William Kinderman's detailed study of Parsifal, described by the composer as his "e;last card,"e; explores the evolution of the text and music of this inexhaustible yet highly controversial music drama across Wagner's entire career, and offers a reassessment of the ideological and political history of Parsifal, shedding new light on the connection of Wagner's legacy to the rise of National Socialism in Germany.
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.
Following Stalin's death in 1953, during the period now known as the Thaw, Nikita Khrushchev opened up greater freedoms in cultural and intellectual life.
This is the first full-length biography in English of Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824), one of the great violinist-composers in the history of music, and arguably the most influential violinist who ever lived.
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.
Arnold Schoenberg was a polarizing figure in twentieth century music, and his works and ideas have had considerable and lasting impact on Western musical life.
Based on extensive documentary and archival research, Music in Renaissance Ferrara is a documentary history of music for one of the most important city-states of the Italian Renaissance.
Originally published in 1943, Models for Beginners in Composition represents one of Arnold Schoenberg's earliest attempts at reaching a broad American audience through his pedagogical ideas.
Oxford's highly successful listener's guides--The Symphony, The Concerto, and Choral Masterworks--have been widely praised for their blend of captivating biography, crystal clear musical analysis, and delightful humor.
Composer, cultural diplomat, and man about town, Nicolas Nabokov (1903-78) counted among his intimate friends everyone from Igor Stravinsky to George Kennan.
Composer, cultural diplomat, and man about town, Nicolas Nabokov (1903-78) counted among his intimate friends everyone from Igor Stravinsky to George Kennan.
Discoveries from the Fortepiano uncovers eighteenth-century performance practices and philosophical beliefs, enabling modern performers to craft an authentic, historically influenced style.
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.
The Politics of Appropriation uncovers a largely forgotten chapter in music history by considering the intersection of music and Hellenism in nineteenth-century Germany.
From the mid-1950s through the 1960s, Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti went through a remarkable period of stylistic transition, from the emulation of his fellow countryman Bela Bartok to his own individual style at the forefront of the Western-European avant-garde.
Around the middle of the eighteenth century, the leading figures of the French Enlightenment engaged in a philosophical debate about the nature of music.
The Modern Castrato: Gaetano Guadagni and the Coming of a New Operatic Age chronicles the career of the most significant castrato of the second half of the eighteenth-century.
A History of Western Choral Music explores the various genres, key composers, and influential works essential to the development of the western choral tradition.
The British composer, conductor, and pianist Thomas Ades has achieved a level of recognition and celebrity within the world of classical music today that is almost unmatched.
The riot that erupted during the 1913 debut of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris has long been one of the most infamous and intriguing events of modern musical history.
Piano Lessons with Claudio Arrau provides an insider's view of the art of piano performance as exemplified by one of the great artists of the twentieth century.
The Modern Castrato: Gaetano Guadagni and the Coming of a New Operatic Age chronicles the career of the most significant castrato of the second half of the eighteenth-century.
Defining Deutschtum: Political Ideology, German Identity, and Music-Critical Discourse in Liberal Vienna offers a nuanced look at the intersection of music, cultural identity, and political ideology in late-nineteenth-century Vienna.
Offering innovative approaches to thinking about orchestras, Global Perspectives on Orchestras: Collective Creativity and Social Agency adopts ethnographic, historical and comparative perspectives on a variety of traditions, including symphony, Caribbean steel, Indonesian gamelan, Indian film and Vietnamese court examples.
The last of the Spanish Romantics, composer, conductor, and impresario Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982) left his mark on virtually every aspect of Spanish musical culture during a career that spanned six decades and saw tremendous political and cultural upheavals.
In the Middle Ages, relic cults provoked rich expressions of devotion not only in hagiographic literature and visual art but also in liturgical music and ritual.
