chopin's works, Pachmann embedded comedic elements-be it fiddling with his piano bench or flirting with the audience-within his classic piano recitals to alleviate his own anxiety over performing. But this wunderkind, whose admirers included Franz Liszt and music critic James Gibbons Huneker (who cheekily nicknamed Pachmann the "Chopinzee"), would by the turn of the century find his antics on the concert stage scorned by critics and out of fashion with listeners, burying his pianistic legacy. In Chopin's Prophet: The Life of Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann, the first biography ever of this remarkable figure, Edward Blickstein and Gregor Benko explore the private and public lives of this master pianist, surveying his achievements within the context of contemporary critical opinion and preserving his legacy as one of the last great Romantic pianists of his time. Chopin's Prophet paints a colorful portrait of classical piano performance and celebrity at the turn of the 20th century while also documenting Pachmann's attraction to men, which ultimately ended his marriage but was overlooked by his audiences. As the authors illustrate, Pachmann lived in a radically different world of music making, one in which eccentric personality and behavior fit into a much more flexible, and sometimes mysterious, musical community, one where standards were set not by certified experts with degrees but by the musicians themselves. Detailing the evolution of concert piano playing style from the era of Chopin until World War I, Chopin's Prophet tells the fantastic and true story of an artist of and after his time.

Canciones de Espana - Songs of Nineteenth-Century Spain, High Voice (Paperback): Suzanne Rhodes Draayer Canciones de Espana - Songs of Nineteenth-Century Spain, High Voice (Paperback)
Suzanne Rhodes Draayer
R1,795 Discovery Miles 17 950 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

With the completion of Volume 3 of Canciones de Espana: Songs of Nineteenth-Century Spain, 83 songs by 50 19th-century Spanish composers are now available for performance and study, in both high and low voice editions. This final volume presents 31 newly published canciones by 18 composers such as Jose Leon, Antonio Merce Fondevila, Lazaro Nunez Robres, Antonio Reparaz, Gabriel Rodriguez, and Joaquin Valverde. These songs represent the gems of the repertoire, providing examples of song types typical of the period, including the cancion andaluza, the cancion espanola, the balada Arabe, the bolero, the habanera, the canzoneta, and the seguidilla. A number of songs included had previously been available only in manuscript form and long forgotten in the depths of the world's greatest libraries. Here, they are made available and accessible through discussions of 19th-century politics and Spanish song style, a thorough pronunciation guide to Castilian Spanish, both word-for-word and idiomatic translations, and International Phonetic Alphabet transcriptions. Short biographies of each composer add insight to the compositions. Rounding out the anthology, this final volume includes appendixes that list all 83 songs by level of difficulty and by gender. This anthology allows singers and voice teachers to explore the poetry, culture, and history of Spain through its songs, demonstrating that the songs deserve their rightful place in the classical song repertoire of Europe and the Americas.

Victorian Vocalists (Paperback): Kurt Ganzl Victorian Vocalists (Paperback)
Kurt Ganzl
R1,570 Discovery Miles 15 700 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Victorian Vocalists is a masterful and entertaining collection of 100 biographies of mid- to late-19th-century singers and stars. Kurt Ganzl paints a vivid picture of the Victorian operatic and concert world, revealing the backgrounds, journeys, successes, failures and misdemeanours of these singers. This volume is not only an outstanding reference work for anyone interested in vocalists of the era, but also a compelling, meticulously researched picture of life in the vast shark tank that was Victorian music.

Analyses of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Music, 1940-2000 (Paperback): D.J. Hoek Analyses of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Music, 1940-2000 (Paperback)
D.J. Hoek
R2,865 Discovery Miles 28 650 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

The latest volume in the Music Library Association's Index and Bibliography series, Analyses of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Music, 1940-2000, features over 9,000 references to analyses of works by more than 1,000 composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. References that address form, harmony, melody, rhythm, and other structural elements of musical compositions have been compiled into this valuable resource. This update of Arthur Wenk's well-known bibliography, last published in 1987, includes all the original entries from that work, along with additional references to analyses through 2000. International in scope, the bibliography covers writings in English, French, German, Italian, and other European languages, and draws from 167 periodicals as well as important theses, dissertations, books, and Festschriften. References are arranged alphabetically by composer, and include subheadings for specific works and genres. This bibliography provides students, scholars, performers, and librarians with broad coverage, detailed indexing, and ready access to a large and diverse body of analytical literature on nineteenth- and twentieth-century music.

Contextualizing Melodrama in the Czech Lands - In Concert and on Stage (Hardcover): Judith Mabary Contextualizing Melodrama in the Czech Lands - In Concert and on Stage (Hardcover)
Judith Mabary
R4,472 Discovery Miles 44 720 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

The mention of the term "melodrama" is likely to evoke a response from laymen and musicians alike that betrays an acquaintance only with the popular form of the genre and its greatly heightened drama, exaggerated often to the point of the ridiculous. Few are aware that there exists a type of melodrama that contains in its smaller forms the beauty of the sung ballad and, in the larger-scale works, the appeal of the spoken play. This category of melodrama is one that surfaced in many cultures but was perhaps never so enthusiastically cultivated as in the Czech lands. The melodrama varied greatly at the hands of its Czech advocates. While the works of Zdenek Fibich and his contemporary Josef Bohuslav Foerster, a composer best known for his songs, remained closely bound to the text, those of conductor/composer Otakar Ostrcil reveal a stance that privileged the music and, given their creator's orchestral experience, are more reminiscent of the symphonic poem. Fibich in his staged works and Josef Suk (composer/violinist and Dvorak's son-in-law), in his incidental music reflect variously late nineteenth-century Romanticism, the influence of Wagner, and early manifestations of Impressionism. In its more recent guise, the principles of the staged melodrama reside quite comfortably in the film score. Judith A. Mabary's important volume will be of interest not only to musicologists, but those working in Central and East European studies, voice studies, European theatre, and those studying music and nationalism.

Four-Handed Monsters - Four-Hand Piano Playing and Nineteenth-Century Culture (Hardcover): Adrian Daub Four-Handed Monsters - Four-Hand Piano Playing and Nineteenth-Century Culture (Hardcover)
Adrian Daub
R966 Discovery Miles 9 660 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

In the course of the nineteenth century, four-hand piano playing emerged across Europe as a popular pastime of the well-heeled classes and of those looking to join them. Nary a canonic work of classical music that was not set for piano duo, nary a house that could afford not to invest in them. Duets echoed from the student bedsit to the Buckingham Palace, resounded in schools and in hundreds of thousands of bourgeois parlors. Like no other musical phenomenon it could cross national, social and economic boundaries, bringing together poor students with the daughters of the bourgeoisie, crowned heads with penniless virtuosi, and the nineteenth century often regarded it with extreme suspicion for that very reason. Four-hand piano playing was often understood as a socially acceptable way of flirting, a flurry of hands that made touching, often of men and women, not just acceptable but necessary. But it also became something far more serious than that, a central institution of the home, mediating between inside and outside, family and society, labor and leisure, nature and nurture. And writers, composers, musicians, philosophers, journalists, pamphleteers and painters took note: in the art, literature and philosophy of the age, four-hand playing emerged as a common motif, something that allowed them to interrogate the very nature of the self, the family, the community and the state. In the four hands rushing up and down the same keyboard the nineteenth century espied, or thought espy, an astonishing array of things. Four-Handed Monsters tells the story of that practice, but also the story of the astonishing array of things the nineteenth century read into it.

Muzio Clementi and British Musical Culture - Sources, Performance Practice and Style (Paperback): Luca Sala, Rohan Stewart... Muzio Clementi and British Musical Culture - Sources, Performance Practice and Style (Paperback)
Luca Sala, Rohan Stewart MacDonald
R1,407 Discovery Miles 14 070 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Recent scholarship has vanquished the traditional perception of nineteenth-century Britain as a musical wasteland. In addition to attempting more balanced assessments of the achievements of British composers of this period, scholars have begun to explore the web of reciprocal relationships between the societal, economic and cultural dynamics arising from the industrial revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and the ever-changing contours of British music publishing, music consumption, concert life, instrument design, performance practice, pedagogy and composition. Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) provides an ideal case-study for continued exploration of this web of relationships. Based in London for much of his life, whilst still maintaining contact with continental developments, Clementi achieved notable success in a diversity of activities that centred mainly on the piano. The present book explores Clementi's multivalent contribution to piano performance, pedagogy, composition and manufacture in relation to British musical life and its international dimensions. An overriding purpose is to interrogate when, how and to what extent a distinctive British musical culture emerged in the early nineteenth century. Much recent work on Clementi has centred on the Italian National Edition of his complete works (MiBACT); several chapters report on this project, whilst continuing to pursue the book's broader themes.

The Musical Life of Nineteenth-Century Belfast (Paperback): Roy Johnston The Musical Life of Nineteenth-Century Belfast (Paperback)
Roy Johnston
R1,407 Discovery Miles 14 070 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Roy Johnston and Declan Plummer provide a refreshing portrait of Belfast in the nineteenth century. Before his death Roy Johnston, had written a full draft, based on an impressive array of contemporary sources, with deep and detailed attention especially to contemporary newspapers. With the deft and sensitive contribution of Declan Plummer the finished book offers a telling view of Belfast's thriving musical life. Largely without the participation and example of local aristocracy, nobility and gentry, Belfast's musical society was formed largely by the townspeople themselves in the eighteenth century and by several instrumental and choral societies in the nineteenth century. As the town grew in size and developed an industrial character, its townspeople identified increasingly with the large industrial towns and cities of the British mainland. Efforts to place themselves on the principal touring circuit of the great nineteenth-century concert artists led them to build a concert hall not in emulation of Dublin but of the British industrial towns. Belfast audiences had experienced English opera in the eighteenth century, and in due course in the nineteenth century they found themselves receiving the touring opera companies, in theatres newly built to accommodate them. Through an energetic groundwork revision of contemporary sources, Johnston and Plummer reveal a picture of sustained vitality and development that justifies Belfast's prominent place the history of nineteenth-century musical culture in Ireland and more broadly in the British Isles.

The Music Profession in Britain, 1780-1920 - New Perspectives on Status and Identity (Paperback): Rosemary Golding The Music Profession in Britain, 1780-1920 - New Perspectives on Status and Identity (Paperback)
Rosemary Golding
R1,406 Discovery Miles 14 060 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Professionalisation was a key feature of the changing nature of work and society in the nineteenth century, with formal accreditation, registration and organisation becoming increasingly common. Trades and occupations sought protection and improved status via alignment with the professions: an attempt to impose order and standards amid rapid social change, urbanisation and technological development. The structures and expectations governing the music profession were no exception, and were central to changing perceptions of musicians and music itself during the long nineteenth century. The central themes of status and identity run throughout this book, charting ways in which the music profession engaged with its place in society. Contributors investigate the ways in which musicians viewed their own identities, public perceptions of the working musician, the statuses of different sectors of the profession and attempts to manipulate both status and identity. Ten chapters examine a range of sectors of the music profession, from publishers and performers to teachers and military musicians, and overall themes include class, gender and formal accreditation. The chapters demonstrate the wide range of sectors within the music profession, the different ways in which these took on status and identity, and the unique position of professional musicians both to adopt and to challenge social norms.

The Mystery of Chopin's Preludes (Paperback): Anatole Leikin The Mystery of Chopin's Preludes (Paperback)
Anatole Leikin
R1,401 Discovery Miles 14 010 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Chopin's twenty-four Preludes remain as mysterious today as when they were newly published. What prompted Franz Liszt and others to consider Chopin's Preludes to be compositions in their own right rather than introductions to other works? What did set Chopin's Preludes so drastically apart from their forerunners? What exactly was 'the morbid, the feverish, the repellent' that Schumann heard in Opus 28, in that 'wild motley' of 'strange sketches' and 'ruins'? Why did Liszt and another, anonymous, reviewer publicly suggest that Lamartine's poem Les Preludes served as an inspiration for Chopin's Opus 28? And, if that is indeed the case, how did the poem affect the structure and the thematic contents of Chopin's Preludes? And, lastly, is Opus 28 a random assortment of short pieces or a cohesive cycle? In this monograph, richly illustrated with musical examples, Anatole Leikin combines historical perspectives, hermeneutic and thematic analyses, and a range of practical implications for performers to explore these questions and illuminate the music of one of the best loved collections of music for the piano.

Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall - Between Private and Public Performance (Hardcover): Katy Hamilton, Natasha Loges Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall - Between Private and Public Performance (Hardcover)
Katy Hamilton, Natasha Loges
R3,175 Discovery Miles 31 750 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Johannes Brahms was a consummate professional musician, and a successful pianist, conductor, music director, editor and composer. Yet he also faithfully championed the world of private music-making, creating many works and arrangements for enjoyment in the home by amateurs. This collection explores Brahms' public and private musical identities from various angles: the original works he wrote with amateurs in mind; his approach to creating piano arrangements of not only his own, but also other composers' works; his relationships with his arrangers; the deeper symbolism and lasting legacy of private music-making in his day; and a hitherto unpublished memoir which evokes his Viennese social world. Using Brahms as their focus point, the contributors trace the overlapping worlds of public and private music-making in the nineteenth century, discussing the boundaries between the composer's professional identity and his lifelong engagement with amateur music-making.

Michael Costa: England's First Conductor - The Revolution in Musical Performance in England, 1830-1880 (Paperback): John... Michael Costa: England's First Conductor - The Revolution in Musical Performance in England, 1830-1880 (Paperback)
John Goulden
R1,587 Discovery Miles 15 870 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Among the major changes that swept through the music industry during the mid-nineteenth century, one that has received little attention is how musical performances were managed and directed. Yet this was arguably the most radical change of all: from a loose control shared between the violin-leader, musical director and maestro al cembalo to a system of tight and unified control under a professional conductor-manager. This process brought with it not only baton conducting in its modern form, but also higher standards of training and discipline, a new orchestral lay-out and a more focused rehearsal regime. The resulting rise in standards of performance was arguably the greatest achievement of English music in the otherwise rather barren mid-Victorian period. The key figure in this process was Michael Costa, who built for himself unprecedented contractual powers and used his awesome personal authority to impose reform on the three main institutions of mid-Victorian music: the opera houses, the Philharmonic and the Sacred Harmonic Society. He was a central figure in the battles between the two rival opera houses, between the Philharmonic and the New Philharmonic, and between the venerable Ancient Concerts and the mass festival events of the Sacred Harmonic Society. Costa's uniquely powerful position in the operatic, symphonic and choral world and the rapidity with which he was forgotten after his death provide a fascinating insight into the politics and changing aesthetics of the Victorian musical world.

Women and the Nineteenth-Century Lied (Paperback): Aisling Kenny, Susan Wollenberg Women and the Nineteenth-Century Lied (Paperback)
Aisling Kenny, Susan Wollenberg
R1,407 Discovery Miles 14 070 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This book bridges a gap in existing scholarship by foregrounding the contribution of women to the nineteenth-century Lied. Building on the pioneering work of scholars in recent years, it consolidates recent research on women's achievements in the genre, and develops an alternative narrative of the Lied that embraces an understanding of the contributions of women, and of the contexts of their engagement with German song and related genres. Lieder composers including Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Josephine Lang are considered with a stimulating variety of analytical approaches. In addition to the focus on composers associated with history and theory of the Lied, the various chapters explore the cultural and sociological background to the Lied's musical environment, as well as engaging with gender studies and discussing performance and pedagogical contexts. The range of subject matter reflects the interdisciplinary nature of current research in the field, and the energy it generates among scholars and performers. Women and the Nineteenth-Century Lied aims to widen readers' perception of the genre and help promote awareness of women's contribution to nineteenth-century musical life through critical appraisal of the cultural context of the Lied, encouraging acquaintance with the voices of women composers, and the variety of their contributions to the repertoire.

Chopin's Polish Ballade Op. 38 as Narrative of National Martyrdom (Hardcover): Jonathan Bellman Chopin's Polish Ballade Op. 38 as Narrative of National Martyrdom (Hardcover)
Jonathan Bellman
R1,717 Discovery Miles 17 170 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Chopin's Second Ballade, Op. 38 is frequently performed, and takes only seven or so minutes to play. Yet the work remains very poorly understood--disagreement prevails on issues from its tonic and two-key structure to its posited relationship with the poems of Adam Mickiewicz. Chopin's PolishBallade is a reexamination and close analysis of this famous work, revealing the Ballade as a piece with a powerful political story to tell.
Through the general musical styles and specific references in the Ballade, which use both operatic strategies and approaches developed in programmatic piano pieces for amateurs, author Jonathan Bellman traces a clear narrative thread to contemporary French operas. His careful historical exegesis of previously ignored musical and cultural contexts brings to light a host of new insights about this remarkable piece, which, as Bellman shows, reflects the cultural preoccupations of the Polish emigres in mid-1830s Paris, pining with bitter nostalgia for a homeland now under Russian domination. This vital connection to the extramusical culture of its day forms the basis for a plausible relationship with the nationalistic poetry of Mickiewicz. Chopin's Polish Ballade also solves the long-standing conundrum of the two extant versions of the Ballade, making an important point about the flexible notion of "work" that Chopin embraced."

Taffanel: Genius of the Flute (Hardcover): Edward Blakeman Taffanel: Genius of the Flute (Hardcover)
Edward Blakeman
R2,868 Discovery Miles 28 680 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

The French flute player and conductor Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) was an extraordinary virtuoso and a major figure in fin-de-siecle Parisian musical life. Based on a treasure trove of private documents of Taffanel's previously unpublished letters and papers, Taffanel: Genius of the Flute
recounts the rich story of his multi-faceted career as a player, conductor, composer, teacher, and leader of musical organizations.
As a player, Taffanel had a rare vision of the flute as a serious, expressive instrument and his name sits at the center of the extraordinary lineage of flutists. At a crucial moment in the flute's history -- after it had been completely remodeled by Theobald Boehm -- Taffanel had far-ranging
influence, creating the modern French school of playing which has since been widely adopted throughout the world, and re-establishing the instrument in the mainstream of music. Taffanel was also an inspiring teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, to whom many modern flutists can trace their roots.
Taffanel also pioneered a renaissance in playing and composing chamber music for wind instruments. He founded the Societe de musique de chambre pour instruments a vent (Society of Chamber Music for Wind Instruments) in 1879, reviving the wind ensemble music of Mozart and Beethoven, and stimulating
the composition of many new works, among them Gounod's Petite symphonie. The ensemble broke the dominance of piano and strings in recital and chamber music and fostered many of the canonic works in that repertoire.
Although foremost a flutist and teacher, Taffanel was also an important opera and orchestra conductor, virtually without rival in Paris. From 1890, he served as chiefconductor at the Paris Opera and the Society des concerts du Conservatoire (Paris Conservatory Orchestra) - the first time a flutist,
rather then a string player, had been appointed to such key positions. At the Opera he was charged with all new productions and gave notable French premieres of various Wagner operas and Verdi's Otello. At the Societe des concerts he championed contemporary French composers, particularly his great
friend Saint-Saens, and gave the world premiere of Verdi's Sacred Pieces.
Beyond his work as a performer, teacher and conductor, Taffanel was a fluent composer for the flute and wind quintet, a formidable administrator of several musical organizations, and was a major personality in Parisian musical life. Blakeman expertly places Taffanel's story in the rich political and
cultural backdrop of the time, evoking Conservatoire intrigues, the Societe des concerts, and Taffanel's relationships with various musicians and major composers. Blakeman details the circumstances surrounding landmark commissions, performances, and repertoire, and weaves the details from Taffanel's
correspondence with first-person interviews and flute lore. What emerges is a portrait of an all-round musician who was also a modest and genial man.

The Consolations of History: Themes of Progress and Potential in Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung (Hardcover): Alexander... The Consolations of History: Themes of Progress and Potential in Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung (Hardcover)
Alexander Shapiro
R3,563 Discovery Miles 35 630 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

In this book on Richard Wagner's compelling but enigmatic masterpiece Goetterdammerung, the final opera of his monumental Ring tetralogy, Alexander H. Shapiro advances an ambitious new interpretation which uncovers intriguing new facets to the work's profound insights into the human condition. By taking a fresh look at the philosophical and historical influences on Wagner, and critically reevaluating the composer's intellectual worldview as revealed in his own prose works, letters, and diary entries, the book challenges a number of conventional views that continue to impede a clear understanding of this work's meaning. The book argues that Goetterdammerung, and hence the Ring as a whole, achieves coherence when interpreted in terms of contemporary nineteenth-century theories of progress, and, in particular, G.W.F. Hegel's philosophies of mind and history. A central target of the book is the article of faith that has come to dominate Wagner scholarship over the years - that Wagner's encounter in 1854 with Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy conclusively altered the final message of the Ring from one of historical optimism to existential pessimism. The author contends that Schopenhauer's uncompromising denigration of the will and denial of the possibility for human progress find no place in the written text of the Ring or in a plausible reading of the final musical setting. In its place, the author discovers in the famous Immolation Scene a celebration of mankind's inexhaustible capacity for self-improvement and progress. The author makes the further compelling case that this message of progress is communicated not through Siegfried, the traditional male hero of the drama, but through Brunnhilde, the warrior goddess who becomes a mortal woman. In her role as a battle-tested world-historical prophet she is the true revolutionary change agent of Wagner's opera who has the strength and vision to comprehend and thereby shape human history. This highly lucid and accessible study is aimed not only at scholars and researchers in the fields of opera studies, music and philosophy, and music history, but also Wagner enthusiasts, and readers and students interested in the history and philosophy of the nineteenth century.

Federico Moreno Torroba - A Musical Life in Three Acts (Hardcover): Walter Aaron Clark, William Craig Krause Federico Moreno Torroba - A Musical Life in Three Acts (Hardcover)
Walter Aaron Clark, William Craig Krause
R1,513 Discovery Miles 15 130 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

The last of the Spanish Romantics, composer, conductor, and impresario Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982) left his mark on virtually every aspect of Spanish musical culture during a career which spanned six decades, and saw tremendous political and cultural upheavals. After Falla, he was the most important and influential musician: in addition to his creative activities, he was President of the General Society of Authors and Editors and director of the Academy of Fine Arts and Teatro Zarzuela. His enduring contributions as a composer include copious amounts of guitar music composed for Andres Segovia and several highly successful zarzuelas which remain in the repertoire today. Written by two leading experts in the field, Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life in Three Acts explores not only his life and work, but also the relationship of his music to the cultural milieu in which he moved. It sheds particular light on the relationship of Torroba's music and the cultural politics of Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1939-75). Torroba came of age in a cultural renaissance that sought to reassert Spain's position as a unique cultural entity, and authors Walter A. Clark and William Krause demonstrate how his work can be understood as a personal, musical response to these aspirations. Clark and Krause argue that Torroba's decision to remain in Spain even during the years of Franco's dictatorship was based primarily not on political ideology but rather on an unwillingness to leave his native soil. Rather than abandon Spain to participate in the dynamic musical life abroad, he continued to compose music that reflected his conservative view of his national and personal heritage. The authors contend that this pursuit did not necessitate allegiance to a particular regime, but rather to the non-political exaltation of Spain's so-called 'eternal tradition', or the culture and spirit that had endured throughout Spain's turbulent history. Following Franco's death in 1975, there was ambivalence towards figures like Torroba who had made their peace with the dictatorship and paid a heavy price in terms of their reputation among expatriates. Moreover, his very conservative musical style made him a target for the post-war avant-garde, which disdained his highly tonal and melodic espanolismo. With the demise of high modernism, however, the time has come for this new, more distanced assessment of Torroba's contributions. Richly illustrated with figures and music examples, and with a helpful discography for reference, this biography brings a fresh perspective on this influential composer to Latin American and Iberian music scholars, performers, and lovers of Spanish music alike.

The Late Romantic Era - Volume 7: From the Mid-19th Century to World War I (Hardcover): Jim Samson The Late Romantic Era - Volume 7: From the Mid-19th Century to World War I (Hardcover)
Jim Samson
R5,285 Discovery Miles 52 850 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Combining practitioner insight with academic background, this book offers a useful framework on retail strategy with unusual breadth and depth. It communicates contemporary retail thought from the perspectives of both senior international retailers and expert observers. It is structured around four sections: retailing in an international context; chapters from faculty at Templeton College in Oxford outlining the key issues with review questions, discussion topics, assignments and further reading; in-depth interviews with senior executives in the world's major retailers conducted by the Oxford Institute of Retail Management (each case is backed up by company and sector information to demonstrate the changing retail and global environment); and a summary and overview with further exercises assignments and recommended reading.The book is designed for both students and executives needing to understand the complexities of the latest global developments and thinking.

Harmony in Beethoven (Hardcover): David Damschroder Harmony in Beethoven (Hardcover)
David Damschroder
R3,238 Discovery Miles 32 380 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

David Damschroder's ongoing reformulation of harmonic theory continues with a dynamic exploration of how Beethoven molded and arranged chords to convey bold conceptions. This book's introductory chapters are organized in the manner of a nineteenth-century Harmonielehre, with individual considerations of the tonal system's key features illustrated by easy-to-comprehend block-chord examples derived from Beethoven's piano sonatas. In the masterworks section that follows, Damschroder presents detailed analyses of movements from the symphonies, piano and violin sonatas, and string quartets, and compares his outcomes with those of other analysts, including William E. Caplin, Robert Gauldin, Nicholas Marston, William J. Mitchell, Frank Samarotto, and Janet Schmalfeldt. Expanding upon analytical practices from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and strongly influenced by Schenkerian principles, this fresh perspective offers a stark contrast to conventional harmonic analysis - both in terms of how Roman numerals are deployed and how musical processes are described in words.

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