Music reviews and criticism

How did castrati manage to amaze their eighteenth-century audiences by singing the same aria several times in completely different ways?

How did castrati manage to amaze their eighteenth-century audiences by singing the same aria several times in completely different ways?

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

Theological Stains offers the first in-depth study of the development of art music in Israel from the mid-twentieth century to the turn of the twenty-first.

Theological Stains offers the first in-depth study of the development of art music in Israel from the mid-twentieth century to the turn of the twenty-first.

The Hispanic rite, a medieval non-Roman Western liturgy, was practiced across the Iberian Peninsula for over half a millennium and functioned as the most distinct marker of Christian identity in this region.

The Hispanic rite, a medieval non-Roman Western liturgy, was practiced across the Iberian Peninsula for over half a millennium and functioned as the most distinct marker of Christian identity in this region.

The Nashville Cats bounced from studio to studio along the city's Music Row, delivering instrumental backing tracks for countless recordings throughout the mid-20th century.

The Nashville Cats bounced from studio to studio along the city's Music Row, delivering instrumental backing tracks for countless recordings throughout the mid-20th century.

There were but four major galaxies in the early jazz universe, and three of them--New Orleans, Chicago, and New York--have been well documented in print.

Vividly recreating the unique pleasure of experiencing a song-and-dance show, Broadway Babies spotlights the men and women who made a difference in the development of American musical comedy.

New York City witnessed a dazzling burst of creativity in the 1920s.

In this book, a leading authority on film music examines scores of the silent film era.

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

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944), the most widely performed composer of her generation, was the first American woman to succeed as a creator of large-scale art music.

Even as orchestras, performers, enthusiasts, and critics across the nation--and across the globe--celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth, George Gershwin (1898-1937) remains one of America's most popular yet least appreciated composers.

The Exultet rolls of southern Italy are parchment scrolls containing text and music for the blessing of the great Easter candle; they contain magnificent illustrations, often turned upside down with respect to the text, The Exultet in Southern Italy provides a broad perspective on this phenomenon that has long attracted the interest of those interested in medieval art, liturgy, and music.

Alec Wilder wrote songs and lyrics of unsurpassed beauty and originality, and his work won the respect and admiration of such important musical figures as Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Mitch Miller, Gunther Schuller, and many others.

Drawing upon a remarkable mix of intensive research and the personal experience of a career devoted to the music about which Dvorak so presciently spoke, Maurice Peress's lively and convincing narrative treats readers to a rare and delightful glimpse behind the scenes of the burgeoning American school of music and beyond.

How does creativity thrive in the face of fascism?

Amid the recent increase in scholarly attention to rock music, Understanding Rock stands out as one of the first books that subjects diverse aspects of the music itself to close and sophisticated analytical scrutiny.

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

Musical Symbolism in the Operas of Debussy and Bartok explores the means by which two early 20th century operas - Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande (1902) and Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1911) - transformed the harmonic structures of the traditional major/minor scale system into a new musical language.

As a work of cultural criticism that recalls the concerns of Foucault, Hayden White, Zizek, and others Decentering Music examines the struggle for the authority to speak about music at a time when the humanities are in crisis.

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.

For more than half of his long life, composer Roger Sessions was a commanding figure on the American musical scene.

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

This book draws upon both musicology and cultural history to argue that French musical meanings and values from 1898 to 1914 are best explained not in terms of contemporary artistic movements but of the political culture.

The groundbreaking analytical techniques of Heinrich Schenker have had a powerful impact on the English-speaking musical world, and their importance, a century after he embarked on his major projects, is greater than ever.

Is music removed from politics?

In Crossing Paths, John Daverio explores the connections between art and life in the works of three giants of musical romanticism.

Fantasy Pieces examines from several vantage points a vital life-force of Robert Schumann's music, namely metrical conflict.

Four Parts, No Waiting investigates the role that vernacular, barbershop-style close harmony has played in American musical history, in American life, and in the American imagination.

This new study draws on analysis, literary criticism, and source studies to propose a new conception of the nineteenth-century romantic cycle.

The Divine Office--the cycle of daily worship other than the Mass--is the richest source of liturgical texts and music from the Latin Middle Ages.

The Muse That Sings is a unique behind-the-scenes look at both twentieth-century music and the nuts and bolts of creative work.

Between 1908 and 1923, Arnold Schoenberg began writing music that went against many of the accepted concepts and practices of this art.

"e;Music and girls are the soul of musical comedy,"e; one critic wrote, early in the 1940s.

How did Renaissance composers write their music?

The motet was unquestionably one of the most important vocal genres from its inception in late twelfth-century Paris through the Counter-Reformation and beyond.

This book is the first biography of 20th-century pianist Rudolf Serkin, providing a narrative of Serkin's life with emphasis on his European roots and the impact of his move to America.

In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich radically renewed the musical landscape with a back-to-basics sound that came to be called Minimalism.

This is the first book-length examination of Bartok's 1911 opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, one of the twentieth century's enduring operatic works.

Although it isn't the official national anthem, America may be the most important and interesting patriotic song in our national repertoire.

Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is frequently considered the most significant American female composer in this century.

In the London of Shakespeare and William Byrd, Thomas East was the premier, often exclusive, printer of music.

The work of composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) ranges from late-romantic salon pieces to evocations of flamenco to stark neoclassicism.

It's difficult to imagine Franz Liszt performing in Peoria, but his contemporary and foremost rival, Sigismund Thalberg, did just that.

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