Opera recordings have been with us since the creation of the first wax cylinders. Now at a time when the 25-year reign of the compact disc appears to be coming to an end is the moment to take stock of the history of recordings of arguably the most popular composer of operas, Giacomo Puccini. In Giacomo Puccini: A Discography, librarian and music historian Roger Flury looks at each opera chronologically from Le Villi to Turandot, followed by sections on Puccini's instrumental, chamber, orchestral, and solo vocal works. Details of each complete opera are listed by recording date, followed by excerpts in the order in which they occur in the opera. Recordings of each aria are listed alphabetically by the name of the artist. For ease of use, Flury establishes as the main criteria for inclusion those recordings assigned a commercial issue number and available for purchase. This book does not limit itself to mainstream recordings but includes as well 'unofficial' recordings taken from broadcasts or illegally recorded in theaters, ensuring that the audio recording history of Puccini is free of gaps. (Video and DVD issues, whether of staged performances or excerpts in concert, are not included unless they have been issued in a sound-only format.) This volume brings together information on nearly 10,000 recordings of Puccini's music. It provides a comprehensive overview of the recorded history of the composer's works and serves as a useful guide for the transfer of recordings from one format to another.

New Zealand-born conductor, Warwick Braithwaite, was a seminal figure in the musical life of Britain for more than fifty years. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and went on to tour with Joseph O'Mara's Grand Opera Company. At the time, he was believed to be the country's youngest professional conductor. Braithwaite worked with all the major British orchestras and many of the greatest artists of his day. He was associated with important musical institutions at key moments in their development, becoming the first Musical Director of the Welsh National Orchestra, and guiding the Scottish Orchestra through the difficult years of WWII. Much of Braithwaite's career was spent conducting opera for Sadler's Wells, Welsh National Opera, Carl Rosa, and Covent Garden. He also worked with the Royal Ballet in London, and toured with them to Germany, France and Italy. Extensive post-war engagements took him to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Iceland and the Republic of Ireland. Editor Roger Flury, former Curator of Music at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, had unique access to Braithwaite's archive - including the conductor's substantial autobiography, published here for the first time. Flury contributes additional chapters covering Braithwaite's musical legacy in Wales and his later years with Sadler's Wells Opera. The volume is enriched with several important appendices charting Braithwaite's family, his significant recording career, his writings and - most important of all - his many compositions. Braithwaite emerges as an unsung hero in the history of music-making in the first half of the 20th century.

Bringing together a vast amount of information on Pietro Mascagni and his works, this volume in the Greenwood Press series Bio-Bibliographies in Music includes a catalogue of the composer's works and performances, bibliography, discography, and brief biographical sketch. Mascagni is best known for "Cavalleria Rusticana," but he wrote fifteen other stage works and over 100 other compositions, including sacred music, songs and film scores. Overshadowed by his contemporary Puccini and tainted by association with the fascist regime of Mussolini, Mascagni is both a famous and neglected opera composer. This volume charts the decline in performances of Mascagni's operas other than "Cavalleria Rusticana" and reveals a growing interest in and changing attitude toward the composer. The discography includes more than 2,500 recordings, and the annotated bibliography includes 361 titles.

This research tool will appeal to Mascagni and to opera scholars. Each section is cross-referenced throughout. An appendix includes a chronology of Mascagni's conducting career.