This collection of essays offers a historical reappraisal of what musical modernism was, and what its potential for the present and future could be. It thus moves away from the binary oppositions that have beset twentieth-century music studies in the past, such as those between modernism and postmodernism, between conceptions of musical autonomy and of cultural contingency and between formalist-analytical and cultural-historical approaches. Focussing particularly on music from the 1970s to the 1990s, the volume assembles approaches from different perspectives to new music with a particular emphasis on a critical reassessment of the meaning and function of the legacy of musical modernism. The authors include scholars, musicologists and composers who combine culturally, socially, historically and aesthetically oriented approaches with analytical methods in imaginative ways.

Schumann's Late Style is the first study in English devoted to Robert Schumann's little-known music from the 1850s. The reason most often given for these works having been considered lesser achievements than the earlier song and piano cycles is that Schumann's mental illness had a detrimental effect on his compositions. However, this study demonstrates that there were several other, still more complex, reasons why the music from the 1850s sounded different. Schumann had started to compose 'in a new manner', depending more on preliminary sketches; he also began to write for larger forces (orchestra and chorus), which required a more 'public' style of music, as is also apparent in his works on nationalist themes, and in his more commercial pieces for children. This book thus attempts to disentangle assumptions about Schumann's late style from biographical interpretations, and to consider it in broader artistic, social and cultural contexts.

The role of natural magic in the rise of seventeenth-century experimental science has been the subject of lively controversy for several decades. Now Penelope Gouk introduces a new element into the debate: how music mediated between these two domains. Arguing that changing musical practice in sixteenth-century Europe affected seventeenth-century English thought on science and magic, she maps the various relationships among these apparently separate disciplines. Gouk explores these relationships in several ways. She adopts the methods of social geography to discuss the disciplinary, social, and intellectual overlapping of music, science, and natural magic. She gives a historical account of the emergence of acoustics in English science, the harmonically based physics of Robert Hooke, and the position of harmonics within Newton's transformation of natural philosophy. And she provides a gallery of images in which contemporary representations of instruments, practices, and concepts demonstrate the way in which musical models informed and transformed those of natural philosophy. Gouk shows that as the "occult" features of music became subject to the new science of experimentation, and as their causes became evident, so natural magic was pushed outside the realms of scientific discourse.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The widely held belief that Beethoven was a rough pianist, impatient with his instruments, is not altogether accurate: it is influenced by anecdotes dating from when deafness had begun to impair his playing. Presenting a new, detailed biography of Beethoven's formative years, this book reviews the composer's early career, outlining how he was influenced by teachers, theorists and instruments. Skowroneck describes the development and decline of Beethoven's pianism, and pays special attention to early pianos, their construction and their importance for Beethoven and the modern pianist. The book also includes new discussions of legato and Beethoven's trills, and a complete annotated review of eyewitnesses' reports about his playing. Skowroneck presents a revised picture of Beethoven which traces his development from an impetuous young musician into a virtuoso in command of many musical resources.

This, the second edition, was significantly revised and expanded. It incorporates a substantial amount of new material - notably three sections on the operas Hugh the Drover, Sir John in Love and The Poisoned Kiss. Also Wilfrid inserted into the final chapter A Double Man's Last Harvest, an account of the late A minor sonata for violin and piano.

An annotated reference guide to Barber's life, works and achievements, it will prove valuable for anyone seeking information on him.

This revised edition of the standard catalogue of the music and writings of Ralph Vaughan Williams includes all known published and unpublished works, with full details of instrumentation, revisions, and first performances. There is much new information on the location of manuscripts and sketches, and there are many corrections to the information and dates given in the existing text. The volume includes a bibliography of the literary works of Vaughan Williams compiled by Peter Starbuck, and an appendix of folk songs collected by the composer. The indexes have been completely updated.

The fourth volume in the Greenwood series providing a near-definitive survey on the output of sound recordings made in Europe by The Gramophone Company (1900-1929), this work covers the Dutch area and includes a good deal of Belgian material as well. Included in the contents are examples of the work from serious artists in classical music together with popular and comic songs and social comment dealing with an era that has nearly passed out of the range of living memory. Of interest to record collectors, music archivists, reference librarians, and music and social historians.

The Gramophone Company was the major producer of sound recordings from 1900 to 1929, besides having a virtual monopoly of the major talents. It was organized into ten geographical/ethnic divisions. Four of these areas have had discographies published on them; Kelly's previous Greenwood volumes cover Italy, France, and Germany. The fourth, on Scandinavia, was published by another company.

Covers the life and works of classical music composer, Peter Schickele, who is probably best known for his humorous alter ego, P.D.Q. Bach. Schickele has walked the line between a professional composer and musical satirist for over 35 years, and his compositions have reached into virtually every genre of music from jazz to rock to folk to movie music and to classical. The major influences in his career include his love of the theater, Spike Jones, and a philosophy that no genre of music is inherently inferior. Schickele was consulted during the compilation of this volume, therefore, much of the date and premier information comes from his own resources. This volume contains a brief biography of Peter Schickele and a detailed list of his Works and Performances, a discography, a bibliography, an alphabetical index, a chronology, and a name index. Scholars who study humor in music and 21st century American composers will now have a comprehensive sourcebook on Peter Schickele and his works.

Liszt's Dante Symphony is a thrilling tale of murder and covert spy rings amid the turbulent rise of Bismarck's Prussia, thus leading to Hitler's brutal Third Reich. Following the lives of a student of Liszt's, Angelo Di Purezza, and his son, the reader is taken on a journey of suspense that cascades over two generations. During those years Europe would experience numerous revolutions and witness two World Wars that would feature ghastly chemical weapons, atomic bombs, and deadly poison gas called Zyklon-B. Franz Liszt is joined by a huge cast of historical characters, including Napoleon III, Pope Pius IX, Rossini, Saint-Saens, Gustave Dore, Victor Hugo, Albert Einstein, Adolf Hitler and many others. The tale is an exciting amalgamation of history, politics, religion, music, the fine arts, secret codes, murder, suspense, sacrifices, and yes, even romance.

In 1947 the theologian and musicologist Friedrich Smend published a study which claimed that J. S. Bach regularly employed the natural-order number alphabet (A=1 to Z=24) in his works. Smend provided historical evidence and music examples to support his theory which demonstrated that by this means Bach incorporated significant words into his music, and provided himself with a symbolic compositional scheme. Since then many people have taken up Smend’s theory, interpreting numbers of bars and notes in Bach scores according to the natural-order alphabet. By presenting a thorough survey of different number alphabets and their uses in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Germany, Dr Tatlow investigates the plausibility of Smend’s claims. Her new evidence fundamentally challenges Smend’s conclusions and the book sounds a note of caution to all who continue to use his number-alphabet theory. Dr Tatlow’s painstaking research will fascinate all those with an interest in the music of J. S. Bach and German Baroque culture, and will be of particular importance for music historians and analysts.

This is a facsimile of the first edition, printed for the Author, in Edinburgh in 1721.

Experimentations provides a detailed historical and theoretical analysis of the first three decades of experimental composer John Cage's aesthetic production (ca. 1940-1972). Paying particular attention to Cage's inter- and cross-disciplinary engagements with the visual arts and architecture during this period, the book sheds new light on some of Cage's most controversial and influential innovations, such as the use of noise, chance techniques, indeterminacy, electronic technologies, and computerization, as well as upon lesser known but important ideas and strategies such as transparency, multiplicity, virtuality, and actualization. Ultimately, it traces the development of Cage's avant-garde aesthetic and political project as it transformed from the emulation of historical avant-garde precedents such as futurism and the Bauhaus, to the development of important precedents for the post-World War II movements of happenings and Fluxus, to its ultimate abandonment in the aftermath of problems encountered in the vast, multimedia composition HPSCHD (1967-69).

Providing a detailed analysis of Bach's Passions, this 2010 book represents an important contribution to the debate about the culture of 'classical music', its origins, priorities and survival. The angles from which each chapter proceeds differ from those of a traditional music guide, by examining the Passions in the light of the mindsets of modernity, and their interplay with earlier models of thought and belief. While the historical details of Bach's composition, performance and theological context remain crucial, the foremost concern of this study is to relate these works to a historical context that may, in some threads at least, still be relevant today. The central claim of the book is that the interplay of traditional imperatives and those of early modernity renders Bach's Passions particularly fascinating as artefacts that both reflect and constitute some of the priorities and conditions of the western world.

Combining the International Who's Who in Classical Music and the International Who's Who in Popular Music, this two-volume set provides a complete view of the whole of the music world. Within the International Who's Who in Classical Music, each biographical entry comprises personal information, principal career details, repertoire, recordings and compositions, and full contact details where available. Appendices provide contact details for national orchestras, opera companies, music festivals, music organizations and major competitions and awards. The International Who's Who in Popular Music boasts detailed entries, including full biographical information, such as principal career details, recordings and compositions, honours and contact information.

The essays in Ives Studies are concerned with Charles Ives (1874SH1954), an American composer of symphonic, choral, and chamber music who was an early pioneer of twentieth-century musical modernism. Ten leading scholars address issues that have been at the forefront of a recent surge in Ives scholarship, including the hotly debated chronology of his work, the nature of his compositional philosophy and style, and his place in music history.

During his lifetime, and in the course of the twentieth century, Edward Elgar and his music became sites for a remarkable variety of nostalgic impulses. These are manifested in his personal life, in the content of his works, in his critical and biographical reception, and in numerous artistic ventures based on his character and music. Today Elgar enjoys renewed popularity in Britain, and nostalgia of various forms continues to shape our responses to his music. From one viewpoint, Elgarian nostalgia might be dismissed as escapist, regressive and reactionary, and the revival in Elgar's fortunes regarded as the symptom of a pernicious 'heritage industry' in post-colonial, post-industrial Britain. While there is undeniably a grain of truth to that view, Matthew Riley's careful treatment of the topic reveals a more complex picture of nostalgia, and sheds new light on Elgar and his cultural significance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

A biography of the conductor Mitropoulos. He was an advocate of difficult modern music and an early champion of Mahler; his performances brought the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra into the first rank of American orchestras.

Facsimile reprint of "The Seventh edition, Corrected and Elarged. Printed by W. Godbid, for J. Playford at his Shop in the Temple near the Church. 1674."

Most histories of American music have ignored the presence of twelve-tone music before and during the Second World War, and virtually all have ignored its presence after 1970, even though so many major composers continued (and continue) to compose serially. This book provides a comprehensive history of twelve-tone music in America, and compels a revised picture of American music since 1925 as a dynamic steady-state within which twelve-tone serialism has long been, and still remains, a persistent presence: a vigorous and unbroken tradition for more than eighty years. Straus outlines how, instead of a rigid orthodoxy, American twelve-tone music is actually a flexible, loosely-knit cultural practice. The book provides close readings of thirty-seven American twelve-tone works by composers including Copland, Babbitt, Stravinsky and Carter, among many others, who represent a typically American diversity of background and life circumstances, and strips away the many myths surrounding twelve-tone music in America.

This is a facsimile reprint of the 1773 edition. Originally in two volumes but now bound as one. There is a small bibliography provided by the publisher.

The idea that there was a time when men and women lived in perfect harmony with nature and with themselves, though rooted in classical antiquity, was one of the most fertile products of the Renaissance literary and artistic imagination. This book explores one specific aspect of this idea: the musical representation and stylization of the myth of Arcadia in sixteenth-century Italy. Giuseppe Gerbino outlines how Renaissance culture strove to keep this utopia alive and demonstrates how music played a fundamental role in the construction and preservation of this collective illusion. Covering a range of different musical genres, including the madrigal, music for theater, and early opera, the book overcomes traditional barriers among genres. Illustrative music examples, including previously unpublished music, serve to expand the reader's knowledge of this important repertory, and provide insights into the role of music in the preservation of cultural myths.