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
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 498 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.
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:
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 342 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.
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.
Download or read book Underground Music from the Former USSR written by Valeria Tsenova and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happened to contemporary music in the Soviet Union after Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev? This book is a valuable source of information on the composers of the generations following these three great innovators. It is a document of the hidden period of Russian music, of what happened after the denunciation of Shostakovich and Prokofiev by the Composers' Union. It contains profiles of the most interesting and innovative composers from Russia and the former Soviet republics, written by leading musicologists. Featured composers include Andrei Volkonsky, Philip Gershkovich, Sergei Slonimsky, Boris Tishchenko, Valentin Silvestrov, Leonid Grabovsky , Nikolai Karetnikov , Alemdar Karamanov, Roman Ledenyov , Vyacheslav Artyomov , Faraj Karayev , Alexander Knaifel , Vladislav Shoot Alexander Vustin, Victor Ekimovksy , Alexander Raskatov , Sergei Pavlenko, Vladimir Tarnopolsy.
Download or read book Self Portrait of the Other written by Heberto Padilla and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1990 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autobiography of Cuba's finest poet, whose condemnation by the Castro regime became a cause celebre. "Intellectuals alienated from the Castro government who have told their stories tend to sound spiteful and illiberal, like Cabrera Infante; Padilla takes pains to do better. His style is clear, sometimes witty, often bitter, persevering but not burdensome, and evincing an occasional affinity with both Orwell and Hemingway." - Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Music of the Soviet Era 1917 1991 written by Levon Hakobian and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a comprehensive and detailed survey of music and musical life of the entire Soviet era, from 1917 to 1991, which takes into account the extensive body of scholarly literature in Russian and other major European languages. In this considerably updated and revised edition of his 1998 publication, Hakobian traces the strikingly dramatic development of the music created by outstanding and less well-known, ‘modernist’ and ‘conservative’, ‘nationalist’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ composers of the Soviet era. The book’s three parts explore, respectively, the musical trends of the 1920s, music and musical life under Stalin, and the so-called ’Bronze Age’ of Soviet music after Stalin’s death. Music of the Soviet Era: 1917–1991 considers the privileged position of music in the USSR in comparison to the written and visual arts. Through his examination of the history of the arts in the Soviet state, Hakobian’s work celebrates the human spirit’s wonderful capacity to derive advantage even from the most inauspicious conditions.
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.
Download or read book Musical News written by and published by . This book was released on 1899 with total page 622 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies written by Patt Leonard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-27 with total page 1645 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bibliography, first published in 1957, provides citations to North American academic literature on Europe, Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic States and the former Soviet Union. Organised by discipline, it covers the arts, humanities, social sciences, life sciences and technology.
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.
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
Download or read book The Russian Piano Concerto Volume 1 written by Jeremy Norris and published by . This book was released on 1994-06-22 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume delves into the origins and development of the Russian piano concerto, comparing and contrasting the concertos of Anton Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, and Taneyev, among others, with those of their European progenitors. Among the elements that gave the Russian piano concerto genre its particularly unique and colorful flavor was the introduction of materials extracted from Slavic folk songs and orthodox chant of the Slavic race (Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev in particular). The author includes copious musical examples and charts, including one that delineates the importance and pedagogical influence of Irish pianist and composer John Field (who lived in Russian from 1803 to 1837) on Russian musicians and composers. David Griffioen's discography is invaluable for those interested in comparing renditions and tracing performance history.
Download or read book Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing written by Josef Lhévinne and published by . This book was released on 1924 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great modern teacher and pianist's concise statement of principles, technique, and related material. Includes 10 musical examples.
Download or read book Soviet Life written by and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Piano written by Susan Tomes and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating history of the piano explored through 100 pieces chosen by one of the UK’s most renowned concert pianists An astonishingly versatile instrument, the piano allows just two hands to play music of great complexity and subtlety. For more than two hundred years, it has brought solo and collaborative music into homes and concert halls and has inspired composers in every musical genre—from classical to jazz and light music. Charting the development of the piano from the late eighteenth century to the present day, pianist and writer Susan Tomes takes the reader with her on a personal journey through 100 pieces including solo works, chamber music, concertos, and jazz. Her choices include composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Gershwin, and Philip Glass. Looking at this history from a modern performer’s perspective, she acknowledges neglected women composers and players including Fanny Mendelssohn, Maria Szymanowska, Clara Schumann, and Amy Beach.
