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Book Self Portrait with Russian Piano

Download or read book Self Portrait with Russian Piano written by Wolf Wondratschek and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A legendary literary figure who initiated a one-man Beat Generation in his native Germany, Wolf Wondratschek “is eccentric, monomaniacal, romantic—his texts are imbued with a wonderful, reckless nonchalance.”* Now, he tells a story of a man looking back on his life in an honest Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man. Vienna is an uncanny, magical, and sometimes brutally alienating city. The past lives on in the cafes where lost souls come to kill time and hash over the bygone glories of the twentieth century—or maybe just a recent love affair. Here, in one of these cafes, an anonymous narrator meets a strange character, “like someone out of a novel”: a decrepit old Russian named Suvorin. A Soviet pianist of international renown, Suvorin committed career suicide when he developed a violent distaste for the sound of applause. This eccentric gentleman—sometimes charming, sometimes sulky, sometimes disconcertingly frank—knows the end of his life is approaching, and allows himself to be convinced to tell his life story. Over a series of coffee dates, punctuated by confessions, anecdotes, and rages—and by the narrator’s schemes to keep his quarry talking—a strained friendship develops between the two men, and it soon becomes difficult to tell who is more dependent on whom. Rhapsodic and melancholic, with shades of Vladimir Nabokov, W. G. Sebald, Hans Keilson, and Thomas Bernhard, Wolf Wondratschek's Self-Portrait with Russian Piano is a literary sonata circling the eternal question of whether beauty, music, and passion are worth the sacrifices some people are compelled to make for them. “A romantic in a madhouse. To let Wondratschek’s voice be drowned in the babble of today’s literature would be a colossal mistake.” —*Patrick Süskind, international bestselling author of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Book Monoculture

    Book Details:
  • Author : F. S. Michaels
  • Publisher : Red Clover Press
  • Release : 2011-04-25
  • ISBN : 098685381X
  • Pages : 204 pages

Download or read book Monoculture written by F. S. Michaels and published by Red Clover Press. This book was released on 2011-04-25 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the George Orwell Award. One of The Atlantic's best books of the year. As human beings, we've always told stories: stories about who we are, where we come from, and where we're going. Now imagine that one of those stories is taking over the others, narrowing our diversity and creating a monoculture. Because of the rise of the economic story, six areas of your world - your work, your relationships with others and the environment, your community, your physical and spiritual health, your education, and your creativity - are changing, or have already changed, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And because how you think shapes how you act, the monoculture isn't just changing your mind - it's changing your life. In Monoculture, F.S. Michaels draws on extensive research and makes surprising connections among disciplines to take a big-picture look at how one story is changing everything. Her research and writing have been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Killam Trusts, and regional and municipal arts councils. Michaels has an MBA, and completed five years of PhD studies in Organizational Analysis. She lives in British Columbia, Canada. "A single lucid narrative that's bound to first make you somewhat uncomfortable and insecure, then give you the kind of pause from which you can step back and move forward with more autonomy, authenticity and mindfulness than ever." - The Atlantic "A thin, enrapturing gem. It's accessible, sensible--exactly the sort of book that should have (and still could + should!) take off and create a tiny little dent in books." - Kenyon Review "A smart and realistic guide to first recognizing the monoculture and the challenges of transcending its limitations." - Maria Popova, BrainPickings.org "I found myself reading non-stop, underlining like crazy...an astute explanation about what I've been feeling recently, something I couldn't put my finger on...[Michaels] writes in clear, energetic prose that's thoughtful, engaging and unforced. She defines and analyzes without judgment or insistence...a breath of fresh air." - NPR "...a singularly brilliant and accessible analysis of some of the fundamental assumptions and driving principles of our time." - Comment Magazine "5 stars: The cause and effect of our world is more surprising than you'd think. With intriguing notions about the driving ideas of stories in every shape of our life, "Monoculture" is an incredibly fascinating way about how the mind works and today's consumer culture." - Midwest Book Review "If you just read one book this year, read this one." - BuriedInPrint.com

Book Self Portrait of Percy Grainger

Download or read book Self Portrait of Percy Grainger written by Malcolm Gillies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-06-29 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly before his death, Percy Grainger (1882-1961) lodged over twenty unpublished sketches in his Australian Museum. Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger draws exclusively from these sketches, revealing for the first time an illuminating portrait of the composer's life. With such titles as "The Aldridge-Grainger-Strom Saga," "Thunks," "Ere-I-Forget," "The Love-Life of Helen and Paris," and "Anecdotes," these manuscripts were intended as precursors to Grainger's autobiography, My Wretched Tone-Life, which he only commenced in his final years. Expertly shaping these sketches, the editors have created a "self-portrait" along the lines that Grainger himself had intended. The volume first introduces Grainger's forebears, parents, friends, wife, and himself before moving on to his views on composition, performance, and the musical world. In these sketches, Grainger addresses such topics as racial and national identity, the meaning of work, physical culture, language reform, sexual practice, and artistic patronage. Grainger also probes the nature of musical genius, discussing a broad range of composers including Igor Stravinsky, Thomas Beecham, Frederick Delius, Edvard Grieg, Charles Stanford, Cyril Scott, Fritz Kreisler, Donald Tovey, Ferruccio Busoni, and Balfour Gardiner. Among the works of his own that Grainger most featured are his The Warriors --Music for an Imaginary Ballet, Colonial Song, the Lincolnshire Posy series of band pieces, his greatest "hit" Country Gardens, and his many settings of English folk-music. Written in Grainger's own self-created "Nordic English" as well as translated from Danish, the language of his most intimate confessions, Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger sheds light on some of the most revealing details of the composer's life. The sketches trace Grainger's changing self-perception, from the romantically tinged, even lustful, views of his forties and fifties, through a period of wistfulness in his sixties, to the bitterness and self-loathing of his old age. The volume also includes several of Grainger's own drawings as well as both public and private photographs. A fascinating and revealing collection of vignettes, this extraordinary book will appeal to instructors, students, and enthusiasts in musicology, music history, cultural studies, and Australian, British, and American history.

Book Tchaikovsky

    Book Details:
  • Author : Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky
  • Publisher : Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press
  • Release : 1990
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 484 pages

Download or read book Tchaikovsky written by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and published by Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique documentary biography is the first to draw on the composer's own private documents--over 5,000 letters, his diaries, and articles--to present the most complete and compelling picture ever of his turbulent life and work. Linking the documents with concise, explanatory comments, Orlova charts chronologically the events of his life and sheds new light on all aspects of his personality, including his methods of working and his views on such subjects as philosophy, religion, literature, and music. Of particular interest is the clear evidence Orlova presents for the theory that Tchaikovsky did not die of cholera in 1893, but committed suicide to preserve his honor and cover up a personal scandal. Suppressed in the Russian edition of the book, the suicide theory has since been corroborated by another source and receives its fullest exposition to date in this English-language edition.

Book The Little Bad Book  2

Download or read book The Little Bad Book 2 written by Magnus Myst and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second book in the Little Bad Book interactive series, young readers will be dared to solve tricky puzzles and funny riddles and to become part of the plot in eerily funny stories in order to reveal the Little Bad Book's secret! HEY, YOU! PSSST You might not believe this, but I’ve discovered the biggest secret in the world. Yes, honestly! Should I tell you? Okay. Just be careful! It will be the scariest thing you’ve ever read! I hope you can take it. Can you?? I bet you can. You’re brave, aren’t you? Do you dare to read me? Come on—do it—read me! You are the lucky reader who can discover the secret the little bad book is willing to share. The puzzles and riddles will challenge you, but it is definitely worth it! Go ahead and take a chance! You are the baddest one there is!

Book The Little Bad Book  1

Download or read book The Little Bad Book 1 written by Magnus Myst and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With tricky puzzles, funny riddles, and eerily funny stories, this interactive middle grade book allows the reader to become a part of the plot! This is all about YOU—yes, I am talking to YOU. Your help is needed. Act NOW! Pick up and start this book no matter what else you are doing. Don’t be a goody-goody and wait for the right time—the right time is this minute! Come on, do it! Make a decision! Who cares what the adults or others say? You can start by helping me be bad—even evil! Yah, YOU! But don’t worry, because we won’t get punished—no, we’ll have fun! Guaranteed FUN. This Little Bad Book you have discovered has dreams and aspirations, but it needs help from YOU, the reader. You will find eerily funny stories packed with challenging puzzles and riddles and fantastic drawings and images. Only you, the reader, can help this little bad book get what you both want—a surprisingly terrific time together. Get started! It’s up to you, and you can do it!

Book The Russian Piano School

Download or read book The Russian Piano School written by Christopher J. Barnes and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insight into the views on technique and interpretation of several of the twentieth century's greatest Russian teachers and performers.

Book The Little Bad Book  3

Download or read book The Little Bad Book 3 written by Magnus Myst and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this third book in the Little Bad Book interactive series, yet another secret is revealed to the reader—and this time it's ancient! Hey, you! Good thing you’re here! See, I need a reader who’s got some guts. And who’s brave and clever and cunning—plus also, ideally, super delicious. Uh, no, not delicious. Forget I said that. Brave and smart, I meant to say. Exactly. Are you brave and smart? And do you want to help me? I promise you this: if you read me, it’ll be the last thing you . . . uh, no, the best time you’ve ever had in your whole life! So how about it? Do you dare read me? If so, here's a hint . . . be sure to pack a Time Travel Emergency Kit. You might just need it!

Book Tchaikovsky

Download or read book Tchaikovsky written by Vladimir Volkoff and published by Robert Hale. This book was released on 1975 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Self Portrait With Seven Fingers

Download or read book Self Portrait With Seven Fingers written by Jane Yolen and published by Creative Paperbacks. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During Marc Chagall's long life, he found love, helped pioneer the modernist art movement, and painted. Fourteen of Chagall's works are here vividly reproduced and accompanied by the poems of notable children's writers J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen, combining color and rhyme to celebrate a most remarkable artist.

Book The Weight of a Piano

    Book Details:
  • Author : Chris Cander
  • Publisher : Vintage
  • Release : 2019-01-22
  • ISBN : 0525654682
  • Pages : 336 pages

Download or read book The Weight of a Piano written by Chris Cander and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: USA TODAY BESTSELLER In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, on which she discovers an enrichening passion for music. Yet after she marries, her husband insists the family emigrate to America—and loses her piano in the process. In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, twenty-six-year-old Clara Lundy is burdened by the last gift her father gave her before he and her mother died in a terrible house fire: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. Now a talented and independent auto mechanic, Clara’s career is put on hold when she breaks her hand trying to move the piano, and in sudden frustration she decides to sell it. Only in discovering the identity of the buyer—and the secret history of her piano—will Clara be set free to live the life of her choosing.

Book The Lost Pianos of Siberia

Download or read book The Lost Pianos of Siberia written by Sophy Roberts and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “melodious” mix of music, history, and travelogue “reveals a story inextricably linked to the drama of Russia itself . . . These pages sing like a symphony.” —The Wall Street Journal Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies, and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos traveled into this snowbound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle. The Lost Pianos of Siberia follows Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos. “An elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia. I loved this book.” —Paul Theroux

Book You Exist Too Much

    Book Details:
  • Author : Zaina Arafat
  • Publisher : Catapult
  • Release : 2021-06-08
  • ISBN : 1646220595
  • Pages : 273 pages

Download or read book You Exist Too Much written by Zaina Arafat and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “provocative and seductive debut” of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine). On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12–year–old Palestinian–American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine—Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought–after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as “love addiction.” In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her. Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings—for love, and a place to call home.

Book Modern Russian Piano Music

Download or read book Modern Russian Piano Music written by Constantin von Sternberg and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Russian Self portraits

Download or read book Russian Self portraits written by David Attie and published by HarperCollins Publishers. This book was released on 1977 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The self-portraits in this book were taken by visitors in the summer 1976 at an American cultural exchange visit, Photography USA, in Kiev.

Book Russian Painting

    Book Details:
  • Author : Peter Leek
  • Publisher : Parkstone International
  • Release : 2012-05-08
  • ISBN : 1780429754
  • Pages : 272 pages

Download or read book Russian Painting written by Peter Leek and published by Parkstone International. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 18th century to the 20th, this book gives a panorama of Russian painting not equalled anywhere else. Russian culture developed in contact with the wider European influence, but retained strong native intonations. It is a culture between East and West, and both influences in together. The book begins with Icons, and it is precisely Icon-painting which gave Russian artist their peculiar preoccupation with ethical questions and a certain kind of palette. It goes on the expound the duality of their art, and point out the originality of their contribution to world art. The illustrations cover all genres and styles of painting in astonishing variety. Such figures as Borovokovsky, Rokotov, Levitsky, Brullov, Fedatov, Repin, Shishkin and Levitan and many more are in these pages.

Book Celebrated Christmas Solos  Book 1

Download or read book Celebrated Christmas Solos Book 1 written by Robert D. Vandall and published by Alfred Music. This book was released on with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new series of Christmas solos features arrangements of sacred carols and secular songs that are favorites of piano students at all levels. Short introductions and codas extend the arrangements. In addition, traditional as well as alternate harmonies are used, turning each piece into a satisfying musical experience. Titles: * Away in a Manger * Deck the Halls * Jingle Bells * Jolly Old St. Nicholas * Joy to the World * The Little Drummer Boy * We Three Kings of Orient Are