Music-History & Criticism

This book is a firsthand report of a great composer's intentions in regard to the performance of his music. These intentions have been digested and interpreted for us by the composer's friend Robert Schmitz (1889-1949), who was himself a distinguished pianist, an articulate musician,...

Offering a new understanding of the Hymn to Demeter, Ann Suter provides an analysis of methodological approaches, reconciling the seemingly disparate pieces of the complex narrative of the hymn. Examining evidence from other versions of the hymn's myths, as well as from Greek religion,...

It's not just rap music. Hip-hop has transformed theater, dance, performance, poetry, literature, fashion, design, photography, painting, and film, to become one of the most far-reaching and transformative arts movements of the past two decades. American Book Award-winning journalist Jeff Chang, author of the...

This streamlined second edition exposes students to the expressive power of jazz and brings its greatest players to life. With an emphasis on engagement with the music, this new text gives students all the guidance and inspiration they need to fully understand jazz. Now...

Made in Yugoslavia: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive and thorough introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of popular music in Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav region across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book consists of chapters by leading scholars and...

This eclectic compilation of readings tells the history of rock as it has been received and explained as a social and musical practice throughout its six decade history. This third edition includes new readings across the volume, with added material on the early origins...

This book is not about music or politics. It is about the 'and' that binds them together. How do these fields intersect, and what theories and approaches can help us understand their interactions? How have the relationships between music and politics changed over time...

Pierre Boulez is arguably the most influential composer of the second half of the twentieth century. Here, Jonathan Goldman provides a fresh appraisal of the composer's music, demonstrating how understanding the evolution of Boulez's ideas on musical form is an important step towards evaluating...

John Cage is best known for his indeterminate music, which leaves a significant level of creative decision-making in the hands of the performer. But how much licence did Cage allow? Martin Iddon's book is the first volume to collect the complete extant correspondence between...

John Mauceri, who has stood on podiums before storied symphonies, operas, and ballets around the world, brings a lifetime of experience to bear in this informative, brilliantly entertaining exploration of his profession. As Mauceri traces the lineage of his craft, from Felix Mendelssohn (the...

The riveting, untold story of the "Father of Christian Rock" and the conflicts that launched a billion-dollar industry at the dawn of America's culture wars. In 1969, in Capitol Records' Hollywood studio, a blonde-haired troubadour named Larry Norman laid track for an album that...

Their music blazed a trail across the world but Led Zeppelin's media silence was as deafening as their live shows. Throughout their extraordinary career the band were untouchables, refusing interviews and treating press attention with disdain. Few journalists were allowed to enter the house...

Inspired by a simple act of kindness, a rare artifact and an insatiable thirst for discovering the truth behind Americas untenable loss of domestic tranquility, the author will take you on the quest of a lifetime. Most of the legendary performers who launched their...

The Great Tompall: Forgotten Country Music Outlaw provides an in-depth look at the life of one of country music's least recognized - but most iconic and influential performers and business owners. Given unprecedented access to Tompall, this book tells his story through his own...

The decade after the Beatles' split gets a second look... In 2010, Robert Rodriguez's Fab Four FAQ 2.0: The Beatles 1970-1980 told the story of the ex-band mates during the first ten years after calling it quits, detailing efforts to establish four separate artistic...

The collection includes exclusive, one-on-one interviews conducted over the past six years with 27 of today's best-known violinists (plus one conductor/composer): Hilary Hahn, Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, David Garrett, Anne Akiko Meyers, Ruggiero Ricci, Maxim Vengerov, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony, Rachel...

OPERA IN PARIS 1800 - 1850 A LIVELY HISTORYAuthor: Patrick BarbierISBN-10: 0931340837ISBN-13: 9780931340833Publisher: AmadeusLanguage: EnglishPublished: 04/01/2003Pages: 250Format: HardcoverWeight: 1.38lbsSize: 9.38h x 6.41w x 0.96dReview Citation(s): Kirkus Reviews 03/15/1995 pg. 351

Elvis Presley was never accused of a crime, but for years the FBI kept a file on Presley because of the crimes that went on in the background of his world: death threats made against him; a major extortion attempt while he was in...

This volume collects many of the best articles from veteran Rolling Stone writer Ben Fong-Torres. While many will recognize Ben as he was portrayed in Cameron Crowe's hit film Almost Famous, his thoughtful and engaging stories have been providing a backstage view for over...

Neil Young's musical evolution has been as versatile as rock itself: pioneering country-rocker with Buffalo Springfield; seminal folk-rocker with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; gentle acoustic guitarist; crashing hard rock electric guitarist; grunge prototype; and good-times rock 'n' roller. This cerebral singer/songwriter has penned...

ROLLIN' AND TUMBLIN' - THE POSTWAR BLUES GUITARISTSAuthor: Jas ObrechtISBN-10: 0879306130ISBN-13: 9780879306137Publisher: Backbeat BooksLanguage: EnglishPublished: 07/01/2000Pages: 466Format: PaperbackWeight: 1.43lbsSize: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.94dReview Citation(s): Booklist 12/15/1999 pg. 768Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2000 pg. 143

Written between the late '30s and the early '90s, these pieces by John Cage here acquire the permanence they deserve. Some have never been published before. Many appeared only in magazines, journals, and catalogues; others in concert programs and on record covers. Also included...

A fascinating blend of music, politics, and social history, Jumptown sheds light on a time and place overlooked by histories of Portland and jazz. For a golden decade following World War II, jazz talent and musical activity flourished in Portland. A thriving African American...

Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, U2, Peter Gabriel, and the Neville Brothers all have something in common: some of their best albums were produced by Daniel Lanois. A French-speaking kid from Canada, Lanois was driven by his innate curiosity and intense love of...

What type of choir did Bach have in mind as he created his cantatas, Passions and Masses? How many singers were at his disposal in Leipzig, and in what ways did he deploy them in his own music? Seeking to understand the medium of...

The first volume of Barker's memoirs, A Life in Jazz, followed him from New Orleans into the big bands of Cab Calloway and Benny Carter. He was working on this-the second volume-for some years before his death in 1994. Beginning with an extended portrait...

In 20 Jazz Funk Greats Drew Daniel (of the experimental band Matmos) creates-through both his own insights and exclusive interviews with the band-an exploded view of the album's multiple agendas: a series of close readings of each song, shot through with a sequence of...

Inside the Music of Brian Wilson is, as author Phillip Lambert writes in the prologue completely, and intensely, focused on the music of Brian Wilson, on the musical essence of his songs and the aesthetic value of his artistic achievements. It acknowledges the familiar...

The crooner Rudy Vall e's soft, intimate, and sensual vocal delivery simultaneously captivated millions of adoring fans and drew harsh criticism from those threatened by his sensitive masculinity. Although Vall e and other crooners reflected the gender fluidity of late-1920s popular culture, their challenge...

The first book-length history of an essential American music festivalThe first-ever book exclusively devoted to the history of the Newport Folk Festival, I Got a Song documents the trajectory of an American musical institution that began more than a half-century ago and continues to...

For people of African descent, music constitutes a unique domain of expression. From traditional West African drumming to South African kwaito, from spirituals to hip-hop, Black life and history has been dynamically displayed and contested through sound. Shana Redmond excavates the sonic histories of...

Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision shows that Hildegard's opus was filled with balance, unity, and a stress on the Gospel--a life and work that served as an inspiration and a challenge for the twelfth century and now for us at the beginning of...

In industry circles, musicians from Kentucky are known to possess an enviable pedigree-a lineage as prized as the bloodline of any bluegrass-raised Thoroughbred. With native sons and daughters like Naomi and Wynonna Judd, Loretta Lynn, the Everly Brothers, Joan Osborne, and Merle Travis, it's...

In West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Wells presents a major scholarly study of the famous American musical West Side Story, viewing the work from cultural, historical, and musical perspectives. From the "mambo craze" of the 1950s to the work's ongoing...

Told in the words of the musicians themselves, Keeping the Beat on the Street celebrates the renewed passion and pageantry among black brass bands in New Orleans. Mick Burns introduces the people who play the music and shares their insights, showing why New Orleans...

This work is a comprehensive treatment of the music of Biblical and early Talmudic times. It is thoroughly documented, setting forth the origins, forms and ethos of Hebrew music. It draws upon the most recent archaeological discoveries and contemporary Biblical research, dealing not only...

Making Your Memories with Rock & Roll and Doo-Wop: The Music and Artists of the 1950s and Early 1960s digs back through the catalogue of popular music and brings to life the solo artists, duos, and groups whose music once filled the airwaves and...

Inside the global music industry and the racialized and gendered assumptions we make about what we hear Fearing the rapid disappearance of indigenous cultures, twentieth-century American ethnographers turned to the phonograph to salvage native languages and musical practices. Prominent among these early "songcatchers" were...

The voice in the headphones says, "you're rolling" . . . The Voice in the Headphones is an experiment in music writing in the form of a long poem centered on the culture of the recording studio. It describes in intricate, prismatic detail one...

An expansive and insightful exploration of one of the most iconic and electrifying artists ever, this book reveals the stunning, multi-generational influence and appeal of Prince and his revered music--from celebrated journalist, author, and host of the popular podcast The Tour Show. Infused with...

'Hugely enjoyable ... Green's great achievement is to recapture exactly how those moments felt, but remain sufficiently detached about the whole thing to render the experience honestly' MOJO Johnny Green first met the Clash in 1977. A RIOT OF OUR OWN is his tale...

P.F.M., B.M.S. and Le Orme were just the tip of the iceberg of a widespread movement with its own characteristics. Well, I think you have to know in some way the movement that generated those feelings, those energies and those sounds... Many people don't...

In Leaders of the Pack: Girl Groups of the 1960s and their Influence on Popular Culture musician and music historian Sean MacLeod surveys the hundreds of girl groups that appeared not only in the United States but also in Great Britain during the early...

When Johnny Cash signed to Rick Rubin's record label in 1993, he was already in the wax museum of memory, a fondly regarded but totally marginalized legend, unheard on the radio and unseen on the charts. His odyssey from oldies act to folk hero...

Listening to Noise and Silence engages with the emerging practice of sound art and the concurrent development of a discourse and theory of sound. In this original and challenging work, Salom Voegelin immerses the reader in concepts of listening to sound artwork and the...

Examines how African American jazz music was received in Germany both as a racial and cultural threat and as a partner in promoting the rise of Nazi totalitarian cultural politics.Author: Mark Christian ThompsonISBN-10: 1438469861ISBN-13: 9781438469867Publisher: State University of New York PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 01/02/2019Pages: 226Format:...

Based on police wiretaps and exclusive interviews with drug kingpins and hip-hop insiders, this is the untold story of how the streets and housing projects of southeast Queens took over the rap industry.For years, rappers from Nas to Ja Rule have hero-worshipped the legendary...

The impact of digital technologies on music has been overwhelming: since the commercialisation of these technologies in the early 1980s, both the practice of music and thinking about it have changed almost beyond all recognition. From the rise of digital music making to digital...

A deeply researched biography of the great French organist, who composed some of the best-loved works in the organ repertory -- and the masterful Requiem. Maurice Duruflé The Man and His Music is a new biography of the great French organist and composer (1902-86),...

Brahms and the Shaping of Time brings together essays by leading music scholars, each of which analyzes the music of Brahms with a particular focus on the music's temporality. The volume reveals numerous ways in which Brahms manipulates such basic elements as rhythm and...