Music reviews and criticism

Explores the political, social, philosophical and professional currents that influenced Franz Liszt''s career as performer and composer.

In Circular Breathing, George McKay, a leading chronicler of British countercultures, uncovers the often surprising ways that jazz has accompanied social change during a period of rapid transformation in Great Britain.

The New York loft jazz scene of the 1970s was a pivotal period for uncompromising, artist-produced work.

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are one of the defining duos of musical theater, contributing dozens of classic songs to the Great American Songbook and working together on over 40 shows before Hart's death.

Opera for the People is an in-depth examination of a forgotten chapter in American social and cultural history: the love affair that middle-class Americans had with continental opera (translated into English) in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s.

Georg Philipp Telemann gave us one of the richest legacies of instrumental music from the eighteenth century.

Situates the controversial narrative of 'The English Musical Renaissance' within its wider historical context.

"e;Golland leaves no stone unturned in this fine-grained chronicle of the rock group Journey.

Winner of the ASCAP Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Musical BiographyThe musical landscape of New York City and the United States of America would look quite different had it not been for William Schuman.

The English musician and member of the rock band The Who shares stories from his career in this New York Times-bestselling memoir.

Hundreds of the letters that Gustav Mahler addressed to his parents and siblings survive, yet they have remained virtually unknown.

Sounds French examines the history of popular music in France between the arrival of rock and roll in 1958 and the collapse of the first wave of punk in 1980, and the connections between musical genres and concepts of community in French society.

Students of pop music and pop culture as well as fans who have loved the music since it came into being will gain valuable insight into this genre of the 1970s and 1980s.

Challenges the longstanding perception that modernist composers made art, not money, and that those who made money somehow failed to make art.

In The History of Music Production, Richard James Burgess draws on his experience as a producer, musician, and author.

After John Coltrane, there was no more revered and profoundly influential saxophonist on the planet than Michael Brecker.

In music studies, Timothy D.

Most scholars since World War Two have assumed that composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) maintained a strong attachment to Judaism throughout his lifetime.

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

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

A study of John Sangster's jazz suite The Lord of the Rings contextualized with biographical and cultural studies of the composer in the 1970s.

Renowned music historians Floyd and Margaret Grave present a fresh perspective on a comprehensive survey of the works.

A Broadway classic, a call to action, and an incredibly malleable popular song, "e;Ol' Man River"e; is not your typical musical theater standard.

The tonadilla, a type of satiric musical skit popular on the public stages of Madrid during the late Enlightenment, has played a significant role in the history of music in Spain.

The Music of Tragedy offers a new approach to the study of classical Greek theater by examining the use of musical language, imagery, and performance in the late work of Euripides.

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Blackstar Theory takes a close look at David Bowie's ambitious last works: his surprise 'comeback' project The Next Day (2013), the off-Broadway musical Lazarus (2015) and the album that preceded the artist's death in 2016 by two days, Blackstar.

***ONE OF BILLBOARD'S TOP TEN MUSIC BOOKS OF 2018*** A brilliant book about singing I have been talking to Nick Coleman about music, in person and in my head, for forty years now.

Since the mid-twentieth century, Zoltn Kodly's child-developmental philosophy for teaching music has had significant positive impact on music education around the world, and is now at the core of music teaching in the United States and other English speaking countries.

Shortly before his death, Percy Grainger (1882-1961) lodged over twenty unpublished sketches in his Australian Museum.

"e;Industrial"e; is a descriptor that fans and critics have applied to a remarkable variety of music: the oildrum pounding of Einstrzende Neubauten, the processed electronic groans of Throbbing Gristle, the drumloop clatter of Skinny Puppy, and the synthpop songcraft of VNV Nation, to name just a few.

Electronic music evokes new sensations, feelings, and thoughts in both composers and listeners.

As one of the foremost composers, conductors, and pianists of the nineteenth century, Felix Mendelssohn played a fundamental role in the shaping of modern musical tastes through his contributions to the early music revival and the formation of the Austro-German musical canon.

The drum kit has provided the pulse of popular music from before the dawn of jazz up to the present day pop charts.

This is the first-ever historical study across all musical genres in any American metropolis.

The definitive and fascinating biography of the musical trailblazer who was the influence behind countless legendary hits, a rock and roll legend in his own right, and the original rockabilly catCarl Perkins.

Mad Dogs and Englishness connects English popular music with questions about English national identities, featuring essays that range across Bowie and Burial, PJ Harvey, Bishi and Tricky.

Spanning more than fifty years of modern music history, Peter Asher: A Life in Music highlights every turn in Peter Asher's amazing career.

Presents new research on Fauré by leading scholars, encompassing hermeneutics, musical analysis, aesthetic theory, critical theory, and social history.

Details of Consequence examines a trait that is taken for granted and rarely investigated in fin-de-sicle French music: ornamental extravagance.

In this book, readers will learn practical tips and strategies to teach music appreciation online.

What does it mean to have an emotional response to poetry and music?

This account of Led Zeppelin's decadent life on the road by their longtime tour manager "e;dishes up the real dirt as only an insider's report can"e; (Kirkus Reviews).

Rarely studied in their own right, writings about music are often viewed as merely supplemental to understanding music itself.

Now in its sixth decade, country music studies is a thriving field of inquiry involving scholars working in the fields of American history, folklore, sociology, anthropology, musicology, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, and geography, among many others.

David Tudor is remembered today in two guises: as an extraordinary pianist of post-war avant-garde music who worked closely with composers like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen and as a founding figure of live-electronic music.

John MacAuslan interprets four great Schumann works in the context of their literary connections and Romantic aesthetic concepts.

Opera has always been a vital and complex mixture of commercial and aesthetic concerns, of bourgeois politics and elite privilege.

Singing master Durham Hills created The Cashaway Psalmody to give as a wedding present in 1770.

In Musicologia-meaning "e;musical reasoning"e; as distinct from a mere love of music-author and composer Robin Maconie takes aim against the fashionable misconception that music is empty of meaning, or "e;auditory cheesecake.