Music-History & Criticism

Scholarship on the musical traditions of Indonesia has long focused on practices from Java and Bali, including famed gamelan traditions, at the expense of the wide diversity of other musical forms within the archipelago. Jennifer A. Fraser counters this tendency by exploring a little-known...

Presidential Praise: Our Presidents and Their Hymns offers the most comprehensive coverage ever written of the influence of hymns on the lives and administrations of America's presidents. Each chapter begins with Michael Williams's concise presentation of each president's path to the White House and...

This is the bittersweet life story of a beloved bandleader who rose to fame and fortune, then spent the last 20 years of his life working to pay $1.6 million in back taxes. Written with Troup, jazz critic for New York Newsday, the book...

A popular crowd-pleaser in the late 16th and mid-17th century, the dramatic jig was a short, comic, bawdy musical-drama which included elements of dance, slapstick and disguise. This performance edition presents for the first time nine examples of English dramatic jigs from the late...

Taken from Africa into slavery by the Portuguese, kidnapped by the British Navy and held captive aboard ship during the French wars of the 1790s before being abandoned in Falmouth, the story of Joseph Emidy deserves telling in its own right. Emidy became a...

Study of the harmonic language of the late 19c based on songs by Hugo Wolf. The harmonic language of the late nineteenth-century is studied here as a development of common-practice tonality, taking as a model selected songs by Hugo Wolf. Late nineteenth-century romantic composers...

The Continuum Aesthetics Series looks at the aesthetic questions and issues raised by all major art forms. Stimulating, engaging and accessible, the series offers food for thought not only for students of aesthetics, but also for anyone with an interest in philosophy and the...

This is a groundbreaking study of every aspect of Van Morrison's artistic career - his influences, lyrical themes, vocal performances, his relationship with America, and more. In 1991 Van Morrison said, 'Music is spiritual, the music business isn't'. Peter Mills' groundbreaking book investigates the...

Messiah, Handel's massive drama of human redemption, was his most famous work, and indeed the most popular oratorio in the history of Western music. After more than 250 years, it has the power to move listeners spiritually and musically. Drawing from both Testaments of...

Black Sabbath's Master of Reality has maintained remarkable historical status over several generations; it's a touchstone for the directionless, and common coin for young men and women who've felt excluded from the broader cultural economy. John Darnielle hears it through the ears of Roger...

The Fact of Resonance returns to the colonial and technological contexts in which theories of the novel developed, seeking in sound an alternative premise for theorizing modernist narrative form. The book shows how the experience of reading is undergirded by the sonic.Author: Julie Beth...

In this intimate meditation on listening, Peter Szendy examines what the role of the listener is, and has been, through the centuries. The role of the composer is clear, as is the role of the musician, but where exactly does the listener stand in...

In Musicians in Transit Matthew B. Karush examines the transnational careers of seven of the most influential Argentine musicians of the twentieth century: Afro-Argentine swing guitarist Oscar Alem n, jazz saxophonist Gato Barbieri, composer Lalo Schifrin, tango innovator Astor Piazzolla, balada singer Sandro, folksinger...

In Musicians in Transit Matthew B. Karush examines the transnational careers of seven of the most influential Argentine musicians of the twentieth century: Afro-Argentine swing guitarist Oscar Alem n, jazz saxophonist Gato Barbieri, composer Lalo Schifrin, tango innovator Astor Piazzolla, balada singer Sandro, folksinger...

John Cage's disdain for records was legendary. He repeatedly spoke of the ways in which recorded music was antithetical to his work. In Records Ruin the Landscape, David Grubbs argues that, following Cage, new genres in experimental and avant-garde music in the 1960s were...

Sounding the Color Line explores how competing understandings of the U.S. South in the first decades of the twentieth century have led us to experience musical forms, sounds, and genres in racialized contexts. Yet, though we may speak of white or black music, rock...

Philip D. Beidler, who served as an armored cavalry platoon leader in Vietnam, sees less and less of the hard-won perspective of the common soldier in what America has made of that war. Each passing year, he says, dulls our sense of immediacy about...

A groundbreaking appreciation of Dylan as a literary practitioner WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH AGEE PRIZE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE The literary establishment tends to regard Bob Dylan as an intriguing, if baffling, outsider. That changed overnight when Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in...

"That boy . . . this fellow, Toby . . . has got some lessons to learn." --Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone, November 29, 1969 "Toby Thompson was there first." --Greil Marcus "A first-rate novelistic account of Thompson's own psyche as he uncovers the Dylan...

Details the major aspect of Brazilian popular music and its relation to the formation of national identity in Brazil includes a wealth of musical history.Author: John KirchISBN-10: 0815412614ISBN-13: 9780815412618Publisher: Cooper Square PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 04/01/2003Pages: 328Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.84lbsSize: 8.50h x 5.52w x 0.70d

Untangles the intricately knotted issues around hip-hop culture and its treatment of young black women Pimps Up, Ho's Down pulls at the threads of the intricately knotted issues surrounding young black women and hip hop culture. What unravels for Tracy D. Sharpley-Whiting is a...

"Listening to the Beat of the Bomb" UPK author Charles Wolfe discusses his work and his new book Country Music Goes to War in the NEW YORK TIMES. While Toby Keith suggests that Americans should unite in support of the president, the Dixie Chicks...

Southern Music/American Music is the first book to investigate the facets of American music from the South and the many popular forms that emerged from it. In this substantially revised and updated edition, Bill C. Malone and David Stricklin bring this classic work into...

Ranging across genres from the popular to the scholarly, this selection of John Szwed's published essays abides in the intersection of race and art, jazz and rap: crossovers inside and outside the academy. With reviews written for the Village Voice and articles from academic...

In recent years an almost overwhelming number of books have appeared covering various aspects of American folk music and its history. Before 1970, most comprised collections of songs with a sprinkling of biographical information on noted performers. Over the past decade, however, scholars, journalists,...

The grand narratives of European music history are informed by the dichotomy of placements and displacements. Yet musicology has thus far largely ignored the phenomenon of displacement and underestimated its significance for musical landscapes and music history. Music and Displacement: Diasporas, Mobilities, and Dislocations...

Inside Pierrot lunaire: Performing the Sprechstimme in Schoenberg's Masterpiece is a handbook on the performance and interpretation of the recitation in Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, op. 21. Presenting a guide for the listener and an aid to the interpreter of the 21 melodramas, the...

In The Contradictions of Jazz, Paul Rinzler takes a new approach to jazz aesthetics and theory by exploring four pairs of opposites present in jazz: individualism and interconnectedness, assertion and openness, freedom and responsibility, and creativity and tradition. By themselves, these eight values speak...

Jazz in New Orleans provides accurate information about, and an insightful interpretation of, jazz in New Orleans from the end of World War II through 1970.Author: Charles SuhorISBN-10: 0810839075ISBN-13: 9780810839076Publisher: Scarecrow PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 04/11/2001Pages: 384Format: HardcoverWeight: 1.28lbsSize: 8.78h x 5.90w x 1.03dReview Citation(s): Reference...

The story of the Ink Spots is a rags-to-riches story beloved in American mythology. Goldberg gets behind the glitter of the Ink Spots and the publicity machines of record labels, and provides the story of the group's creation, its music, and its monumental impact...

The motet began as a form of sacred vocal music in several parts; a cantus firmus or tenor, drawn from sacred Latin chant, served as a foundation for one or more upper voices. The French motet was a well-established form by the middle of...

"A fascinating interdisciplinary study of the interconnected subtexts of erotic attraction, illness, and death in several 19th- and 20th-century operatic texts. . . . This is an extraordinary examination of how opera uses the singing body--gendered and sexual--to give voice to the suffering person....

What can music teach a novelist, autobiographer, or playwright about the art of telling stories? The musical play of forms and sounds seems initially to have little to do with the representational function of the traditional narrative genres. Yet throughout the modernist era, music...

For anyone who has ever sung "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch and wondered why we sing it when we are already at the ball game, this entertaining book supplies the answers. And why did this song become the...

In the history of Western music, J. S. Bach is unsurpassed in mastery of technique and profundity of thought. He was also a devout Lutheran with a broad knowledge of Scripture and theology. Given Bach's combination of musical prowess, personal devotion, and theological depth,...

Is birdsong music? The most frequent answer to this question in the Middle Ages was resoundingly "no." In Sung Birds, Elizabeth Eva Leach traces postmedieval uses of birdsong within Western musical culture. She first explains why such melodious sound was not music for medieval...

Classical Guitarists fills a void in the special world of the classical guitar. Although this realm is inhabited by world-class musicians, much of what they think and feel has never been captured in print. The interviewees, including Julian Bream, John Williams, Sharon Isbin, Eliot...

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...

Can rock n' roll and politics mix? Rock Dogs looks at the impact of government music policies on the Australian music scene, youth culture, and national identity. This insightful and timely book is a candid, observant study of the legacy of the Australian Labor...

A look at the contemporary blues scene of Greater Boston, including dozens of interviews with musicians, blues radio DJs and photographers; regional festival listings; radio stations, and a brief history of the blues in Boston.Author: Art SimasISBN-10: 0759652716ISBN-13: 9780759652712Publisher: 1st Book LibraryLanguage: EnglishPublished: 12/01/2001Pages:...

The Rolling Stones: Sociological Perspectives, edited by Helmut Staubmann, draws from a broad spectrum of sociological perspectives to contribute both to the understanding of the phenomenon Rolling Stones and to an in-depth analysis of contemporary society and culture that takes The Stones a starting...

Screaming for Change advances an understanding of punk rock by going beyond description of punk as a musical, political, social, and cultural genre of communication. Previous scholarship about punk rock has primarily dealt with those boundaries of genre. Previous scholars neglected to examine the...

Min y is a rescue operation with several life rafts. Min y-the-book provides an introduction and overview to the important noise music artist Min y - the pseudonym of American electronic art musician and sound artist Stanley Keith Bowsza (1951-2010). Min y's audio compositions,...

In 1700, most composers were employees of noble courts or the church. But by the nineteenth century, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Verdi, and many others functioned as freelance artists teaching, performing, and selling their compositions in the private marketplace. While some believe that Mozart's career...

New perspectives on the greatest Finnish composer of all time Perhaps no twentieth-century composer has provoked a more varied reaction among the music-loving public than Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). Originally hailed as a new Beethoven by much of the Anglo-Saxon world, he was also widely...

The American musical has long provided an important vehicle through which writers, performers, and audiences reimagine who they are and how they might best interact with the world around them. Musicals are especially good at this because they provide not only an opportunity for...

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) has a reputation as one of the leading composers of the twentieth century. But the story of his controversial role in history is still being told, and his full measure as a musician still being taken. This collection of essays goes...

Claude Debussy's Paris was factionalized, politicized, and litigious. It was against this background of ferment and change--which characterized French society and music from the Franco-Prussian War to World War I--that Debussy re-thought music. This book captures the complexity of the composer's restless personal and...

"It is [a] fully illuminated story that Richard Taruskin, in the path-breaking essays collected here, unfolds around Modest Musorgsky, Russia's greatest national composer. . . . [Taruskin's] tour de force comes with a frontal attack on all the Soviet-bred truisms that for a century...

This new investigation of the Brandenburg Concertos explores musical, social, and religious implications of Bach's treatment of eighteenth-century musical hierarchies. By reference to contemporary music theory, to alternate notions of the meaning of "concerto," and to various eighteenth-century conventions of form and instrumentation, the...