Composers and songwriters

Every year, Johann Sebastian Bach’s major vocal works are performed to mark liturgical milestones in the Christian calendar.

An engrossing new biography of the musical revolutionary who was the world’s first international megastar Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was an anomaly.

The definitive account of the life and music of Hungary’s greatest twentieth-century composer This deeply researched biography of Béla Bartók (1881–1945) provides a more comprehensive view of the innovative Hungarian musician than ever before.

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a fresh appreciation of the great musical figure that gives him his due as composer as well as conductor Leonard Bernstein stood at the epicenter of twentieth-century American musical life.

Beethoven's piano sonatas form one of the most important collections of works in the whole history of music.

The irresistible, candid diaries of Richard Burton, published in their entirety for the first time Irresistibly magnetic on stage, mesmerizing in movies, seven times an Academy Award nominee, Richard Burton rose from humble beginnings in Wales to become Hollywood's most highly paid actor and one of England's most admired Shakespearean performers.

A leading public critic reminds us of the compelling reasons people throughout time have found to stay alive Worldwide, more people die by suicide than by murder, and many more are left behind to grieve.

Across Europe, more than three hundred houses and museums commemorate the composers who lived and worked in them.

The meteoric career of the Austrian cellist Emanuel Feuermann ended with his sudden and tragic death in 1942, aged only thirty-nine.

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a fast-moving, musically astute portrait of arguably the greatest composer of American popular music Irving Berlin (1888–1989) has been called—by George Gershwin, among others—the greatest songwriter of the golden age of the American popular song.

A new biography of Shostakovich that views him through the intimate music of his string quartets Most previous books about Dmitri Shostakovich have focused on either his symphonies and operas, or his relationship to the regime under which he lived, or both, since these large-scale works were the ones that attracted the interest and sometimes the condemnation of the Soviet authorities.

Bob Dylan is an iconic figure in American musical and cultural history, lauded by Time magazine as one of the hundred most important people of the twentieth century.

In this welcome addition to the immensely popular Yale Broadway Masters series, Larry Starr focuses fresh attention on George Gershwin’s Broadway contributions and examines their centrality to the composer’s entire career.

First performed at the midpoint of the twentieth century, John Cage's 4'33"e;, a composition conceived of without a single musical note,is among the most celebrated and ballyhooed cultural gestures in the history of modern music.

The definitive biography of the celebrated composer, published in English to coincide with the centenary of his death A best seller when first published in Germany in 2003, Jens Malte Fischer's Gustav Mahler has been lauded by scholars as a landmark work.

An essential resource for scholars and performers, this study by a world-renowned specialist illuminates the piano music of four major French composers, in comparative and reciprocal context.

Boris Berman, renowned concert pianist and teacher, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Sergei Prokofiev.

The first decades of the twentieth century were a fertile and fascinating period in American musical history.

Hungarian-born composer Sigmund Romberg (1887–1951) arrived in America in 1909 and within eight years had achieved his first hit musical on Broadway.

This revealing and comprehensive book tells the full story of Jerry Herman’s life and career, from his early work in cabaret to his recent compositions for stage, screen, and television.

This book is the first to examine the brilliant gathering of composers, conductors, and other musicians who fled Nazi Germany and arrived in the Los Angeles area.

This is the first book devoted to the correspondence of composer Aaron Copland, covering his life from age eight to eighty-seven.

This is the first book-length study of Shostakovich's Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for piano, Opus 87.

The concept of genius intrigues us.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is the most famous—and most controversial—composer of musical theater alive today.

Amadeus .

Since his death in 1847, Felix Mendelssohn’s music and personality have been both admired and denigrated to extraordinary degrees.

Richard Rodgers was an icon of the musical theater, a prolific composer whose career spanned six decades and who wrote more than a thousand songs and forty shows for the American stage.

Arnold Schoenberg’s close involvement with many of the principal developments of twentieth-century music, most importantly the break with tonality and the creation of twelve-tone composition, generated controversy from the time of his earliest works to the present day.

The story behind life in a world-renown Michelin-starred restaurant.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE'An intense, succulent read that's intermittently dazzling' THE TIMES'Chilling, exquisitely moving' DAILY TELEGRAPH'A superb memoir - and one of the best books on addiction I have ever read' EVENING STANDARDA.

'The best vicar ever' Caitlin Moran 'Sex, drugs, death, religion, more sex.

'Warm, anxious and true - a Little Book of Un-Calm' Caitlin MoranShortlisted for Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the National Book AwardsSometimes things are more ordinary than you think.

In this book my father dies.

The dazzlingly funny second volume of Danny Baker's memoirs: the television years.

Kay Swift (1897–1993) was one of the few women composers active on Broadway in the first half of the twentieth century.

Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine, among the most influential artists of the twentieth century, together created the music and movement for many ballet masterpieces.

Bruno Walter, one of the greatest conductors in the twentieth century, lived a fascinating life in difficult times.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a masterpiece that has influenced virtually every Western composer since its premiere, has become associated with the marking of momentous public occasions.

Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier (or the 48 Preludes and Fugues) stands at the core of baroque keyboard music and has been a model and inspiration for performers and composers ever since it was written.

Robert Shaw is considered to be the most influential choral conductor in American history.

A lifetime of letters, collected for the first time, from the legendary The Beatles musician and songwriter John LennonJohn Lennon is one of the world's greatest-ever song writers, creator of 'Help!

'In this comprehensive volume, we see the actor in a range of roles: loving son, wicked gossip, star actor, indecisive director, anguished lover, brilliant anecdotist.

Pelham Cottage - with its infamous unlocked back gate - was where Annabel Goldsmith kept an open house for some of the most sophisticated and iconic people of the 1960s and 1970s.

The number-one Sunday Times bestseller'Walters's book - also well written - has moments of Alan Bennett warmth' SUNDAY TIMES'This is a humorous and, at times, moving read from this much-loved actress' WOMAN AND HOME'I was enthralled by her memoirs .

The remarkable life story of the legendary singer, from impoverished Iowa farm boy to superstardom.

A memoir by the master pianist, conductor and internationalist Daniel Barenboim - 'the closest thing that classical music can offer to Nelson Mandela' [THE TIMES]'The power of music lies in is its ability to speak to all aspects of the human being-the animal, the emotional, the intellectual, and the spiritual.

What is it about bikes that leaves so many of us powerless to resist?

'The best vicar ever' - Caitlin MoranTHE NO.

During his run into turning FIFTY, CHRIS EVANS is on a MISSION.