Music reviews and criticism

Koza Dabasa explores Okinawa's island culture and its ghosts of war through the lens of Nenes, a four-woman pop group that draws on the distinctiveness and exoticism of Okinawan musical tradition.

Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953), arguably the most popular composer of the twentieth century, led a life of triumph and tragedy.

Alexander Wheelock Thayer's Life of Beethoven.

In The Political Force of Musical Beauty, Barry Shank shows how musical acts and performances generate their own aesthetic and political force, creating, however fleetingly, a shared sense of the world among otherwise diverse listeners.

An Unnatural Attitude traces a style of musical thought that coalesced in the intellectual milieu of the Weimar Republic-a phenomenological style that sought to renew contact with music as a worldly circumstance.

Alastair Williams argues that the social transformations of 1968 led to a new phase of art music in Germany.

A translation of the only book that focuses solely on the pianistic aspect of Busoni's wide-ranging career.

The American musical has long provided an important vehicle through which writers, performers, and audiences reimagine who they are and how they might best interact with the world around them.

In 1972, a group of creative Brazilian musicians and poets informally led by singer-songwriter Milton Nascimento recorded a landmark double-LP titled Clube da Esquina (Corner Club).

In this unique and readable study, Jon Finson views the mores and values of nineteenth-century Americans as they appear in their popular songs.

Richard Kramer follows the work of Beethoven and Schubert from 1815 through to the final months of their lives, when each were increasingly absorbed in iconic projects that would soon enough inspire notions of "e;late style.

Released in 1996, Kitten Licks catapulted Brisbane indie-rock three-piece Screamfeeder into the '90s alternative-rock boom alongside Powderfinger, silverchair, You Am I and Regurgitator.

Few composers even begin to approach Beethoven's pervasive presence in modern Western culture, from the concert hall to the comic strip.

Piano Makers in Russia in the Nineteenth Century is a richly detailed thematic study of the history of the piano in Russian society from its beginnings with the European artisans who settled in St.

Jazz is a music born in the United States and formed by a combination of influences.

This book traces the emergence of the orchestra from 16th-century string bands to the "e;classical"e; orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries.

Between the physical world of vibration, as measured by apparatus, and the world of consciously heard music there is a third area of investigation.

The official publication of the American Bach Society, Bach Perspectives pioneers new areas of research into the life, times, and music of the master composer.

Since its composition and first performance in 1724, Bach's St.

The volume on a standard amp goes to 10.

More than 40 stories from the glory days of rock'n'roll, featuring Lou Reed, Elton John, Sting and The Clash.

Howard Smither has written the first definitive work on the history of the oratorio since Arnold Schering published his Geschichte des Oratoriums in 1911.

Here is the first comprehensive book that covers Prince's forty-plus personal and professional years in and out of the public spotlight.

An outstanding anthology in which notable musicians, artists, scientists, thinkers, poets, and more-from Gustavo Dudamel and Carrie Mae Weems to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Paul Muldoon-explore the influence of music on their lives and workContributors include: Laurie Anderson * Jamie Barton * Daphne A.

PROSE Award for Excellence in Music and the Performing Arts Finalist 2020Music videos promote popular artists in cultural forms that circulate widely across social media networks.

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility.

The musical scores of Stanley Kubrick's films are often praised as being innovative and forward-looking.

These volumes present the recently discovered archives of the Erard firm, perhaps the largest record of musical instrument making anywhere.

The Hum of the World is an invitation to contemplate what would happen if we heard the world as attentively as we see it.

Sound Relations delves into histories of Inuit musical life in Alaska to register the significance of sound as integral to self-determination and sovereignty.

Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW), or "e;German New Wave,"e; was made extraordinarily popular in the 1970s and 1980s by the likes of Nena's "e;99 Luftballons"e; and Trio's "e;Da Da Da"e;-and then left as quickly as it came.

In Recording History, Peter Martlanduses a range of archival sources to trace the genesis and early development of the British record industry from1888 to 1931.

This engaging study introduces Renaissance polyphony to a modern audience, balancing the listening experience with what lies beyond the notes.

Essays dealing with the controversial concept of the "e;work"e;, and how far social and cultural practices are integral to it.

With this volume, Howard Smither completes his monumental History of the Oratorio.

Why did the Stalin era, a period characterized by bureaucratic control and the reign of Socialist Realism in the arts, witness such an extraordinary upsurge of musical creativity and the prominence of musicians in the cultural elite?

This is the first study to explore fully the myth of America as reflected in the nation's popular music.

Association of Recorded Sound Collections Awards for ExcellenceBest Historical Research in Recorded Jazz - Certificate of Merit (2018)Since the 1990s, New Orleans has been experiencing its greatest musical renaissance since Louis Armstrong.

Uses rhetorical and literary theory to recover the power of the blues in its cultural tradition.

During the 1920s, a visit to the movie theater almost always included a sing-along.

The years between roughly 1760 and 1810, a period stretching from the rise of Joseph Haydn's career to the height of Ludwig van Beethoven's, are often viewed as a golden age for musical culture, when audiences started to revel in the sounds of the concert hall.

"Weil jede Note zählt": Dies ist das interpretatorisches Credo, das Alfred Brendel in diesem Buch entwirft.

From the storied ache of mbube harmonies of the '40s to the electronic boom of kwaito and the amapiano and house explosion of the '00s, this book explores vignettes taken from across South Africa's popular music history.

Gertrude Stein and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead were unlikely friends who spent most of their mature lives in exile: Stein in France and Whitehead in the United States.

Music and Urban Life in Baroque Germany offers a new narrative of Baroque music, accessible to non-music specialists, in which Tanya Kevorkian defines the era in terms of social dynamics rather than style and genre development.

At its peak the Federal Music Project (FMP) employed nearly 16,000 people who reached millions of Americans through performances, composing, teaching, and folksong collection and transcription.

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility.

An essential work for rock fans and scholars, Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll surveys the origins of rock 'n' roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley.

"e;Taken as a trilogy, consent not to be a single being is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a category of analysis.

Examines the history of musical self-quotation, and reveals and explores a previously unidentified case of Schubert quoting one of his own songs in a major instrumental work.