Music reviews and criticism

In 1714, the 29 year-old Johann Sebastian Bach was promoted to the position of concertmaster at the ducal court of Weimar.

Purcell's Dido and Aeneas stands as the greatest operatic achievement of seventeenth-century England, and yet, despite its global renown, it remains cloaked in mystery.

Audiences have long enjoyed Sergei Prokofiev's musical score for Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film Alexander Nevsky.

Audiences have long enjoyed Sergei Prokofiev's musical score for Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film Alexander Nevsky.

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.

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.

Why would Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), modernist titan and so-called prophet of the New Music, commit himself time and again to the venerable sonata-allegro form of Mozart and Beethoven?

Elliott Carter (1908-2012) was the foremost composer of classical music in America during the second half of the 20th century.

Elliott Carter (1908-2012) was the foremost composer of classical music in America during the second half of the 20th century.

Mirrors of Heaven or Worldly Theaters?

In a tradition extending from the medieval era to the early twentieth century, visually disabled Japanese women known as goze toured the countryside as professional singers.

In 1950, as Arnold Schoenberg anticipated the publication of a collection of 15 of his most important writings, Style and Idea, he was already at work on a second volume to be called Program Notes.

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.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Hollywood studios and record companies churned out films, albums, music videos and promotional materials that sought to recapture, revise, and re-imagine the 1950s.

When it was first published in 1994, King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and his Era was widely heralded not only as the most thorough investigation of Scott Joplin's life and music, but also as a gripping read, almost a detective story.

When it was first published in 1994, King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and his Era was widely heralded not only as the most thorough investigation of Scott Joplin's life and music, but also as a gripping read, almost a detective story.

In Local Fusions, author Barbara Rose Lange explores musical life in Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria between the end of the Cold War and the world financial crisis of 2008.

Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory is the first comprehensive study of the musical structure and social history of klezmer music, the music of the Jewish musicians' guild of Eastern Europe.

This book is about how music "e;in a key"e; is composed.

Unruly Media argues that we are the crest of a new international style in which sonic and visual parameters become heightened and accelerated.

Through musical analysis of compositions written between the mid-twelfth to late nineteenth centuries, this volume celebrates the achievements of eight composers, all women: Hildegard of Bingen, Maddalena Casulana, Barbara Strozzi, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Marianne Martines, Josephine Lang, Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, and Amy Beach.

Over the past 30 years, musicologists have produced a remarkable new body of research literature focusing on the lives and careers of women composers in their socio-historical contexts.

Since the mid-twentieth century, Zoltan Kodaly'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.

Since the mid-twentieth century, Zoltan Kodaly'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.

Since the mid-twentieth century, Zoltan Kodaly'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.

Since the mid-twentieth century, Zoltan Kodaly'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.

Environmental Sound Artists: In Their Own Words is an incisive and imaginative look at the international environmental sound art movement, which emerged in the late 1960s.

Environmental Sound Artists: In Their Own Words is an incisive and imaginative look at the international environmental sound art movement, which emerged in the late 1960s.

Starting with 1964's Goldfinger, every James Bond film has followed the same ritual, and so has its audience: after an exciting action sequence the screen goes black and the viewer spends three long minutes absorbing abstract opening credits and a song that sounds like it wants to return to 1964.

Starting with 1964's Goldfinger, every James Bond film has followed the same ritual, and so has its audience: after an exciting action sequence the screen goes black and the viewer spends three long minutes absorbing abstract opening credits and a song that sounds like it wants to return to 1964.

In The Country Music Reader Travis D.

What does music have to say about modernity?

What does music have to say about modernity?

From Washington Square Park and the Gaslight Cafe to WNYC Radio and Folkways Records, New York City's cultural, artistic, and commercial assets helped to shape a distinctively urban breeding ground for the folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s.

From Washington Square Park and the Gaslight Cafe to WNYC Radio and Folkways Records, New York City's cultural, artistic, and commercial assets helped to shape a distinctively urban breeding ground for the folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s.

In Spirits Rejoice!

In Spirits Rejoice!

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

As one of the original pioneering composers of the American experimental music movement and a well known scholar of classics, Christian Wolff has long been active as a significant thinker and elegant writer on music.

As one of the original pioneering composers of the American experimental music movement and a well known scholar of classics, Christian Wolff has long been active as a significant thinker and elegant writer on music.

Understanding Sound Tracks Through Film Theory breaks new ground by redirecting the arguments of foundational texts within film theory to film sound tracks.

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

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

Dave Brubeck's Time Out ranks among the most popular, successful, and influential jazz albums of all time.

Dave Brubeck's Time Out ranks among the most popular, successful, and influential jazz albums of all time.

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.

The early years of the Franco regime saw the formation of a strong governmental propaganda apparatus.

In the 1920s, the Mexican composer Julian Carrillo (1875-1965) developed a microtonal system called El Sonido 13 (The 13th Sound).

During the decades leading up to 1910, Portugal saw vast material improvements under the guise of modernization while in the midst of a significant political transformation - the establishment of the Portuguese First Republic.

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.