Music reviews and criticism

Warren Zevon songs are like chapters in a great American novel.

A Variety Best Music Book of 2022 A No Depression Most Memorable Music Book of 2022 A Library Journal Best Arts and Humanities Book of 2022 A Pitchfork Best Music Book of 2022 A Boot Best Music Book of 2022 A Ticketmaster Best Music Book of 2022 A Happy Magazine Best Music Book of 2022 Woody Guthrie First Book Award winner Awarded a Certificate of Merit in the 2023 ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in the category Best Historical Research in Country, Folk, Roots, or World Music.

Be a fly on the wall of sound: get the inside history and behind-the-scenes events in the making of a masterpiece.

Clad in white tie and tails, dancing and scatting his way through the "e;Hi-de-ho"e; chorus of "e;Minnie the Moocher,"e; Cab Calloway exuded a sly charm and sophistication that endeared him to legions of fans.

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.

In Rethinking Schubert, today's leading Schubertians offer fresh perspectives on the composer's importance and our perennial fascination with him.

From the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author, "e;an ideal starting point toward ultimate Beethoven appreciation"e; (Entertainment Weekly).

There is a striking similarity between Marian devotional songs and secular love songs of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

This book reveals Czech composer Bedrich Smetana as a dynamic figure whose mythology has been rewritten time and again to suit shifting political perspectives.

In this book Christopher Hasty presents a striking new theory of musical duration.

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.

More than simply a paragon of Brazilian samba, Dona (Lady) Ivone Lara's 1981 Sorriso Negro (translated to Black Smile) is an album deeply embedded in the political and social tensions of its time.

The once derided musical hybrid that is 1970s Jazz Fusion has since become one of the most influential genres of music in jazz, rock, soul, and hip-hop.

Representing a historical cross-section of performance and training in Western music since the seventeenth century, Five Lives in Music brings to light the private and performance lives of five remarkable women musicians and composers.

The first book of its kind in English, Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk explores the texts and contexts of German punk cultures.

While Karnatic music, a form of Indian music based on the melodic principle of raga and time cycles called tala, is known today as South India's classical music, its status as "e;classical"e; is an early-twentieth-century construct, one that emerged in the crucible of colonial modernity, nationalist ideology, and South Indian regional politics.

Uses the rare depictions of musical instruments and musical sources found on the Eglantine Table to understand the musical life of the Elizabethan age and its connection to aspects of culture now treated as separate disciplines ofhistorical study.

A thematic exploration of Schubert''s style, applied in readings of his instrumental and vocal literature by international scholars.

Off the Record is a revealing exploration of piano performing practices of the high Romantic era.

What makes a song sound foreign?

Camille Saint-Sans is a memorable figure not only for his successes as a composer of choral and orchestral works, and the eternally popular opera Samson et Dalila, but also because he was a keen observer of the musical culture in which he lived.

The first collection ever of essays and reviews by the renowned pedagogue, composer, and conductor, providing fresh perspectives on her musical influence and impact.

Joni Mitchell: New Critical Readings recognizes the importance and innovativeness of the musician and artist Joni Mitchell and the need for a collection that theorizes her work as musician, composer, cultural commentator and antagonist.

Leo Black's memoir not only recalls 'the Glock Era and After' in a series of informative, poignant, witty and judicious vignettes, but is also a key text for understanding one of the great ages of British music.

Published for the first time: a rich epistolary dialogue revealing one master teacher's power to shape the cultural canon and one great composer's desire to embed himself within historical narratives.

Listen to Soul!

In 1952, John Cage shocked audiences with 4'33"e;, his compositional ode to the ironic power of silence.

Dreaming with Open Eyes examines visual symbolism in late seventeenth-century Italian opera, contextualizing the genre amid the broad ocularcentric debates emerging at the crossroads of the early modern period and the Enlightenment.

From the silent era to the present day, popular music has been a key component of the film experience.

Influenced by Robert and Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim, Johannes Brahms not only learned to play the organ at the beginning of his career, but also wrote significant compositions for the instrument as a result of his early counterpoint study.

Antifascist and socialist monuments pervaded the landscape of the former German Democratic Republic (1949-89), presenting a distorted vision of the national past.

Johann Sebastian Bach's legacy is undeniably one of the richest in the history of music, with a vast influence on posterity that has only grown since his rediscovery in the early nineteenth century.

Building on ideas first advanced by Arnold Schoenberg and later developed by Erwin Ratz, this book introduces a new theory of form for instrumental music in the classical style.

The connections between a great artist's life and work are subtle, complex, and often highly revealing.

Sonic Overload offers a new, music-centered cultural history of the late Soviet Union.

What is music, and why does it move us?

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

The first regional history of music in England.

From the Jim Crow world of 1920s Greenville, South Carolina, to Greenwich Village's Caf Society in the '40s, to their 1974 Grammy-winning collaboration on "e;Loves Me Like a Rock,"e; the Dixie Hummingbirds have been one of gospel's most durable and inspiring groups.

This title was originally published in 1967.

Early seventeenth-century Italy saw a revolution in instrumental music.

An accessible multi-disciplinary exploration of Franz Schubert''s haunting late song cycle Winterreise (1827) that combines context and different analytical approaches.

Hans von Blow is a key figure in 19th century music whose career path was as broad as it was successful.

Demonstrates the profound impact of The Poems of Ossian on composers of the Romantic Era and later: Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Massenet, and many others.

The first book focused on the political resonances of E.

As Timothy McGee says in his introduction, 'It is not an exaggeration to say that John Beckwith has been the single most important influence on Canadian music over the past forty years.

In Roots of the Revival: American and British Folk Music in the 1950s, Ronald D.

Brahms in the Priesthood of Art: Gender and Art Religion in the Nineteenth-Century German Musical Imagination explores the intersection of gender, art religion (Kunstreligion) and other aesthetic currents in Brahms reception of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This study analyzes chamber music from Mozart''s time within its highly social salon-performance context.

King of the Queen City is the first comprehensive history of King Records, one of the most influential independent record companies in the history of American music.