More than a century after Guido Adler's appointment to the first chair in musicology at the University of Vienna, Music, Criticism, and the Challenge of History provides a first look at the discipline in this earliest period, and at the ideological dilemmas and methodological anxieties that characterized it upon its institutionalization.
In this funny, evocative, personal eBook, previously published as 'Music for the People: The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Classical Music', Gareth Malone takes us on a journey of musical discovery that explains and entertains in equal measure.
'A fine, intellectually sparkling and always engaging little book - a welcome addition to any Wagner library'Hans Vaget, Opera QuarterlyWhilst no one would dispute Wagner's ranking among the most significant composers in the history of Western music, his works have been more fiercely attacked than those of any other composer.
An essential exploration of Nordic composers and musicians, and the distinctive culture that continues to shape them Once considered a musical backwater, the Nordic region is now a musical powerhouse.
A prominent conductor explores how aesthetic criteria masked the political goals of countries during the three great wars of the past century This book offers a major reassessment of classical music in the twentieth century.
A fascinating history of the piano explored through 100 pieces chosen by one of the UK's most renowned concert pianists An astonishingly versatile instrument, the piano allows just two hands to play music of great complexity and subtlety.
A comprehensive and immersive survey of thirty-five Beethoven piano sonatasBeethoven's piano sonatas are among the iconic cornerstones of the classical music repertoire.
This fascinating collection of letters, notes, and miscellanea from the archives of the Tchaikovsky State House-Museum sheds new light on the world of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
The first book about the Albatross Press, a Penguin precursor that entered into an uneasy relationship with the Nazi regime to keep Anglo-American literature alive under fascism The Albatross Press was, from its beginnings in 1932, a “strange bird”: a cultural outsider to the Third Reich but an economic insider.
The extraordinary story of African American composer Edmond Dédé, raised in antebellum New Orleans, and his remarkable career in France In 1855, Edmond Dédé, a free black composer from New Orleans, emigrated to Paris.
An engrossing new biography of the musical revolutionary who was the world’s first international megastar Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was an anomaly.
Musicologist Pauline Fairclough explores the evolving role of music in shaping the cultural identity of the Soviet Union in a revelatory work that counters certain hitherto accepted views of an unbending, unchanging state policy of repression, censorship, and dissonance that existed in all areas of Soviet artistic endeavor.
The definitive account of the life and music of Hungary’s greatest twentieth-century composer This deeply researched biography of Béla Bartók (1881–1945) provides a more comprehensive view of the innovative Hungarian musician than ever before.
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a fresh appreciation of the great musical figure that gives him his due as composer as well as conductor Leonard Bernstein stood at the epicenter of twentieth-century American musical life.
An eye-opening reexamination of Handel’s beloved religious oratorio Every Easter, audiences across the globe thrill to performances of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” but they would probably be appalled to learn the full extent of the oratorio’s anti-Judaic message.
A new biography of Shostakovich that views him through the intimate music of his string quartets Most previous books about Dmitri Shostakovich have focused on either his symphonies and operas, or his relationship to the regime under which he lived, or both, since these large-scale works were the ones that attracted the interest and sometimes the condemnation of the Soviet authorities.
In this welcome addition to the immensely popular Yale Broadway Masters series, Larry Starr focuses fresh attention on George Gershwin’s Broadway contributions and examines their centrality to the composer’s entire career.
The definitive biography of the celebrated composer, published in English to coincide with the centenary of his death A best seller when first published in Germany in 2003, Jens Malte Fischer's Gustav Mahler has been lauded by scholars as a landmark work.
A groundbreaking study of the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich—and the consequences for music worldwide With National Socialism's arrival in Germany in 1933, Jews dominated music more than virtually any other sector, making it the most important cultural front in the Nazi fight for German identity.
This book is the first to examine the brilliant gathering of composers, conductors, and other musicians who fled Nazi Germany and arrived in the Los Angeles area.
This groundbreaking anthology brings together for the first time the works of women poet-composers, or trouvères, in northern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The Nutcracker is the most popular ballet in the world, adopted and adapted by hundreds of communities across the United States and Canada every Christmas season.
In this eagerly anticipated book, Boris Gasparov gazes through the lens of music to find an unusual perspective on Russian cultural and literary history.
Arnold Schoenberg’s close involvement with many of the principal developments of twentieth-century music, most importantly the break with tonality and the creation of twelve-tone composition, generated controversy from the time of his earliest works to the present day.
This thoughtful and provocative book explores the relationship between music and the visual arts in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on the modernist period.
Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine, among the most influential artists of the twentieth century, together created the music and movement for many ballet masterpieces.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a masterpiece that has influenced virtually every Western composer since its premiere, has become associated with the marking of momentous public occasions.
Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier (or the 48 Preludes and Fugues) stands at the core of baroque keyboard music and has been a model and inspiration for performers and composers ever since it was written.
The past 50 years have seen a tremendous arts boom in Seattle, which has given the city not only internationally recognized classical music institutions but also great performance halls to showcase their work and that of visiting artists.
Julia Crowe interviews the world's leading guitarists, from Les Paul, Carlos Santana, Peter Frampton and Jimmie Vaughan, Joe Satriani, Melissa Etheridge, to Lee Ranaldo, George Benson and Jimmy Page.
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a fresh appreciation of the great musical figure that gives him his due as composer as well as conductor Leonard Bernstein stood at the epicenter of twentieth-century American musical life.
An examination of how the scientific study of sound sensation became increasingly intertwined with musical aesthetics in nineteenth-century Germany and Austria.
