Music-History & Criticism

A celebration of Sinatra's enduring impact on American entertainment and cultural life. For nearly sixty years, Frank Sinatra [1915-98] triumphed in concert, in the recording studio, on television, and on the big screen, refashioning his image to suit the temper of the times. Sinatra...

Musical Encounters at the 1889 Paris World's Fair explores the ways in which music was used, appropriated, exhibited, listened to, and written about during the six months of the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, thereby revealing the role and the sociopolitical uses of music...

Interdisciplinary perspectives on the life and work of the esteemed "ultra-modern" American composer and pioneering folk music activist, Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953). Ruth Crawford Seeger's Worlds offers new perspectives on the life and pioneering musical activities of American composer and folk music activist Ruth...

Few bodies of Western music are as widely respected, studied, and emulated as the fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach. Despite the esteem which Bach's contributions brought to the genre, however, the origin and early history of the fugue remain poorly understood. Theories of Fugue...

An examination of the role of the pedal clavichord in understanding the work of J. S. Bach, as well as its relevance to contemporary organ performances. Friederich Griepenkerl, in his 1844 introduction to Volume 1 of the first complete edition of J. S. Bach's...

Essays by prominent scholars and organists examine the music of Franck and other nineteenth-century French organist-composers through stylistic analysis, study of compositional process, and exploration of how ideas about organ technique and performance-practice traditions developed and became codified. Nineteenth-century French organ music attracts an...

A fully updated edition of the leading reference work on musical key characteristics during the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods. This is a revised second edition of Dr. Steblin's important work on key characteristics, first published in 1983 by UMI Research Press and re-issued...

Guillaume de Machaut is the most important poet and composer of late medieval France. His unique and inventive output is the subject of this new, integrated edition of Machaut's complete poetry and music. Volume 1, The Debate Series, presents the two "judgment" poems, which...

This is Whitney Balliett's long-awaited "big book." In it are all the jazz profiles he has written for The New Yorker during the past 24 years. These include his famous early portraits of Pee Wee Russell, Red Allen, Earl Hines, and Mary Lou Williams,...

Hank Williams (1923--1953) is revered in the top tier of the country-music pantheon, and his forlorn ballads are classics in the country songbook. An inspired, natural genius, Williams was the complete country balladeer. Though he knew almost nothing about the technicalities of music, his...

Truly great compositions spring, like Athena from Zeus' skull, at the juncture of genius and passion. In Mathilde Wesendonck: Isolde's Dream, author Judith Cabaud calls on a host of heretofore undiscovered resources to tell the story of Mathilde Wesendonck, muse and paramour to Richard...

The life and music of Richard Strauss (1864-1949) span what was arguably the most turbulent period in human history, encompassing the Franco-Prussian War, the unification of Germany, and two world wars. He was one of the very last composers to have started his career...

THE COMPOSER PIANISTS HAMELIN AND THE EIGHTAuthor: Robert RimmISBN-10: 1574670727ISBN-13: 9781574670721Publisher: AmadeusLanguage: EnglishPublished: 03/01/2003Pages: 342Format: PaperbackWeight: 1.35lbsSize: 9.32h x 7.47w x 0.73dReview Citation(s): Library Journal 04/15/2002 pg. 89Choice 11/01/2002 pg. 479

THE OPERAGOERS GUIDE ONE HUNDRED STORIES AND COMMENTARIESAuthor: M. Owen LeeISBN-10: 1574670654ISBN-13: 9781574670653Publisher: AmadeusLanguage: EnglishPublished: 03/01/2003Pages: 240Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.57lbsSize: 7.93h x 5.28w x 0.58dReview Citation(s): Library Journal 08/01/2001 pg. 111American Reference Bks Annual 01/01/2002 pg. 524Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2001 pg. 196Library Journal...

A lavishly illustrated collection of forty-two profiles of Texas music pioneers, most underrated or overlooked, All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music covers the musical landscape of a most musical state. The first edition was published in 2005 to wide acclaim. This...

Australian Aboriginal literature, once relegated to the margins of Australian literary studies, now receives both national and international attention. Not only has the number of published texts by contemporary Australian Aboriginals risen sharply, but scholars and publishers have also recently begun recovering earlier published...

Examines literary, philosophical, and cultural influences on Mahler's thought and work from the standpoint of the composer's position in German-Jewish culture. Gustav Mahler's music is more popular than ever, yet few are aware of its roots in German literary and cultural history in general,...

Essays on the synthesis of the musical and literary arts in German Romanticism. The interrelationship between music and literature reached its zenith during the Romantic era, and nowhere was this relationship more pronounced than in Germany. Many representatives of literary and philosophical German Romanticism...

There has been a long-standing relationship between Jewish Americans and the world of American popular music. The essays in this volume blend surveys of music making as a whole with profiles of single artists. This is volume 8 of the annual publication, The Jewish...

This pop culture history takes 12 legendary songs and, with a staggering wealth of detail and unprecedented understanding, provides an extended history of each. The circumstances under which each was written and first performed are explained and their musical and lyric content are explored....

Translated from the Polish, Anna G. Piotrowska's Gypsy Music in European Culture details the profound impact that Gypsy music has had on European culture from a broadly historical perspective. The author begins by identifying two models of discourse on Gypsy music: those of assimilation,...

With the passing of giants like Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti, and with Verdi in decline, Italian opera at the end of the nineteenth century appeared to be on the wane. Then, suddenly, with the legendary premiere of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana in 1890, Italian opera...

A fascinating journey into a rich, complex world, where music and politics unite, where rebel musicians are mobilizing for political change and social justice.Author: Daniel FischlinISBN-10: 1551642301ISBN-13: 9781551642307Publisher: Black Rose BooksLanguage: EnglishPublished: 09/01/2003Pages: 254Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.90lbsSize: 9.24h x 5.60w x 0.60d

Metallica: The Club Dayz is a collection of photographs of the now legendary rock band Metallica, between 1982 and 1984.This book contains rare and exclusive photographs from six of the band's earliest performances including their first shows in San Francisco at The Stone and...

By 1987, David Bowie was at a creative, critical, and commercial low. His most recent album was dismissed by the music press, his latest tour written off as a disaster. Fifteen years after becoming the most colourfully controversial superstar in recent rock history, Bowie...

The Rock 'n' Roll Archives is a series collecting vintage artist interviews from the archives of award-winning rock critic and music historian Rev. Keith A. Gordon.Volume One of The Rock 'n' Roll Archives features interviews with ten of the new breed of "Southern Rockers"...

James Gibbons Huneker was born in 1857 in Philadelphia. He began his life with a career in law in order to please his parents, but at 21 abandoned that path, and fled to Paris to learn piano, accompanied by his pregnant girlfriend. He only...

Deep Sea Chanties offers a unique lens upon seafaring life punctuated with fabulous woodcut illustrations by Edward A. Wilson. From the editor, Frank Shay: "In bringing these songs together I have sought to catch for the moment the spirit of the men of the...

THE FIRST CLOSE CRITICAL TREATMENT OF THE ALBUM THAT SHOOK JAZZ WITH ITS ELECTRIC SOUND AND ROCK-INFLUENCED STYLE Listen to This stands out as the first book exclusively dedicated to Davis's watershed 1969 album, Bitches Brew. Victor Svorinich traces its incarnations and inspirations for...

Collected correspondence from arguably the most important folklorist of the twentieth century Alan Lomax (1915-2002) was one of the most stimulating and influential cultural workers of the twentieth century. He began working for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress...

Inside the Texas State Prison is a surprising story of ingenuity, optimism and musical creativity. During the mid-twentieth century, inmates at the Huntsville unit and neighboring Goree State Farm for Women captured hearts all over Texas during weekly radio broadcasts and live stage performances....

Despite its sparse population, Kansas is well represented in the annals of music history. The state claims some of the most popular acts from the past century, including Kansas, Count Basie, Big Joe Turner, Martina McBride, Melissa Etheridge and Charlie Parker. A wide variety...

In 1910, the Tuxedo Jazz Band played its first show at the Tuxedo Dance Hall in Storyville under Oscar Celestin. The popular ensemble went on to play all over New Orleans, as well as across the South and the nation. In 1953, it became...

'I'm going to camp out on the land ... try and get my soul free'. So sang Joni Mitchell in 1970 on 'Woodstock'. But Woodstock is only the tip of the iceberg. Popular music festivals are one of the strikingly successful and enduring features...

Being Time invites a deep consideration of the personal experience of temporality in music, focusing on the perceptual role of the listener. Through individual case studies, this book centers on musical works that deal with time in radical ways. These include pieces by Morton...

This book marks the tenth anniversary of The Grey Album. The online release and circulation of what Danger Mouse called his 'art project' was an unexpected watershed in the turn-of-the-century brawls over digital creative practice. The album's suppression inspired widespread digital civil disobedience and...

Inspired by its use in literary theory, film criticism and the discourse of game design, Salomé Voegelin adapts and develops "possible world theory+? in relation to sound. David K Lewis' Possible World is juxtaposed with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's life-world, to produce a meeting of the...

To wander the streets of a bankrupt, often lawless, New York City in the early 1970s wearing a T-shirt with PLEASE KILL ME written on it was an act of determined nihilism, and one often recounted in the first reports of Richard Hell filtering...

Considered to be one of the most revolutionary composers of the twentieth century, Iannis Xenakis pushed the boundaries of classical music. As a largely self-taught composer, Xenakis drew from his technical training in engineering and architecture to produce music that had the ability to...

Author: James P. AlexanderISBN-10: 162249315XISBN-13: 9781622493159Publisher: Biblio PublishingLanguage: EnglishPublished: 03/01/2016Pages: 244Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.63lbsSize: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.51d

All recordings document life, arising from a specific time and place, and if that place is artificial, the results will be as well. Culled from a lifetime of learning through failure and designed to provoke thought and inspiration for artists in every medium, How...

This original documentary focuses on a group of kids who have built a community around a love of music and a passion for creating an alternative to dominant consumerist society. By putting on shows in basements, booking and traveling on national tours, and releasing...

As part of the growing literature on theology and the arts, God's Mind in that Music explores the substantial theological insight expressed in the music of jazz legend John Coltrane. Focusing on eight of Coltrane's pieces, themes under consideration include lament ("Alabama"), improvisation ("My...

Freedom from Violence and Lies is a collection of forty-one essays by Simon Karlinsky (1924-2009), a prolific and controversial scholar of modern Russian literature, sexual politics, and music who taught in the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures from 1964...

David Bowie FAQ is unlike any other book written on the world's most intriguing and multifaceted rock star because of its combination of a very wide-ranging approach underpinned by rigorous research, and an authoritative and engaging but non-academic writing style that is designed for...

As our world was racked by military conflicts, governmental scandals, political assassination attempts, and a near-total erosion of the public trust, Pink Floyd emerged victorious, responding to this external dissonance with their ultimate band statement.Author: Will RomanoISBN-10: 1617136840ISBN-13: 9781617136849Publisher: Backbeat BooksLanguage: EnglishPublished: 03/17/2020Pages: 328Format:...

From its roots in 1970s New York disco and '80s Detroit techno to today's international, mainstream explosion of such genres as house, trance & dubstep, electronic dance music has reshaped the popular musical landscape. This book digs deep through the archives of Keyboard magazine...

For more than fifty years, Chicago drummer Jimmi Mayes served as a sideman behind some of the greatest musicians and musical groups in history. He began his career playing the blues in the juke joints of Mississippi, sharpened his trade under the mentorship of...

The Brazilian berimbau, a musical bow, is most commonly associated with the energetic martial art/dance/game of capoeira. This study explores the berimbau's stature from the 1950s to the present in diverse musical genres including bossa nova, samba-reggae, MPB (Popular Brazilian Music), electronic dance music,...

When record men first traveled from Chicago or invited musicians to studios in New York, these entrepreneurs had no conception how their technology would change the dynamics of what constituted a musical performance. 78 Blues: Folksongs and Phonographs in the American South covers a...