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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Western music, periods & styles
Life in ancient Greece was musical life. Soloists competed onstage
for popular accolades, becoming centrepieces for cultural
conversation and even leading Plato to recommend that certain forms
of music be banned from his ideal society. And the music didn't
stop when the audience left the theatre: melody and rhythm were
woven into the whole fabric of daily existence for the Greeks.
Vocal and instrumental songs were part of religious rituals,
dramatic performances, dinner parties, and even military campaigns.
Like Detroit in the 1960s or Vienna in the 18th century, Athens in
the 400s BC was the hotspot where celebrated artists collaborated
and diverse strands of musical tradition converged. The
conversations and innovations that unfolded there would lay the
groundwork for musical theory and practice in Greece and Rome for
centuries to come. In this perfectly pitched introduction, Spencer
Klavan explores Greek music's origins, forms, and place in society.
In recent years, state-of-the-art research and digital technology
have enabled us to decipher and understand Greek music with
unprecedented precision. Yet many readers today cannot access the
resources that would enable them to grapple with this richly
rewarding subject. Arcane technical details and obscure jargon veil
the subject - it is rarely known, for instance, that authentic
melodies still survive from antiquity, helping us to imagine the
vivid soundscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic eras. Music in
Ancient Greece distills the latest discoveries into vivid prose so
readers can come to grips with the basics as never before. With the
tools in this book, beginners and specialists alike will learn to
hear the ancient world afresh and come away with a new, musical
perspective on their favourite classical texts.
A History of Western Choral Music explores the various genres, key
composers, and influential works essential to the development of
the western choral tradition. Author Chester L. Alwes divides this
exploration into two volumes which move from Medieval music and the
Renaissance era up to the 21st century. Volume II begins at the
transition from the Classical era to the Romantic, with an
examination of the major genres common to both periods. Exploring
the oratorio, part song, and dramatic music, it also offers a
thorough discussion of the choral symphony from Beethoven to
Mahler, through to the present day. It then delves into the choral
music of the twentieth century through discussions of the major
compositional approaches and philosophies that proliferated over
the course of the century, from impressionism to serialism,
neo-classicism to modernism, minimalism, and the avant-garde. It
also considers the emerging tendency towards nationalistic
composition amongst composers such as Bartok and Stravinsky, and
discusses in great detail the contemporary music of the United
States, and Great Britain. Framing discussion within the political,
religious, cultural, philosophical, aesthetic, and technological
contexts of each era, A History of Western Choral Music offers
readers specialized insight into major composers and works while
providing a cohesive understanding of choral music's place in
Western history.
Sonata form is the most commonly encountered organizational plan in
the works of the classical-music masters, from Haydn, Mozart, and
Beethoven to Schubert, Brahms, and beyond. Sonata Theory, an
analytic approach developed by James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy in
their award-winning Elements of Sonata Theory (2006), has emerged
as one of the most influential frameworks for understanding this
musical structure. What can this method from "the new Formenlehre"
teach us about how these composers put together their most iconic
pieces and to what expressive ends? In this new Sonata Theory
Handbook, Hepokoski introduces readers step-by-step to the main
ideas of this approach. At the heart of the book are close readings
of eight individual movements - from Mozart's Piano Sonata in
B-flat, K. 333, to such structurally complex pieces as Schubert's
"Death and the Maiden" String Quartet and the finale of Brahms's
Symphony No 1 - that show this analytical method in action. These
illustrative analyses are supplemented with four updated
discussions of the foundational concepts behind the theory,
including dialogic form, expositional action zones, trajectories
toward generically normative cadences, rotation theory, and the
five sonata types. With its detailed examples and deep engagements
with recent developments in form theory, schema theory, and
cognitive research, this handbook updates and advances Sonata
Theory and confirms its status as a key lens for analyzing sonata
form.
DISCOVER THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WORLD'S MOST-LOVED COMPOSER; Musical
history is full of tormented geniuses, tortured despite - or
because of - their enormous talent. Yet perhaps the greatest
musical virtuoso the world has ever known cannot be counted among
them. Though he faced great hardships, Mozart was surely the
happiest composer who ever lived.; In Mozart: The Man Revealed,
John Suchet breathes new life into the story of the 'boy genius',
revealing a complex character, yet one who always remained
comfortable with himself and at ease with his gift. His musical
legacy may be immortal, but the man behind the music was gloriously
human.
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Wilfrid Mellers is a composer, musician and author. Honorary Fellow
of Downing College, Cambridge. This is his classic book on
Beethoven.
Wilfrid Mellers is a composer, musician and author. Honorary Fellow
of Downing College, Cambridge. This is his classic book on Bach.
Mieczyslaw Weinberg left his family behind and fled his native
Poland in September 1939. He reached the Soviet Union, where he
become one of the most celebrated composers. He counted
Shostakovich among his close friends and produced a prolific output
of works. Yet he remained mindful of the nation that he had left.
This book examines how Weinberg's works written in Soviet Russia
compare with those of his Polish contemporaries; how one composer
split from his national tradition and how he created a style that
embraced the music of a new homeland, while those composers in his
native land surged ahead in a more experimental vein. The points of
contact between them are enlightening for both sides. This study
provides an overview of Weinberg's music through his string
quartets, analysing them alongside Polish composers. Composers
featured include Bacewicz, Meyer, Lutoslawski, Panufnik,
Penderecki, Gorecki, and a younger generation, including Szymanski
and Knapik.
The state of contemporary music is dizzyingly diverse in terms of
style, media, traditions, and techniques. How have trends in music
developed over the past decades? Music Composition in the 21st
Century is a guide for composers and students that helps them
navigate the often daunting complexity and abundance of resources
and influences that confront them as they work to achieve a
personal expression. From pop to classical, the book speaks to the
creative ways that new composers mix and synthesize music, creating
a music that exists along a more continuous spectrum rather than in
a series of siloed practices. It pays special attention to a series
of critical issues that have surfaced in recent years, including
harmony, the influence of minimalism, the impact of technology,
strategies of "openness," sound art, collaboration, and
improvisation. Robert Carl identifies an emerging common practice
that allows creators to make more informed aesthetic and technical
decisions and also fosters an inherently positive approach to new
methods.
Throughout Spanish colonial America, limpieza de sangre (literally,
"purity of blood ") determined an individual's status within the
complex system of social hierarchy called casta. Within this
socially stratified culture, those individuals at the top were
considered to have the highest calidad-an all-encompassing
estimation of a person's social status. At the top of the social
pyramid were the Peninsulares: Spaniards born in Spain, who
controlled most of the positions of power within the colonial
governments and institutions. Making up most of the middle-class
were criollos, locally born people of Spanish ancestry. During the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Peninsulare
intellectuals asserted their cultural superiority over criollos by
claiming that American Spaniards had a generally lower calidad
because of their "impure " racial lineage. Still, given their
Spanish heritage, criollos were allowed employment at many Spanish
institutions in New Spain, including the center of Spanish
religious practice in colonial America: Mexico City Cathedral.
Indeed, most of the cathedral employees-in particular,
musicians-were middle-class criollos. In Playing in the Cathedral,
author Jesus Ramos-Kittrell explores how liturgical
musicians-choristers and instrumentalists, as well as teachers and
directors-at Mexico City Cathedral in the mid-eighteenth century
navigated changing discourses about social status and racial
purity. He argues that criollos cathedral musicians, influenced by
Enlightenment values of self-industry and autonomy, fought against
the Peninsulare-dominated, racialized casta system. Drawing on
extensive archival research, Ramos-Kittrell shows that these
musicians held up their musical training and knowledge, as well as
their institutional affiliation with the cathedral, as
characteristics that legitimized their calidad and aided their
social advancement. The cathedral musicians invoked claims of
"decency " and erudition in asserting their social worth, arguing
that their performance capabilities and theoretical knowledge of
counterpoint bespoke their calidad and status as hombres decentes.
Ultimately, Ramos-Kittrell argues that music, as a performative and
theoretical activity, was a highly dynamic factor in the cultural
and religious life of New Spain, and an active agent in the
changing discourses of social status and "Spanishness " in colonial
America. Offering unique and fascinating insights into the social,
institutional, and artistic spheres in New Spain, this book is a
welcome addition to scholars and graduate students with particular
interests in Latin American colonial music and cultural history, as
well as those interested in the intersections of music and
religion.
Composer and cultural official Nicolas Nabokov (1903-78) led an
unusual life even for a composer who was also a high-level
diplomat. Nabokov was for nearly three decades an outstanding and
far-sighted player in international cultural exchanges during the
Cold War, much admired by some of the most distinguished minds of
his century for the range of his interests and the breadth of his
vision. Nicolas Nabokov: A Life in Freedom and Music follows
Nabokov's life through its fascinating details: a privileged
Russian childhood before the Revolution; exile, first to Germany,
then to France; the beginnings of a promising musical career,
launched under the aegis of Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes with
Ode in 1928; his twelve-year "American exile" during which he
occupied several academic positions; his return to Europe after the
war to participate in the denazification of Germany; his
involvement in anti-Stalinist causes in the first years of the Cold
War; his participation in the Congress for Cultural Freedom; his
role as cultural adviser to the Mayor of Berlin and director of the
Berlin Festival in the early 1960s; the resumption of his American
academic and musical career in the late 1960s and 1970s. Nabokov is
unique not only in that he was involved on a high level in
international cultural politics, but also in that his life
intersected at all times with a vast array of people within, and
also well beyond, the confines of classical music. Drawing on a
vast array of primary sources, Vincent Giroud's first-ever
biography of Nabokov will be of interest readers interested in
twentieth-century music, Russian music, Russian emigration, and the
Cold War, particularly in its cultural aspects. Musicians and
musicologists interested in Nabokov as a composer, or in twentieth
century Russian composers in general, will find in the book
information not available anywhere else.
At the turn of the twentieth century Italian opera participated to
the making of a modern spectator. The Ricordi stage manuals testify
to the need to harness the effects of operatic performance,
activating opera's capacity to cultivate a public. This book
considers how four operas and one film deal with their public: one
that in Boito's Mefistofele is entertained by special effects, or
that in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra is called upon as a political body
to confront the specters of history. Also a public that in Verdi's
Otello is subjected to the manipulation of contemporary acting, or
one that in Puccini's Manon Lescaut is urged to question the
mechanism of spectatorship. Lastly, the silent film Rapsodia
satanica, thanks to the craft and prestige of Pietro Mascagni's
score, attempts to transform the new industrial medium into art,
addressing its public's search for a bourgeois pan-European
cultural identity, right at the outset of the First World War.
Louis XIV and his court at Versailles had a profound influence on
music in France and throughout Europe. In 1660 Louis visited
Aix-en-Provence, a trip that resulted in political and cultural
transformations throughout the region. Soon thereafter Aix became
an important center of sacred music composition, eventually
rivaling Paris for the quality of the composers it produced. John
Hajdu Heyer documents the young king's visit and examines how he
and his court deployed sacred music to enhance the royal image and
secure the loyalty of the populace. Exploring the circle of
composers at Aix, Heyer provides the most up-to-date and complete
biographies in English of nine key figures, including Guillaume
Poitevin, Andre Campra, Jean Gilles, Francois Estienne, and Antoine
Blanchard. The book goes on to reveal how the history of political
power in the region was reflected through church music, and how
musicians were affected by contemporary events."
Sir Michael Tippett is widely considered to be one of the most
individual composers of the twentieth century, whose music
continues to be performed to critical acclaim throughout the world.
Written by a team of international scholars, this Companion
provides a wide ranging and accessible study of Tippett and his
works. It discusses the contexts and concepts of modernism,
tradition, politics, sexuality and creativity that shaped Tippett's
music and ideas, engaging with archive materials, relevant
literature and models of interpretation. Chapters explore the
genres in which Tippett composed, including opera, symphony, string
quartet, concerto and piano sonata, to shed new light on his major
works and draw attention to those that have not yet received the
attention they deserve. Directing knowledge and expertise towards a
wide readership, this book will enrich the listening experience and
broaden understanding of the music of this endlessly fascinating
and challenging composer.
The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical provides a comprehensive
academic survey of British musical theatre offering both a
historical account of the musical's development from 1728 and a
range of in-depth critical analyses of the unique forms and
features of British musicals, which explore the aesthetic values
and sociocultural meanings of a tradition that initially gave rise
to the American musical and later challenged its modern
pre-eminence. After a consideration of how John Gay's The Beggar's
Opera (1728) created a prototype for eighteenth-century ballad
opera, the book focuses on the use of song in early nineteenth
century theatre, followed by a sociocultural analysis of the comic
operas of Gilbert and Sullivan; it then examines Edwardian and
interwar musical comedies and revues as well as the impact of
Rodgers and Hammerstein on the West End, before analysing the new
forms of the postwar British musical from The Boy Friend (1953) to
Oliver! (1960). One section of the book examines the contributions
of key twentieth century figures including Noel Coward, Ivor
Novello, Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber, director Joan Littlewood
and producer Cameron Macintosh, while a number of essays discuss
both mainstream and alternative musicals of the 1960s and 1970s and
the influence of the pop industry on the creation of concept
recordings such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) and Les Miserables
(1980). There is a consideration of "jukebox" musicals such as
Mamma Mia! (1999), while essays on overtly political shows such as
Billy Elliot (2005) are complemented by those on experimental
musicals like Jerry Springer: the Opera (2003) and London Road
(2011) and on the burgeoning of Black and Asian British musicals in
both the West End and subsidized venues. The Oxford Handbook of the
British Musical demonstrates not only the unique qualities of
British musical theatre but also the vitality and variety of
British musicals today.
British Literature and Classical Music explores literary
representations of classical music in early 20th century British
writing. Covering authors ranging from T.S. Eliot and Virginia
Woolf to Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells and D.H. Lawrence, the book
examines literature produced during a period of widely
proliferating philosophical, educational, and performance-oriented
musical activities in both public and private settings. David
Deutsch demonstrates how this proliferation caused classical music
to become an increasingly vital element of British culture and a
vehicle for exploring contentious issues such as social mobility,
sexual freedoms, and international political rivalries. Through the
use of archives of concert programs, cult novels, and letters
written during the First and Second World Wars, the book examines
how authors both celebrated and satirized the musicality of the
lower-middle and working classes, same-sex desiring individuals,
and cosmopolitan promoters of a shared European culture to depict
these groups as valuable members of and - less frequently as
threats to - British life.
A pianist, arranger, and composer, William Pursell is a mainstay of
the Nashville music scene. He has played jazz in Nashville's
Printer's Alley with Chet Atkins and Harold Bradley, recorded with
Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, performed with the Nashville Symphony,
and composed and arranged popular and classical music. Pursell's
career, winding like a crooked river between classical and popular
genres, encompasses a striking diversity of musical experiences. A
series of key choices sent him down different paths, whether it was
reenrolling with the Air Force for a second tour of duty, leaving
the prestigious Eastman School of Music to tour with an R&B
band, or refusing to sign with the Beatles' agent Sid Bernstein.
The story of his life as a working musician is unlike any other-he
is not a country musician nor a popular musician nor a classical
musician but, instead, an artist who refused to be limited by
traditional categories. Crooked River City is driven by a series of
recollections and personal anecdotes Terry Wait Klefstad assembled
over a three-year period of interviews with Pursell. His story is
one not only of talent, but of dedication and hard work, and of the
ins and outs of a working musician in America. This biography fills
a crucial gap in Nashville music history for both scholars and
music fans.
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