Music-History & Criticism

Just Beyond Listening asks how we might think about encounters with sound that complicate standard accounts of aurality. In a series of essays, Michael C. Heller considers how sound functions in dialogue with a range of sensory and affective modalities, including physical co-presence, textual...

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are one of the defining duos of musical theater, contributing dozens of classic songs to the Great American Songbook and working together on over 40 shows before Hart's death. With hit after hit on both Broadway and the West...

Behind our most beloved hymn is a fascinating story spanning continents, cultures, and centuries. Inspired by the way "Amazing Grace" continues to change and grow in popularity, acclaimed music writer Steve Turner embarks on a journey to trace the life of the hymn, from...

Compiled by long-time writer David Ensminger (Maximum Rocknroll, Razorcake, Houston Press, PopMatters, etc.) This 100-page book features long, detailed, energetic interviews with three of America's greatest underground punk bands, including the singer of JFA, Brian Brannon; the drummer of the Huns, Tom Huckabee; and...

Folk music of the 1960s and 1970s was a genre that was always shifting and expanding, yet somehow never found room for so many. In the sounds of soul-folk, Black artists like Terry Callier and Linda Lewis began to reclaim their space in the...

The tragic and inspiring story of the leaders of Outlaw country and their influence on today's Alt-County and Americana superstars, tracing a path from Waylon Jennings' survival on the Day the Music Died through to the Highwaymen and on to the current creative and...

"Golland leaves no stone unturned in this fine-grained chronicle of the rock group Journey.... Golland's passion and precision make this a pleasure." -Publishers Weekly, Starred Review. David Hamilton Golland unearths the band's complete story--incorporating exclusive interviews--and dives into their meteoric rise, dissolution, and return.Author:...

Virginia Woolf famously claimed that, around December 1910, human character changed. Aesthetic Technologies addresses how music (especially opera), the phonograph, and film served as cultural agents facilitating the many extraordinary social, artistic, and cultural shifts that characterized the new century and much of what...

Author: Edward J. Hopkins, Edward F. RimbaultISBN-10: 1906857482ISBN-13: 9781906857486Publisher: Travis and Emery Music BookshopLanguage: EnglishPublished: 01/31/2009Pages: 828Format: PaperbackWeight: 2.07lbsSize: 8.50h x 5.50w x 1.64d

From journalist and Grammy(R)-nominated music producer Leo Sacks, and New York Times chief popular music critic Jon Pareles, Keeping Time places Hunstein's photos in the context of musical and social change, adding an untold chapter to the cultural history Don Hunstein's images of music's...

Music was everywhere in pre-Revolutionary Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1771, plantation owner Landon Carter noted in his diary that he could hear instruments through the windows of every house in town. In taverns and private homes, at formal performances and dances and casually around the...

Anton Bruckner (1905) is a book written by Rudolf Louis that provides a comprehensive exploration of the life and works of the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. The book delves into Bruckner's early life, his musical education, and his rise to fame as a composer...

The History of American Music by Louis C. Elson is a comprehensive guide to the development of music in the United States. The book details the evolution of American music from the colonial period to the early 20th century, covering a wide range of...

The composer Elisabeth Lutyens and her second husband, the conductor and music programmer Edward Clark, were innovators in composition, conducting, programming, teaching, and music administration in Britain between 1918 and 1983. Controversial in their professional and personal views and tastes, their achievements obscured by...

Superstar Taylor Swift split with her original record label after releasing her sixth album REPUTATION (2017). Her first album with her new record company was LOVER (2019), and as of the end of 2022 has released three additional albums. This project simply pairs the...

In her lifetime, African American composer Margaret Bonds was classical music's most intrepid social-justice activist. Furthermore, her Montgomery Variations (1964) and setting of W.E.B. Du Bois's iconic Civil Rights Credo (1965-67) were the musical summits of her activism. These works fell into obscurity after...

Mefistofele is an opera in four acts, written by the Italian composer Arrigo Boito and first performed in 1868. The opera is based on Goethe's Faust, a classic tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and...

""1812: The Story Of The War Of 1812 In Song And Story"" by Frances Falk Miller is a historical account of the War of 1812, told through a collection of songs, poems, and stories from the time period. The book provides a unique perspective...

The Secret of the Stradivarius is a captivating book written by Hugh Conway that delves into the mystery surrounding the world-renowned Stradivarius violin. The story revolves around a young musician named Richard Marlowe who becomes the proud owner of a Stradivarius violin. However, he...

From the band's first single, 'In The City' in April 1977, to their last, 'Beat Surrender' in November 1982, The Jam went from new wave wannabees to arguably the biggest band in the UK. The Jam on track covers every song released by the...

Dave Grohl once said of Oasis, 'We've played shows with them before, where we play with them we think "That's the greatest rock band I've ever seen in my life"'. The quality of the songs they were releasing, especially between 1994-1996, would seem to...

Offering a concise introduction to one of the most important and influential piano concertos in the history of Western music, this handbook provides an example of the productive interaction of music history, music theory and music analysis. It combines an account of the work's...

The Classic Rock Bob Reader collects 130 interviews with musicians and performers conducted by music journalist Bob Ruggiero over the course of 35 years for a variety of print and online publications. This anthology features conversations with big names (Eddie Van Halen, Alice Cooper,...

Early in his long career, the self-taught English music critic Ernest Newman (1868-1959) wrote this influential account of Gluck's life and musical achievements in relation to the intellectual life of the eighteenth century. First published in 1895, Gluck and the Opera traces the composer's...

Providing an interesting approach to developments in modernist music - from 1980 onwards - this study also presents an intriguing perspective on the larger history of modernism. Far from being supplanted by a postmodern period, argues David Metzer, modernist idioms remain vital in the...

Rock and roll's various musical ingredients are examined, including jazz, blues, country, folk and gospel. Also explored are rock's early musical trends such as rockabilly, doo-wop, girl groups, surf music, teen idols, R&B and soul. Additionally, rock and roll was impacted by technological advances...

This definitive story of American folk music focuses on how a minority music genre suddenly became the emergent voice of a generation at the end of the Eisenhower years. From Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" in 1958 to Bob Dylan's electric performance at the Newport...

This first ethnographic study of the American folk music revival that began in the late 1980s examines its people, economy, and politics. Covering the perspectives of fans, performers, marketers, and others, Thomas Gruning takes on some of the folk community's stickiest issues, many of...

John Sellers was powerless to resist the call of indie rock -- once he finally heard it. In this hilarious and revealing memoir, Sellers meticulously charts his transformation from a teenage headbanger rebelling against his Dylan-obsessed father to a thirtysomething fixated on the obscure...

This biography of composer and pianist Felix Mendelssohn traces his development from musical child prodigy to a conductor whose influence as an advocate of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven is still felt to this day. A great deal of attention is paid to Mendelssohn's early...

This volume contains historical and analytical essays on Anton Bruckner and his music. For the past century the principal concerns of scholars of Bruckner's music have been his personal and musical relationship with Wagner, editorial problems in his scores, his enigmatic personality, and the...

The initial volume in a series of American Bach Society Guides, Bach's Art of Fugue and Musical Offering is a comprehensive study of two closely related masterworks of the late Baroque fugal style. This compact guide, intended for practitioners, music scholars, and a general...

The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Music Studies is the most comprehensive and expansive critical handbook of Jewish music published to date. It is the first endeavor to address the diverse range of sounds, texts, archives, traditions, histories, geographic and political contexts, and critical discourses...

In her lifetime, African American composer Margaret Bonds was classical music's most intrepid social-justice activist. Furthermore, her Montgomery Variations (1964) and setting of W.E.B. Du Bois's iconic Civil Rights Credo (1965-67) were the musical summits of her activism. These works fell into obscurity after...

In the late fifteenth century the newly built Sistine Chapel was home to a vigorous culture of musical composition and performance. Josquin des Prez stood at its center, singing and composing for the pope's private choir. Josquin's Rome offers a new reading of the...

Elvis Presley stands tall as perhaps the supreme icon of 20th-century U.S. culture. But he was perceived to be deeply un-American in his early years as his controversial adaptation of rhythm and blues music and gyrating on-stage performances sent shockwaves through Eisenhower's conservative America...

North Florida's proud folk music heritage reaches back more than half a century. The region claims many talented artists and song writers, including Frank Thomas, Bob Patterson and Charlie Robertson, while hundreds of solo, duo and group performers regularly inspire audiences at local venues....

Ken Prouty argues that knowledge of jazz, or more to the point, claims to knowledge of jazz, are the prime movers in forming jazz's identity, its canon, and its community. Every jazz artist, critic, or fan understands jazz differently, based on each individual's unique...

In a state widely considered ground zero for civil rights struggles, Huntsville became an unlikely venue for racial reconciliation. Huntsville's recently formed NASA station drew new residents from throughout the country, and across the world, to the Rocket City. This influx of fresh perspectives...

Black Book is the live history of the band blur as chronicled through their concerts. In particular, it tells their story through the narrative of their live performance recordings. Included are sound quality ratings and detailed reviews for every available recording, over 200 concerts....

""Libretto of Mefistofele: Opera in Four Acts"" is a book written by Arrigo Boito, first published in 1908. It is a libretto for an opera based on the Faust legend, specifically the story of Faust's pact with the devil. The opera was first performed...

Smoky Mountain Square Dances is a comprehensive guide to traditional square dancing in the Smoky Mountains region of the United States. Written by D.B. Hendrix, a well-known authority on Appalachian folk music and dance, the book provides a detailed history of square dancing in...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our...

""A Collection of Specimens from the Teton Sioux"" is a book written by Frances Densmore. It is a comprehensive collection of traditional songs, chants, and prayers of the Teton Sioux tribe, one of the seven major subcultures of the Sioux people. The book is...

Teaching Violin, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass summarizes three centuries of string pedagogical treatises to create a comprehensive resource on methods and approaches to teaching all four bowed string instruments.Author: Dijana Ihas, Miranda Wilson, Gaelen McCormickISBN-10: 0367724774ISBN-13: 9780367724771Publisher: RoutledgeLanguage: EnglishPublished: 11/23/2023Pages: 422Format: HardcoverWeight: 2.14lbsSize:...

In What a Difference a Day Makes: Women Who Conquered 1950s Music, Steve Bergsman highlights the Black female artists of the 1950s, a time that predated the chart-topping girl groups of the early 1960s. Many of the singers of this era became wildly famous...

Punk rock evokes dissent and disruption, abrasive and anarchic musicality, and a host of countercultural aesthetics. Featuring original interviews and over one hundred images, Roots Punk: A Visual and Oral History by longtime music journalist and author David A. Ensminger focuses on how punk...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our...

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) is often portrayed as a composer who began as a heart-on-sleeve late Romantic only to evolve during the First World War into an austere, mathematically-obsessed deviser of musical puzzles. Yet to claim that in his music he replaced tonality with its...

This book examines the succession of events towards the potential standardization of the music for "The Star-Spangled Banner" from an initial letter to President Roosevelt in 1907 to the 1958 congressional hearings on the National Anthem, and the later work of the Swiss-Born American...