Music reviews and criticism

Bel canto, or 'beautiful singing,' remains one of the most elusive performance styles vocalists strive to master.

The Presence of the Past offers a new perspective on Hollywood's "e;New Wave"e; as engaged with the vitality of sensory experience and the affective imagination.

In Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, the first book to explore the deep legacy of "e;The Singing Brakeman"e; from a twenty-first century perspective, Barry Mazor offers a lively look at Rodgers' career, tracing his rise from working-class obscurity to the pinnacle of renown that came with such hits as "e;Blue Yodel"e; and "e;In the Jailhouse Now.

Michael Brown undertakes a thorough study of Eyeliner's BUY NOW, a vaporwave homage to the kitsch electronic sounds of the 1980s and 1990s.

Rethinking Britten offers a fresh portrait of one of the most widely performed composers of the 20th century.

In Robert Ward's The Crucible: Creating an American Musical Nationalism, Robert Paul Kolt explores the life of the American composer Robert Ward through an examination of his most popular and enduring work, The Crucible.

Reveals how Aaron Copland's complex relationship with the music of Gustav Mahler shaped his vision for American music in the twentieth century.

The story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's precocity is so familiar as to be taken for granted.

Listen to Rap!

The Beatles' sixth studio album, Rubber Soul, was a game changer.

This comprehensive portrait of Tropicalia, exploring everything from influences and results to context and main players, demonstrates how the genre helped reinvent Brazil's cultural identity in a post-colonial world.

How did the Depression-era folk-song collector Alan Lomax end up with a songwriting credit on Jay-Z's song "e;Takeover"e;?

Amidst the heated fray of the Culture Wars emerged a scrappy festival in downtown New York City called Bang on a Can.

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.

Eleven international scholars analyse key works by Sir James MacMillan, and contextualise his unique musical-theological approach.

Through analysis, Matthew Bribitzer-Stull explores the legacy of the leitmotif, from Wagner''s Ring cycle to present-day Hollywood film music.

Detailed exploration of an enigmatic manuscript containing the texts to hundreds of songs, but no musical notation.

Examines the interaction between music and liberal discourses in Victorian Britain, revealing the close interdependence of political and aesthetic practices.

From recent decades' digitization have emerged a myriad of techniques for mapping musical life, identifying patterns in sound or musico-cultural practices, and compiling labels, names, tags, and classes on an unprecedented scale.

In the 1960s, The Beatles would address like no other musical act a radical shift in the cultural mindset of the late twentieth century.

Complements the ongoing revival of Mieczysław Weinberg''s music and explains its unique blend of Polish and Soviet Russian influences.

From its dynamic start at dance parties in the South Bronx in the late 1970s, hip hop and rap music have exploded into a dominant style of popular music in the United States and a force for activism and expression all over the world.

The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music offers a state-of-the-art cross-section of the most field-defining topics and debates in computer music today.

While the first healers were musicians who relied on rhythm and song to help cure the sick, over time Western thinkers and doctors lost touch with these traditions.

_______________'Edward Said had a lifelong passion for music, and possessed the rare ability to write about it for the general reader with a lucid and penetrating intelligence' - TLS'There are few whose command of words is sufficient not only to illuminate music, but to help music illuminate the world of those who make and listen to it.

The essential collection of jazz writing by the celebrated poet and author of Blues People—reissued with a new introduction by the author.

Throughout early modern Europe, patronage became a means for the dominant classes to highlight their wealth, intellectual finesse, and cultural and political agendas, particularly within the court and religious institutions.

A visual history of America's jazz nightclubs of the 1940s and 1950s, featuring exclusive interviews and over 200 souvenir photos.

A comprehensive introduction to the inner workings of rock music, The Foundations of Rock goes back to the heart of the music itself from the time of its birth through the end of classic rock.

Bla Bartk (1881-1945) was one of the most important composers and musical thinkers of the 20th century.

Using a replica of Beethoven's Erard piano, scholar and performer Tom Beghin launches a striking reinterpretation of a key period of Beethoven's work.

In a stretch of just seven years, the Beatles recorded hundreds of songs which tower above those of their worthy peers as both the product of cultural leadership and an artistic reflection of their turbulent age, the1960s.

This is a groundbreaking study of the prestigious Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics during the Third Reich.

This book makes a substantial collection of Vaughan Williams's writings widely available to music lovers, students, and researchers alike.

Listen to Jazz!

The composer Thomas Tallis (c.

From the Erotic to the Demonic demonstrates how different musical styles construct ideas of class, sexuality, and ethnic identity.

The British composer, conductor, and pianist Thomas Ads has achieved a level of recognition and celebrity within the world of classical music today that is almost unmatched.

English translation and revised edition of the most comprehensive and reliable biography of Claude Debussy.

In this critical appraisal of The Clean's landmark release, Boodle Boodle Boodle, Geoff Stahl explores how it impacted the emergence of a new DIY scene alongside a retrospective on the role The Clean played in shaping New Zealand's independent music industry.

In recent years Hugo Riemann's ideas have thoroughly captured the music-theoretical imagination, both in the United States and abroad.

The quintessential Romantic artist of his century, Hector Berlioz impressed Paganini and Liszt as "e;Beethoven's only heir"e; and dazzled the young Wagner as a composer, orchestra conductor, and critic.

Is It Still Good to Ya?

This Element provides a unique perspective on the seminal composers in the history of music: Bach, Handel, and Scarlatti.

Over the last decade, the theatre and opera of the French Revolution have been the subject of intense scholarly reassessment, both in terms of the relationship between theatrical works and politics or ideology in this period and on the question of longer-scale structures of continuity or rupture in aesthetics.

This book looks at the musical culture of death in early modern England.

The music of Broadway is one of America's most unique and popular calling cards.

Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical tells the full story of the making and remaking of the most important musical in Broadway history.

From its roots in 1970s New York disco and '80s Detroit techno to today's international, mainstream explosion of such genres as house, trance & dubstep, electronic dance music has reshaped the popular musical landscape.