Awarded the legion d'Honneur by the French government in 2006 for his services to French culture, acclaimed writer and broadcaster Roger Nichols invites the reader to accompany him on his journey through the century-and-a-half turbulent and fertile period in the history of French music from Berlioz to Boulez. In compiling his collection of articles, interviews, radio plays and talks, Nichols begins with Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and ends with his obituary of Pierre Boulez. Along the way, he includes in-depth studies of Debussy and Ravel, connecting the two by a comparison of their operatic masterpieces, Pelleas et Melisande and l'Enfant et les sortileges. Twenty other significant composers from this fascinating period come in for Nichols' hallmark combination of erudition and wit.

Learn the basics of digital recording, each step of the signal path, and everything from microphone placement to mixing strategy through the eyes and ears of "The Immortal" Roger Nichols, master engineer. From scientifically analyzing the differences between condenser, ribbon, and dynamic microphones, to sharing his secrets to an amazing mix, Nichols delivers something for everyone interested in the science and art of audio engineering---no matter what your experience level. The DVD-ROM includes Pro Tools session files, personally set up by Roger, to give you hands-on training.
The Roger Nichols Recording Method gives you the unique experience of learning directly from Roger---exactly as he would have taught you at one of his famous master classes. It's the ultimate experience of having an eight-time GRAMMY(R)-winning engineer sit down in your studio to teach you from his personal experiences and techniques. This book is excellent for beginners but is still full of gems for seasoned pros who want to know how Roger Nichols always managed to get that sound.
Topics include:
* Plan your recording sessions like a professional engineer and producer
* Choose the right microphones and learn how Roger would place them for a session
* Test microphone patterns; learn about critical distance placement and the 3 to 1 rule
* Understand how digital audio really works to choose the right format for your sessions
* Learn about the signal path from microphone/instrument levels, channels strips, and plugins
* Record multiple takes, overdubs, punch-in techniques, and get tips on editing digital audio files
* Learn Roger's personal tips for mixing, using automation, creating your final mix, and more

'He plays the piano well,' wrote the society hostess Mme de Saint-Marceaux in her diary on 18 March 1927. 'His compositions are not devoid of talent but he's not a genius, and I'm afraid he thinks he is.' Intelligent though the lady was, she got this one spectacularly wrong. Poulenc has in fact outpaced his colleagues in Les Six by many a mile, as singers and instrumentalists all over the world will attest, and while he would never have accepted the title of 'genius', preferring 'artisan', a genius is increasingly what he appears to have been. Part of the answer lay in always being his own man, and this independence of spirit shows through in his writings and interviews just as brightly as in his music, whether it's boasting that he'd be happy never to hear The Mastersingers ever again, pointing out that what critics condemn as the 'formlessness' of French music is one of its delights, voicing his outrage at attempts to 'finish' the Unfinished Symphony, writing 'in praise of banality' - or remembering the affair of Debussy's hat. And in every case, his intelligence, humour and generosity of spirit help explain why he was so widely and deeply loved. This volume comprises selected articles from Francis Poulenc: J'ecris ce qui me chante (Fayard, 2011) edited by Nicholas Southon. Many of these articles and interviews have not been available in English before and Roger Nichols's translation, capturing the very essence of Poulenc's lively writing style, makes more widely accessible this significant contribution to Poulenc scholarship.

Born in 1916, Henri Dutilleux is one of France's leading composers, enjoying an international reputation for his beautifully crafted works. This is the first translation into English of a series of interviews between Dutilleux and the French writer and journalist Claude Glayman which took place in 1996. Dutilleux discusses aspects of his life including his early training at the Paris Conservatoire, the German occupation of France and the time that he spent in the United States. The interviews reveal much about his music and his approach to composition, as well as the influences on his musical style. Originally published by Actes Sud in 1997, this English edition is the work of translator Roger Nichols, one of the UK's leading specialists on French music.

An authoritative account of the life and work of Francis Poulenc, one of the most prolific and striking figures in twentieth-century classical music Francis Poulenc is a key figure in twentieth-century classical music, as well as an unorthodox and striking individual. Roger Nichols draws upon Poulenc's music and other primary sources to write an authoritative life of this great artist. Although associated with five other French composers in what came to be called "Les Six", Poulenc was very much sui generis in personality and in his music, where he excelled over a wide repertoire-opera, songs, ballet scores, chamber works, piano pieces, sacred and secular choral works, orchestral works and concertos. This book fully covers this wide range, while also describing the vicissitudes of Poulenc's life and the many important relationships he had with major figures such as Satie, Ravel, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Cocteau and others.

Born in 1916, Henri Dutilleux is one of France's leading composers, enjoying an international reputation for his beautifully crafted works. This is the first translation into English of a series of interviews between Dutilleux and the French writer and journalist Claude Glayman which took place in 1996. Dutilleux discusses aspects of his life including his early training at the Paris Conservatoire, the German occupation of France and the time that he spent in the United States. The interviews reveal much about his music and his approach to composition, as well as the influences on his musical style. Originally published by Actes Sud in 1997, this English edition is the work of translator Roger Nichols, one of the UK's leading specialists on French music.

This new biography of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), by one of the leading scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French music, is based on a wealth of written and oral evidence, some newly translated and some derived from interviews with the composer's friends and associates. As well as describing the circumstances in which Ravel composed, the book explores new evidence to present radical views of the composer's background and upbringing, his notorious failure in the Prix de Rome, his incisive and often combative character, his sexual preferences, and his long final illness. It also contains the most detailed account so far published of his hugely successful American tour of 1928. The world of Maurice Ravel-including friendships (and some fallings-out) with Debussy, Faure, Diaghilev, Gershwin, and Toscanini-is deftly uncovered in this sensitive portrait.

How was frontier expansion rationalized in the Americas during the late nineteenth century? As new states fleshed out expanded national maps, how did they represent their advances? Were there any distinct pan-American patterns? The renowned anthropologist and human rights advocate David Maybury-Lewis saw the Latin American frontiers as relatively unknown physical spaces as well as unexplored academic territory. He invited eight specialists to explore public narratives of the expansion of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the western regions of Canada and the United States during the late nineteenth century, a time when those who then identified as Americans claimed territories in which indigenous peoples, who were now seen as economic and political obstacles, lived. The authors examine the narrative forms that stirred or rationalized expansion, and emphasize their impact on the native residents.

The authors illustrate the variety and the similarities of these nationalist ideas and experiences, which were generally expressed in symbolic and cultural terms rather than on simple materialist or essentialist grounds. The cases also point out that civic nationalism, often seem as inclusive and more benign than ethnic nationalism, can produce similarly destructive human and cultural ends. The essays thus suggest a view of nationalism as a theoretical concept, and of frontier expansion as a historical phenomenon.

For high school students, this is a selection of translated extracts from Livy's Early History of Rome. Explanatory passages introduce and link the translations, placing them in their historical contexts.

The 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen was a devout Roman Catholic and notably claimed that his music was an expression of his faith. Unsurprisingly, many performers and listeners consider Messiaen's strong religiosity central to their appreciation of the composer's music. Music scholars have devoted much energy to exploring how Messiaen's music was an extension of his religious beliefs. Yet, these works tend to discuss Messiaen's Catholicism solely in terms of personal religious identity and ignore the composer's broader connections to the cultural landscape of Roman Catholicism in France. In Olivier Messiaen: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts (1937-1948) the late French literature scholar Richard Burton examines nine of Messiaen's works in the context of the broader French Catholic intellectual tradition. Drawing on an expansive knowledge of the Catholic literature and the surrealist tradition, Burton reveals that Messiaen's middle-period compositions are filled with intertextual references to the Bible and other theological writings, which Messiaen, given his reputation for falsifying facts, may have gone to great lengths to obscure. As a Catholic, Messiaen is presented as somewhat removed from the ethos of his time and place, taking no part in the social side of Catholicism that found expression in the Petainist litany of 'Patrie, Famille, Travail'. Rather, Messiaen regarded himself as having a 'vertical' relationship with God, which could make him seem unworldly and even uncaring. With insights into the artistic careers of Messiaen's notable contemporaries and historical perspectives on the breakdown of French politics during World War II, Burton creates a vivid picture of the previously unexamined spiritual and philosophical inspirations behind Messiaen's pivotal mid-century compositions.

Jean-Michel Nectoux's important biography of Gabriel Faure is the most comprehensive study yet of this central figure of fin de siecle France. It traces the composer's life and the rich cultural milieu in which he lived and worked: the world also of Saint-Saens, Flaubert, Verlaine, Ravel, Debussy and Proust. A large part of the book considers Faure's music, with particular emphasis on his adjustment to the musical language of the twentieth century and the formation of his late style. Works in all genres are discussed in detail. The book is the fruit of over twenty years' research by Nectoux, the foremost authority on Gabriel Faure. In the process of writing this definitive study, he read more than 5000 previously unpublished letters and unearthed more than 120 musical manuscripts. The book includes several rare photographs from Faure's lifetime and contains an extended chronology of the composer's life, a complete chronological listing of all his own works and a detailed bibliography.

'That great blue Sphinx', Debussy called the sea. Debussy himself was something of a Sphinx: in the early 1890s he was thinking of 'founding a society for musical esotericism', and although, on the surface, most of his music is instantly engaging and accessible, at a deeper level run currents that are dangerous, unpredictable, destructive. In this new biography, Roger Nichols considers the life and music of this seminal figure, charting the currents and the whirlpools in which other humans were sometimes unlucky enough to get caught. Debussy's status is such that no modern composer has been able to ignore him, asking, as he does, any number of riddles to which late twentieth-century music is still searching for answers.

The first comprehensive guide to Pelleas et Melisande, Debussy's only completed opera, this book is written by three of the leading authorities on French music of the period. As a background to the opera Richard Langham Smith discusses the play, by the Belgian dramatist Maeterlinck, and considers its literary roots. David Grayson then traces the genesis and composition of the opera, examining also the sketches and rejected versions in order to illuminate Debussy's compositional strategies. A detailed synopsis by Roger Nichols, which considers carefully Debussy's musical response to the text, forms a central chapter. The book then moves on to consider more detailed aspects of the style and language of the opera. The relationship between symbols and musical motives forms the basis of a chapter by Richard Langham Smith, and a subsequent chapter by him considers the themes of darkness and light and the key-schemes used to portray them. Two chapters by Roger Nichols on the various performances since 1902 and on the ideas of interpreters and commentators complete the text. The book concludes with a detailed bibliography and a discography.

The early music of Claude Debussy was influenced by the work of Wagner, for whom he had great admiration. However, soon Debussy's music became more experimental and individualistic, as is clear in his first mature work Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Debussy quickly moved away from traditional techniques and produced the pictures in sound that led his work to be described as "musical Impressionism." This new biography--the first in English in 30 years--offers new insights into the life of this enigmatic composer, revealing a figure more seminal and revolutionary than previously thought.

Everything Must Gois Steely Dan's follow up to their 2000 multi-Grammy winner Two Against Nature.