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Books > Music > Theory of music & musicology

The Clarinet (Hardcover): Jane Ellsworth The Clarinet (Hardcover)
Jane Ellsworth; Contributions by Julian Rushton, Eric Hoeprich, Albert Rice, Ingrid Pearson, …
R1,653 R1,467 Discovery Miles 14 670 Save R186 (11%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Offers unique perspectives on the clarinet's historical role in various styles, genres, and ensembles, from jazz and ethnic traditions to classical chamber music, concertos, opera, and symphony orchestras. With essays written by leading performer-scholars, The Clarinet offers unique perspectives on the clarinet's historical role in various styles, genres, and ensembles. Beginning with a chapter on clarinet iconography, the book continues with an overview of the instrument's early history, chapters on the clarinet in the opera orchestra and the traditional symphony orchestra, and examinations of important genres involving the clarinet (the concerto and the clarinet quintet). Also included are chapters on leading twentieth-century clarinetists, the instrument's use in the historically informed performance (HIP) movement, and an expansive look at the clarinet's use in ethnic traditions and early jazz. The emphasis on topics not covered elsewhere makes this book an important contribution to the clarinet literature. Written in an accessible style, this volume engages a wide range of readers, from professional musicians to clarinet aficionados and music lovers with less specialized knowledge. Contributors to this volume include Jane Ellsworth, Eric Hoeprich, Albert R. Rice, Ingrid Pearson, Julian Rushton, David Schneider, Marie Sumner Lott, Colin Lawson, and S. Frederick Starr.

The Digital Songstream - Mastering the World of Digital Music (Hardcover): Brad Hill The Digital Songstream - Mastering the World of Digital Music (Hardcover)
Brad Hill
R5,497 Discovery Miles 54 970 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This is the ultimate guide to the new digital world of music. Cutting through myths, it offers a step-by-step introduction to what's possible for performers, composers, and listeners-addressing legal and ethical issues as well as the nuts and bolts of what equipment to buy and what services are available. Written in a friendly, easy-to-understand way, this book will be the first and only reference needed for anyone wishing to enter the world of computer music.

Jazz Theory and Practice (Book): Richard Lawn, Jeffrey L. Hellmer Jazz Theory and Practice (Book)
Richard Lawn, Jeffrey L. Hellmer
R1,055 R871 Discovery Miles 8 710 Save R184 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Jazz Theory and Practice is the most modern introduction to jazz theory ever published. Rich with examples from the repertoire, it gives performers, arrangers and composers an in-depth and practical knowledge of the theoretical foundations of jazz. A CD-ROM is also available, providing supplemental exercises for ear-training and sight-reading practice, as well as tutorials that correspond to topics and examples in the text.

A Musicology for Landscape (Hardcover): David Nicholas Buck A Musicology for Landscape (Hardcover)
David Nicholas Buck
R4,142 Discovery Miles 41 420 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Drawing conceptually and directly on music notation, this book investigates landscape architecture's inherent temporality. It argues that the rich history of notating time in music provides a critical model for this under-researched and under-theorised aspect of landscape architecture, while also ennobling sound in the sensory appreciation of landscape. A Musicology for Landscape makes available to a wider landscape architecture and urban design audience the works of three influential composers - Morton Feldman, Gyoergy Ligeti and Michael Finnissy - presenting a critical evaluation of their work within music, as well as a means in which it might be used in design research. Each of the musical scores is juxtaposed with design representations by Kevin Appleyard, Bernard Tschumi and William Kent, before the author examines four landscape spaces through the development of new landscape architectural notations. In doing so, this work offers valuable insights into the methods used by landscape architects for the benefit of musicians, and by bringing together musical composition and landscape architecture through notation, it affords a focused and sensitive exploration of temporality and sound in both fields.

Mozart's Piano Concertos (Paperback): John Irving Mozart's Piano Concertos (Paperback)
John Irving
R1,599 Discovery Miles 15 990 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Mozart's piano concertos stand alongside his operas and symphonies as his most frequently performed and best loved music. They have attracted the attention of generations of musicologists who have explored their manifold meanings from a variety of viewpoints. In this study, John Irving brings together the various strands of scholarship surrounding Mozart's concertos including analytical approaches, aspects of performance practice and issues of compositional genesis based on investigation of manuscript and early printed editions. Treating the concertos collectively as a repertoire, rather than as individual works, the first section of the book tackles broad thematic issues such as the role of the piano concerto in Mozart's quasi-freelance life in late eighteenth-century Vienna, the origin of his concertos in earlier traditions of concerto writing; eighteenth-century theoretical frameworks for the understanding of movement forms, subsequent historical shifts in the perception of the concerto's form, listening strategies and performance practices. This is followed by a 'documentary register' which proceeds through all 23 original works, drawing together information on the source materials. Accounts of the concertos' compositional genesis, early performance history and reception are also included here, drawing extensively on the Mozart family correspondence and other contemporary reports. Drawing together and synthesizing this wealth of material, Irving provides an invaluable reference source for those already familiar with this repertoire.

A Musicology for Landscape (Paperback): David Nicholas Buck A Musicology for Landscape (Paperback)
David Nicholas Buck
R1,726 Discovery Miles 17 260 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Drawing conceptually and directly on music notation, this book investigates landscape architecture's inherent temporality. It argues that the rich history of notating time in music provides a critical model for this under-researched and under-theorised aspect of landscape architecture, while also ennobling sound in the sensory appreciation of landscape. A Musicology for Landscape makes available to a wider landscape architecture and urban design audience the works of three influential composers - Morton Feldman, Gyoergy Ligeti and Michael Finnissy - presenting a critical evaluation of their work within music, as well as a means in which it might be used in design research. Each of the musical scores is juxtaposed with design representations by Kevin Appleyard, Bernard Tschumi and William Kent, before the author examines four landscape spaces through the development of new landscape architectural notations. In doing so, this work offers valuable insights into the methods used by landscape architects for the benefit of musicians, and by bringing together musical composition and landscape architecture through notation, it affords a focused and sensitive exploration of temporality and sound in both fields.

The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction (Hardcover): Micheline Lesaffre, Pieter-Jan Maes, Marc Leman The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction (Hardcover)
Micheline Lesaffre, Pieter-Jan Maes, Marc Leman
R6,572 Discovery Miles 65 720 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction captures a new paradigm in the study of music interaction, as a wave of recent research focuses on the role of the human body in musical experiences. This volume brings together a broad collection of work that explores all aspects of this new approach to understanding how we interact with music, addressing the issues that have roused the curiosities of scientists for ages: to understand the complex and multi-faceted way in which music manifests itself not just as sound but also as a variety of cultural styles, not just as experience but also as awareness of that experience. With contributions from an interdisciplinary and international array of scholars, including both empirical and theoretical perspectives, the Companion explores an equally impressive array of topics, including: Dynamical music interaction theories and concepts Expressive gestural interaction Social music interaction Sociological and anthropological approaches Empowering health and well-being Modeling music interaction Music-based interaction technologies and applications This book is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand human interaction with music from an embodied perspective.

The Creation of Beethoven's 35 Piano Sonatas (Hardcover): Barry. Cooper The Creation of Beethoven's 35 Piano Sonatas (Hardcover)
Barry. Cooper
R4,137 Discovery Miles 41 370 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Beethoven's piano sonatas are a cornerstone of the piano repertoire and favourites of both the concert hall and recording studio. The sonatas have been the subject of much scholarship, but no single study gives an adequate account of the processes by which these sonatas were composed and published. With source materials such as sketches and correspondence increasingly available, the time is ripe for a close study of the history of these works. Barry Cooper, who in 2007 produced a new edition of all 35 sonatas, including three that are often overlooked, examines each sonata in turn, addressing questions such as: Why were they written? Why did they turn out as they did? How did they come into being and how did they reach their final form? Drawing on the composer's sketches, autograph scores and early printed editions, as well as contextual material such as correspondence, Cooper explores the links between the notes and symbols found in the musical texts of the sonatas, and the environment that brought them about. The result is a biography not of the composer, but of the works themselves.

Country Music - An Illustrated History (Hardcover): Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns Country Music - An Illustrated History (Hardcover)
Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
R741 Discovery Miles 7 410 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Robert Saxton: Caritas (Paperback): Wyndham Thomas Robert Saxton: Caritas (Paperback)
Wyndham Thomas
R1,412 Discovery Miles 14 120 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Caritas relates the 'true', yet largely undocumented story of Christine Carpenter, a 14th-century anchoress who moves towards insanity as her desire for a divine revelation continues to be unfulfilled after a period of three years locked in her cell. Although physically isolated, she is aware of the worldly life and love that she has abandoned. The very essence of the drama is the dogmatic refusal of her Bishop to release her from her vows. Set against the backcloth of the Peasants' Uprising (1381), the libretto/play juxtaposes sacred and secular worlds, the relative power and servitude of rulers and serfs, and the terrifying ordeal of Christine who is caught between the inflexibility of the established church and her personal religious expectations. Such a narrative was to offer rich opportunities for musical characterization and evocation of the historical context of the action, as well as substantial challenges in pacing and integrating the sequence of dramatic 'snap-shots' that culminate in a scene of total despair. The colourful juxtaposition of secular life and that of a recluse in Act One culminates in a Second Act finale of immense dramatic power in which Saxton's vocal and instrumental writing reaches new heights - a landmark both in his output and in late 20th century opera. Caritas - first performed in 1991 - occupies an important position in Robert Saxton's output and, as Thomas argues, in British opera during the closing decades of the 20th century. Thomas provides a detailed contextual setting in which to evaluate Caritas, as well as presenting an analytical commentary on the structure, musical language, instrumentation, staging and production of the opera. Thomas concludes with a reflection on the reception of Caritas as well as looking forward to Saxton's later and future works. A downloadable resource of the first performance is included.

Claiming Wagner for France - Music and Politics in the Parisian Press, 1933-1944 (Hardcover): Rachel Orzech Claiming Wagner for France - Music and Politics in the Parisian Press, 1933-1944 (Hardcover)
Rachel Orzech
R2,788 Discovery Miles 27 880 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

A pathbreaking study of the Parisian press's attempts to claim Richard Wagner's place in French history and imagination during the unstable and conflict-ridden years of the Third Reich. Richard Wagner was a polarizing figure in France from the time that he first entered French musical life in the mid nineteenth century. Critics employed him to symbolize everything from democratic revolution to authoritarian antisemitism. During periods of Franco-German conflict, such as the Franco-Prussian War and World War I, Wagner was associated in France with German nationalism and chauvinism. This association has led to the assumption that, with the advent of the Third Reich, the French once again rejected Wagner. Drawing on hundreds of press sources and employing close readings, this book seeks to explain a paradox: as the German threat grew more tangible from 1933, the Parisian press insisted on seeing in Wagner a universality that transcended his Germanness. Repudiating the notion that Wagner stood for Germany, French critics attempted to reclaim his role in their own national history and imagination. Claiming Wagner for France: Music and Politics in the Parisian Press, 1933-1944 reveals how the concept of a universal Wagner, which was used to challenge the Nazis in the 1930s, was gradually transformed into the infamous collaborationist rhetoric promoted by the Vichy government and exploited by the Nazis between 1940 and 1944. Rachel Orzech's study offers a close examination of Wagner's place in France's cultural landscape at this time, contributing to our understanding of how the French grappled with one of the most challenging periods in their history.

John Cage's Theatre Pieces - Notations and Performances (Paperback): William Fetterman John Cage's Theatre Pieces - Notations and Performances (Paperback)
William Fetterman
R1,161 Discovery Miles 11 610 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992) is best known for his works in percussion, prepared piano and electronic music, but he is also acknowledged to be one of the most significant figures in 20th century theatre. In Cage's theatre composition there is a blurring of the distinctions between music, dance, literature, art and everyday life. Here, William Fetterman examines the majority of those compositions by Cage which are audial as well as visual in content, beginning with his first work in this genre in 1952 and continuing through to 1992. Information for this study has come from material discovered among the unpublished scores and notes of Cage and his frequent collaborator David Tudor, as well as the author's interviews with Cage and individuals associated with his work, including Merce Cunningham, Bonnie Bird, Caroline Richards, and Ellsworth Snyder. The book also contains notation and illustrations of performances of Cage's work.

Becoming Clara Schumann - Performance Strategies and Aesthetics in the Culture of the Musical Canon (Paperback): Alexander... Becoming Clara Schumann - Performance Strategies and Aesthetics in the Culture of the Musical Canon (Paperback)
Alexander Stefaniak
R515 Discovery Miles 5 150 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Well before she married Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann was already an internationally renowned pianist, and she concertized extensively for several decades after her husband's death. Despite being tied professionally to Robert, Clara forged her own career and played an important role in forming what we now recognize as the culture of classical music. Becoming Clara Schumann guides readers through her entire career, including performance, composition, edits to her husband's music, and teaching. Alexander Stefaniak brings together the full run of Schumann's concert programs, detailed accounts of her performances and reception, and other previously unexplored primary source material to illuminate how she positioned herself within larger currents in concert life and musical aesthetics. He reveals that she was an accomplished strategist, having played roughly 1,300 concerts across western and central Europe over the course of her six-decade career, and she shaped the canonization of her husband's music. Extraordinary for her time, Schumann earned success and prestige by crafting her own playing style, selecting and composing her own concerts, and acting as her own manager. By highlighting Schumann's navigation of her musical culture's gendered boundaries, Becoming Clara Schumann details how she cultivated her public image in order to win over audiences and embody some of her field's most ambitious aspirations for musical performance.

The Creative Worlds of Joseph Joachim (Hardcover): Valerie Woodring Goertzen, Robert Whitehouse Eshbach The Creative Worlds of Joseph Joachim (Hardcover)
Valerie Woodring Goertzen, Robert Whitehouse Eshbach; Contributions by Styra Avins, Beatrix Borchard, Kimberly Crow, …
R2,476 Discovery Miles 24 760 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Examines Joseph Joachim's vital legacy through a range of philological, philosophical and critical approaches. Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), violinist, composer, teacher, and founding director of Berlin's Royal Academy of Music, was one of the most eminent and influential musicians of the long nineteenth century. Born in a tiny Jewish community on the Austro-Hungarian border, he rose to a position of unsurpassed prominence in European cultural life. This timely collection of essays explores important yet little-known aspects of Joachim's life and art. Studies of his Jewish background, early assimilation into Christian society, Felix Mendelssohn's mentorship, and the influence of Hungarian vernacular music on the formation of his musical style elucidate the roots of Joachim's identity. The later chapters focus on his personal and creative responses to the contentious and rapidly evolving cultural milieu in which he lived: his choice of instruments as his musical "voice," his performances as sites of (re)enchantment in the modern age, his pathbreaking British career, his calling and sway as a quartet player, his pedagogical legacy, his influence on the establishment of the musical canon, and several of his most distinctive and original compositions. With a wide variety of approaches-analytical, philological, archival, philosophical, and critical-this collection will prove enlightening to scholars, performers, and others interested in this brilliant artist and the musical aesthetics, culture, and styles of his time.

Alan Bush, Modern Music, and the Cold War - The Cultural Left in Britain and the Communist Bloc (Paperback): Joanna Bullivant Alan Bush, Modern Music, and the Cold War - The Cultural Left in Britain and the Communist Bloc (Paperback)
Joanna Bullivant
R758 Discovery Miles 7 580 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The first major study of Alan Bush, this book provides new perspectives on twentieth-century music and communism. British communist, composer of politicised works, and friend of Soviet musicians, Bush proved to be 'a lightning rod' in the national musical culture. His radical vision for British music prompted serious reflections on aesthetics and the rights of artists to private political opinions, as well as influencing the development of state-sponsored music making in East Germany. Rejecting previous characterisations of Bush as political and musical Other, Joanna Bullivant traces his aesthetic project from its origins in the 1920s to its collapse in the 1970s, incorporating discussion of modernism, political song, music theory, opera, and Bush's response to the Soviet music crisis of 1948. Drawing on a wealth of archival sources, including recently released documents from MI5, this book constructs new perspectives on the 'cultural Cold War' through the lens of the individual artist.

Musical Knowledge - Intuition, analysis and music education (Paperback, New): Prof Keith Swanwick, Keith Swanwick Musical Knowledge - Intuition, analysis and music education (Paperback, New)
Prof Keith Swanwick, Keith Swanwick
R1,377 Discovery Miles 13 770 Ships in 12 - 17 working days


The understanding of music involves the mastery of its various layers of meaning. Sometimes this meaning can be acquired through human insight; at other times it can be learned.
The central concern of Musical Knowledge is the tension between intuitive and analytical ways of making sense of the world. A theoretical exploration of musical knowledge leads to an examination of ways of researching the musical experience. Keith Swanwick concludes with a section which will be of direct practical help to teachers. He suggests ways in which music education can be a vital transaction, giving examples across a range of music teaching, including school classroom and instrumental studios. The book will be of interest to anyone who makes or responds to music.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203424573

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Zeitma (Hardcover): Jerome Kohl Karlheinz Stockhausen: Zeitma (Hardcover)
Jerome Kohl
R4,427 Discovery Miles 44 270 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Zeitmasse is one of a group of four acknowledged masterpieces composed between 1955 and 1957 that together established Karlheinz Stockhausen as the leading figure in the European avant-garde. Of the four works, it is the only one that has not been thoroughly analysed from the composer's sketches and, for this reason, remains the least-well understood. In this volume, Jerome Kohl provides a much-needed analysis of Zeitmasse, considering its standing in the group and in the wider context of Stockhausen's output. Using recently published correspondence and other documentation from the period, together with surviving sketch material, Kohl investigates the compositional procedures employed in Zeitmasse and their evolution. He discusses the wide range of influences discernible in the work, from that of both past generations of composers and contemporaries, to the impact of Stockhausen's studies in acoustics, phonetics and information theory on his music. The book closes with an examination of the reception of Zeitmasse and its associated concepts in the years following its composition, and shows how the key concepts utilized in the work are themselves a reflection of the properties seen in the very Zeitgeist that produced them.

Free Jazz, Harmolodics, and Ornette Coleman (Hardcover): Stephen Rush Free Jazz, Harmolodics, and Ornette Coleman (Hardcover)
Stephen Rush
R4,170 Discovery Miles 41 700 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Free Jazz, Harmolodics, and Ornette Coleman discusses Ornette Coleman's musical philosophy of "Harmolodics," an improvisational system deeply inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. Falling under the guise of "free jazz," Harmolodics can be difficult to understand, even for seasoned musicians and musicologists. Yet this book offers a clear and thorough approach to these complex methods, outlining Coleman's position as the developer of a logical-and historically significant-system of jazz improvisation. Included here are detailed musical analyses of improvisations, accompanied by full transcriptions. Intimate interviews between the author and Coleman explore the deeper issues at work in Harmolodics, issues of race, class, sex, and poverty. The principle of human equality quickly emerges as a central tenet of Coleman's life and music. Harmolodics is best understood when viewed in its essential form, both as a theory of improvisation and as an artistic expression of racial and human equality.

Lost in the Grooves - Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed (Hardcover): Kim Cooper, David Smay Lost in the Grooves - Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed (Hardcover)
Kim Cooper, David Smay
R4,154 Discovery Miles 41 540 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Do you remember these great pop stars and their hits? Deerhoof's The Man, The King, The Girl Butch Hancock's West Texas Waltzes and Dust Blown Tractor Tunes, Swamp Dogg's Cuffed, Collared and Tagged, Michael Head's TheMagical World Of The Strands, John Trubee's TheCommunists Are Coming to Kill Us, John Phillips's WolfKing of L.A., and Michel Magne's Moshe MouseCrucifiction?You will when you read Lost in theGrooves, a fascinating guide to the back alleys off the pop music superhighway. Pop music history is full of little-known musicians, whose work stands defiantly alone, too quirky, distinctive, or demented to appeal to a mass audience. This book explores the nooks and crannies of the pop music world, unearthing lost gems from should-have-been major artists (Sugarpie DeSanto, Judee Sill), revisiting lesser known works by established icons (Marvin Gaye's post-divorce kissoff album, Here MyDear; The Ramones' Subterranean Jungle), and spotlighting musicians who simply don't fit into neat categories (k. mccarty, Exuma). The book's encyclopedic alphabetical structure throws off strange sparks as disparate genres and eras rub against each other: folk-psych iconoclasts face louche pop crooners; outsider artists set their odd masterpieces down next to obscurities from the stars; lo-fi garage rock cuddles up with the French avant-garde; and roots rock weirdoes trip over bubblegum. This book will delight any jukebox junkie or pop culture fan.

Olivier Messiaen's System of Signs - Notes Towards Understanding His Music (Paperback): Andrew Shenton Olivier Messiaen's System of Signs - Notes Towards Understanding His Music (Paperback)
Andrew Shenton
R1,592 Discovery Miles 15 920 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Andrew Shenton's groundbreaking cross-disciplinary approach to Messiaen's music presents a systematic and detailed examination of the compositional techniques of one of the most significant musicians of the twentieth century as they relate to his desire to express profound truths about Catholicism. It is widely accepted that music can have mystical and transformative powers, but because 'pure' music has no programme, Messiaen sought to refine his compositions to speak more clearly about the truths of the Catholic faith by developing a sophisticated semiotic system in which aspects of music become direct signs for words and concepts. Using interdisciplinary methodologies drawing on linguistics, cognition studies, theological studies and semiotics, Shenton traces the development of Messiaen's sign system using examples from many of Messiaen's works and concentrating in particular on the Meditations sur le mystere de la Sainte Trinite for organ, a suite which contains the most sophisticated and developed use of a sign system and represents a profound exegesis of Messiaen's understanding of the Catholic triune God. By working on issues of interpretation, Shenton endeavours to bridge the traditional gap between scholars and performers and to help people listen to Messiaen's music with spirit and understanding.

Music Writing Literature, from Sand via Debussy to Derrida (Paperback): Peter Dayan Music Writing Literature, from Sand via Debussy to Derrida (Paperback)
Peter Dayan
R1,592 Discovery Miles 15 920 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Why does poetry appeal to music? Can music be said to communicate, as language does? What, between music and poetry, is it possible to translate? These fundamental questions have remained obstinately difficult, despite the recent burgeoning of word and music studies. Peter Dayan contends that the reasons for this difficulty were worked out with extraordinary rigour and consistency in a French literary tradition, echoed by composers such as Berlioz and Debussy, which stretches from Sand to Derrida. Their writing shows how it is both necessary and futile to look for music in poetry, or for poetry in music: necessary, because each art defines itself by reference to what it is not, and cannot be, in order to point to an idealized totality outside itself; futile, because the musicality of poetry, like the poetic meaning of music, must remain as elusive as that idealized totality; its distance is the very condition of the art. Thus is generated a subtle but unmistakable general definition of the nature of art which has proved uniquely able to survive all the probings of poststructuralism. That definition of art is inseparable from a disturbingly effective scepticism towards all forms of explication and explanation in critical discourse, so it is doubtless not surprising that critics in general have done their best to ignore it. But by bringing out what Sand, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Proust, Debussy, Berlioz, Barthes, and Derrida all do in the same way as they work on the limits of the analogy between music and literature, this book shows how it is possible, productive, illuminating, and fascinating to work on those limits; though to do so, as we find repeatedly, in Chopin's dreams as in Derrida's 'tombeaux', requires us to have the courage to face, in music, our literal death, and the limits of our intelligence.

James McNeill Whistler and France - A Dialogue in Paint, Poetry, and Music (Hardcover): Suzanne Singletary James McNeill Whistler and France - A Dialogue in Paint, Poetry, and Music (Hardcover)
Suzanne Singletary
R4,453 Discovery Miles 44 530 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

James McNeill Whistler and France: A Dialogue in Paint, Poetry, and Music is the first full-length and in-depth study to position this painter within the overall trajectory of French modernism during the second half of the nineteenth century and to view the artist as integral to the aesthetic projects of its most original contributors. Suzanne M. Singletary maintains that Whistler was in a unique situation as an insider within the emerging French avant-garde, thereby in an enviable position to both absorb and transform the innovations of others - and that until now, his widespread influence as a catalyst among his colleagues has been neither investigated nor appreciated. Singletary contends that Whistler's importance rivals that of Manet, whose multi-layered (and often unexpected) interconnections with Whistler are the focus of one chapter. In addition, Whistler's pivotal role in linking the legacies of Baudelaire, Delacroix, Gautier, Wagner, and other mid-century innovators to the later French Symbolists has previously been largely ignored. Courbet, Degas, Monet, and Seurat complete the roster of French artists whose dialogue with Whistler is highlighted.

Dimensions of Energy in Shostakovich's Symphonies (Paperback): Michael Rofe Dimensions of Energy in Shostakovich's Symphonies (Paperback)
Michael Rofe
R1,711 Discovery Miles 17 110 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Shostakovich's music is often described as being dynamic, energetic. But what is meant by 'energy' in music? After setting out a broad conceptual framework for approaching this question, Michael Rofe proposes various potential sources of the perceived energy in Shostakovich's symphonies, describing also the historical significance of energeticist thought in Soviet Russia during the composer's formative years. The book is in two parts. In Part I, examples are drawn from across the symphonies in order to demonstrate energy streams within various musical dimensions. Three broad approaches are adopted: first, the theories of Boleslav Yavorsky are used to consider melodic-harmonic motion; second, Boris Asafiev's work, with its echoes of Ernst Kurth, is used to describe form as a dynamic process; and third, proportional analysis reveals numerous symmetries and golden sections within local and large-scale temporal structures. In Part II, the multi-dimensionality of musical energy is considered through case studies of individual movements from the symphonies. This in turn gives rise to broader contextualised perspectives on Shostakovich's work. The book ends with a detailed examination of why a piece of music might contain golden sections.

Jumping to Conclusions: The Falling-Third Cadences in Chant, Polyphony, and Recitative (Paperback): Richard Hudson Jumping to Conclusions: The Falling-Third Cadences in Chant, Polyphony, and Recitative (Paperback)
Richard Hudson
R1,592 Discovery Miles 15 920 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book concerns the cadences which reach their conclusion by jumping from scale degree 3 down to 1 or to 1-7-1. The chronological history commences in Gregorian Chant, where the falling third is often preceded by scale degree 4, forming the striking figure 4-3-1. The cadences move, along with the borrowed chant melodies, into the polyphony of the late 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Here, melodic figures with the shape of 4-3-1, but on any scale degree, become a significant element of style. At cadence the unbroken melodic progression 4-3-1-7-1 may lie entirely in the upper voice, or 4-3-1 may occur in a lower voice followed by 7-1 in the upper. The general effect of the falling third changes as the surrounding musical elements change and as polyphony itself evolves through time. The cadences are reborn in recitative, first in an unbroken form with 4-3-1-7-1 in the voice, later in a broken form with 4-3-1 in the voice, 7-1 in the instrumental continuo part. Many evolving rhythmic, harmonic, melodic, and other elements are important in the cadences, but two are especially significant, for they lead to difficult problems for later performers. These concern (1) the structure in which the accompaniment's V chord is notated directly below the voice's first or single scale degree 1, and (2) the possibility of an appoggiatura on scale degree 2 between the two notes of the falling third. The book suggests some new and unexpected solutions to both these problems and concludes with a brief history of the 4-3-1 figure. The book includes many musical examples by composers such as Dunstable, Dufay, Josquin, Palestrina, A. Scarlatti, J.S. Bach, Handel, Telemann, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Rossini.

Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich - A Theory of Musical Incongruities (Paperback): Esti... Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich - A Theory of Musical Incongruities (Paperback)
Esti Sheinberg
R1,472 Discovery Miles 14 720 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The music of Shostakovich has been at the centre of interest of both the general public and dedicated scholars throughout the last twenty years. Most of the relevant literature, however, is of a biographical nature. The focus of this book is musical irony. It offers new methodologies for the semiotic analysis of music, and inspects the ironical messages in Shostakovich's music independently of political and biographical bias. Its approach to music is interdisciplinary, comparing musical devices with the artistic principles and literary analyses of satire, irony, parody and the grotesque. Each one of these is firstly inspected and defined as a separate subject, independent of music. The results of these inspections are subsequently applied to music, firstly music in general and then more specifically to the music of Shostakovich. The composer's cultural and historical milieux are taken into account and, where relevant, inspected and analysed separately before their application to the music.

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Alan Riding, Leslie Dunton-Downer Hardcover R1,576 R1,306 Discovery Miles 13 060

 

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