Art music, orchestral and formal music

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.

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.

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.

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.

Over the last dozen years, the writings of Richard Taruskin have transformed the debate about "e;early music"e; and "e;authenticity.

Is music removed from politics?

This volume examines musical culture both inside and outside seventeenth-century Sienese convents.

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.

To the perennial question "e;which comes first, the music or the words?

"e;Pygmy music"e; has captivated students and scholars of anthropology and music for decades if not centuries, but until now this aspect of their culture has never been described in a work that is at once vividly engaging, intellectually rigorous, and self-consciously aware of the ironies of representation.

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.

Based on extensive fieldwork and documentary research in China, this book is a chronicle of the musical history of Lijiang County in China's southern Yunnan Province.

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.

Calling Back the Spirit describes how, in the face of Indonesian and foreign cultural pressures, the Makassarese people of South Sulawesi are defending their local spirit through music and dance.

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.

When first published in 1947, A Short History of Opera immediately achieved international status as a classic in the field.

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.

Written more than a century ago and initially regarded even by their creators as nothing more than light entertainment, the fourteen operas of Gilbert & Sullivan emerged over the course of the twentieth century as the world's most popular body of musical-theater works, ranking second only to Shakespeare in the history of English-language theater.

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.

When Bela Bartok died in September of 1945, he left a partially completed viola concerto commissioned by the virtuoso violist William Primrose.

A jazz writer for three decades, W.

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

In The Composer as Intellectual, musicologist Jane Fulcher reveals the extent to which leading French composers between the World Wars were not only aware of but also engaged intellectually and creatively with the central political and ideological issues of the period.

World Musics in Context is a wide-ranging survey of musics of the world, in their historical and social contexts, from ancient times to the present day.

Following the earlier volumes in the Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure series, Mahler's Fourth Symphony is a study of origins of one of Mahler's most popular and accessible works.

In this book, a follow-up to his 1996 monograph Celestial Sirens, Robert Kendrick examines the cultural contexts of music in early-modern Milan.

One of the most fascinating figures of seventeenth-century music, composer and singer Antonia Padoani Bembo (c.

Enrique Granados (1867-1916) is one of the most compelling figures of the late-Romantic period in music.

This volume discusses the commerce of music and its connection to the printing and publishing industry in mid-sixteenth century Venice.

The vocal repertoire of the twentieth century--including works by Schoenberg, Boulez, Berio, Larsen, and Vercoe--presents exciting opportunities for singers to stretch their talents and demonstrate their vocal flexibility.

This is the first book to consider all aspects of the life of Agostino Steffani (1654-1728), a composer, diplomat, and bishop.

Johann Sebastian Bach's two surviving passions--St.

Georges Barrere (1876-1944) holds a preeminent place in the history of American flute playing.

In this penetrating study, Russell Stinson explores how four of the greatest composers of the nineteenth century--Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Johannes Brahms--responded to the model of Bach's organ music.

Burt Korall is widely recognized as the most authoritative writer on jazz drumming.

This study of the French early music revival gives us a vivid sense of how music's cultural meanings were contested in the nineteenth century.

This book is an examination of the uneasy alliance of two confessions, Lutheran and Catholic, at the prominent seventeenth-century court of Dresden, and the implications of this alliance for the repertoire of sacred art music cultivated there, an influential repertoire that has received only scant attention from scholars.

In Oh Joy!

The past ten years have seen a rapidly growing interest in performing and recording Classical and Romantic music with period instruments; yet the relationship of composers' notation to performing practices during that period has received only sporadic attention from scholars, and many aspects of composers' intentions have remained uncertain.

From the Jim Crow world of 1920s Greenville, South Carolina, to Greenwich Village's Cafe 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.