Sound film captivated Sergey Prokofiev during the final two decades of his life: he considered composing for nearly two dozen pictures, eventually undertaking eight of them, all Soviet productions.
Typically regarded as reflecting on a culture in social, political, or psychological crisis, the arts in fin-de-siecle Vienna had another side: they were means by which creative individuals imagined better futures and perfected worlds dawning with the turn of the twentieth century.
In this wide-ranging set of original essays, musicologist and organist Russell Stinson investigates Johann Sebastian Bach's compositions for the organ, opening up a wealth of perspectives on the stylistic orientation and historical context of these timeless masterpieces.
American director Robert Altman (1925-2006) first came to national attention with the surprise blockbuster M*A*S*H (1970), and he directed more than thirty feature films in the subsequent decades.
Just as our society delights in citations, quotations, and allusions in myriad contexts, not least in popular song, late medieval poets and composers knew well that such references could greatly enrich their own works.
Without any formal training in music composition, Irving Berlin took a knack for music and turned it into the most successful songwriting career in American history.
In this new edition of the classic text on the evolution of electronic music, Peter Manning extends the definitive account of the medium from its birth to include key developments from the dawn of the 21st century to the present day.
Recognized as the patriarch of the minimalist movement-Brian Eno once called him "e;the daddy of us all"e;--La Monte Young remains an enigma within the music world, one of the most important and yet most elusive composers of the late twentieth century.
Some of the most popular works of nineteenth-century music were labeled either "e;Hungarian"e; or "e;Gypsy"e; in style, including many of the best-known and least-respected of Liszt's compositions.
Although military music was among the most widespread forms of music making during the nineteenth-century, it has been almost totally overlooked by music historians.
The Romantic pianist - the solo pianist who plays nineteenth-century piano music - has become an attractive figure in the popular imagination, considering the innumerable artworks, literary works, and films representing this performer's seductive allure.
Few Mexican musicians in the twentieth century achieved as much notoriety or had such an international impact as the popular singer and songwriter Agustin Lara (1897-1970).
Distinguished music theorist and composer David Lewin (1933-2003) applies the conceptual framework he developed in his earlier, innovative Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations to the varied repertoire of the twentieth century in this stimulating and illustrative book.
Mendelssohn and the Organ is the first comprehensive historical-critical study in any language to examine the role of the organ in Mendelssohn's personal and professional career.
This critical study locates musical monumentality, a central property of the nineteenth-century German repertoire, at the intersections of aesthetics and memory.
Mahler's Voices brings together a close reading of the renowned composer's music with wide-ranging cultural and historical interpretation, unique in being a study not of Mahler's works as such but of Mahler's musical style.
Combining musical insight with the most recent research, William Kinderman's Beethoven is both a richly drawn portrait of the man and a guide to his music.
Setting the stage for a most intriguing journey into the world of minimalism, Robert Carl's Terry Riley's In C argues that the work holds its place in the canon because of the very challenges it presents to "e;classical"e; music.
In this third edition of the classic Verdi, renowned authority Julian Budden offers a comprehensive overview of Verdi the man and the artist, tracing his ascent from humble beginnings to the status of a cultural patriarch of the new Italy, whose cause he had done much to promote, and demonstrating the gradual enlargement over the years of his artistic vision.
