Download or read book The Listener s Companion The Great Composers and their Works written by Nicolas Slonimsky and published by Schirmer Trade Books. This book was released on 2012-02-22 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned for his literary style as well as his musical scholarship, Nicolas Slonimsky wrote many program notes and articles for newspapers and other periodicals, in addition to his well-known books. These shorter writings, edited by Slonimsky’s daughter, Electra Yourke, are collected for the first time in this excellent introduction to the classical repertoire, from Bach to Shostakovich. Arranged chronologically by composer, the chapters begin with biographical sketches and go on to describe some of each composer’s most popular and important works.
Download or read book Experiencing Leonard Bernstein written by Kenneth LaFave and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-06-14 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leonard Bernstein is a household name. Most know him for his classic musical reworking of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as Broadway’s West Side Story. But Bernstein accomplished so much more as a composer, and his body of work is both broad and varied. He composed ballets (Fancy Free, Facsimile, Dybbuk), operas (Trouble in Tahiti, Candide, A Quiet Place), musicals (On the Town, Wonderful Town), film scores (On the Waterfront), symphonies, choral works, chamber music pieces, art songs, and piano works. In Experiencing Leonard Bernstein: A Listener’s Companion, Kenneth LaFave guides readers past Bernstein’s famously tortured personal problems and into the clarity and balance of his Serenade after Plato’s Symposium for Violin and Orchestra, the intense drama of his music for On the Waterfront, the existential cosmography of his three symphonies, and his vibrant works for the musical stage. Perhaps the most famous American classical musician born in the twentieth century, Bernstein divided his time between c
Download or read book The Classical Music Lover s Companion to Orchestral Music written by Robert Philip and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 969 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An invaluable guide for lovers of classical music designed to enhance their enjoyment of the core orchestral repertoire from 1700 to 1950 Robert Philip, scholar, broadcaster, and musician, has compiled an essential handbook for lovers of classical music, designed to enhance their listening experience to the full. Covering four hundred works by sixty-eight composers from Corelli to Shostakovich, this engaging companion explores and unpacks the most frequently performed works, including symphonies, concertos, overtures, suites, and ballet scores. It offers intriguing details about each piece while avoiding technical terminology that might frustrate the non-specialist reader. Philip identifies key features in each work, as well as subtleties and surprises that await the attentive listener, and he includes enough background and biographical information to illuminate the composer’s intentions. Organized alphabetically from Bach to Webern, this compendium will be indispensable for classical music enthusiasts, whether in the concert hall or enjoying recordings at home.
Download or read book The Classical Music Lover s Companion to Orchestral Music written by Robert Philip and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 969 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An invaluable guide for lovers of classical music designed to enhance their enjoyment of the core orchestral repertoire from 1700 to 1950 Robert Philip, scholar, broadcaster, and musician, has compiled an essential handbook for lovers of classical music, designed to enhance their listening experience to the full. Covering four hundred works by sixty-eight composers from Corelli to Shostakovich, this engaging companion explores and unpacks the most frequently performed works, including symphonies, concertos, overtures, suites, and ballet scores. It offers intriguing details about each piece while avoiding technical terminology that might frustrate the non-specialist reader. Philip identifies key features in each work, as well as subtleties and surprises that await the attentive listener, and he includes enough background and biographical information to illuminate the composer's intentions. Organized alphabetically from Bach to Webern, this compendium will be indispensable for classical music enthusiasts, whether in the concert hall or enjoying recordings at home.
Download or read book Classical Music written by Phil G. Goulding and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-03-16 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MAKE A SOUND INVESTMENT IN CLASSICAL MUSIC Who are the ten most important classical composers? Who in the world was Palestrina? Why did Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" cause a riot? Which five of each important composer's works should you buy? What is a concerto and how does it differ from a sonata? Maybe you don't know the answers to these questions; author Phil Goulding certainly didn't. When Goulding first tried to learn about classical music, he found himself buried in an avalanche of technical terms and complicated jargon--so he decided to write the book he couldn't find. The result is a complete classical music education in one volume. Comprehensive, discriminating, and delightfully irreverent, Classical Music provides such essential information as: * Rankings of the top 50 composers (Bach is #1. Borodin is #50) * A detailed and anecdotal look at each composer's life and work * The five primary works of each composer and specific recommended CDs for each. * Further great works of each composer--if you really like him * Concise explanations of musical terminology, forms, and periods * A guide to the parts and history of the symphony orchestra "This book uses every conceivable gimmick to immerse readers in the richness of classical music: lists, rankings, sidebars devoted to lively anecdotes, and catchy leads." --The Washington Post "One terrific music appreciation book...The information is surprisingly detailed but concisely presented. Goulding's writing style is breezy yet mature....[He] has raised music appreciation from a racket to a service." --The Arizona Daily Star
Download or read book Experiencing Broadway Music written by Kat Sherrell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-09-29 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiencing Broadway Music: A Listener’s Companion explores approximately the last century of American musical theater, beginning with the early–twentieth-century shift from European influenced operettas and bawdy variety shows to sophisticated works of seamlessly integrated song and dance that became uniquely American. It concludes with an examination of current musical trends and practices on Broadway. As a musician who works on Broadway and in developmental musical theater, Kat Sherrell draws on her knowledge both as a historian of Broadway musical form and as a professional Broadway musician to offer an insider’s perspective on the development and execution of the past and present Broadway scores. Despite its enormous breadth, and given the historical significance of the musical in modern popular culture, Experiencing Broadway Music provides listeners—whether they know musical theater well or not at all—with the tools and background necessary to gain an understanding of the highly variegated structure and character of the Broadway musical over the past century.
Download or read book The Rest Is Noise written by Alex Ross and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.
Download or read book The Opera Companion written by George Whitney Martin and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2008 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides synopses of forty-seven operas, a history of the opera, and a glossary of operatic terms.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Lied written by James Parsons and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-07 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning several generations before Schubert, the Lied first appears as domestic entertainment. In the century that follows it becomes one of the primary modes of music-making. By the time German song comes to its presumed conclusion with Richard Strauss's 1948 Vier letzte Lieder, this rich repertoire has moved beyond the home and keyboard accompaniment to the symphony hall. This is a 2004 introductory chronicle of this fascinating genre. In essays by eminent scholars, this Companion places the Lied in its full context - at once musical, literary, and cultural - with chapters devoted to focal composers as well as important issues, such as the way in which the Lied influenced other musical genres, its use as a musical commodity, and issues of performance. The volume is framed by a detailed chronology of German music and poetry from the late 1730s to the present and also contains a comprehensive bibliography.
Download or read book Classical Music written by Alexander J. Morin and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2002 with total page 1220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encompassing more than five hundred classical composers past and present, this listener's guide to classical music discusses the best recordings of symphonies, operas, choral pieces, chamber music, and more by the world's leading composers as performed by a variety of outstanding musicians and conductors, and includes essays on the classical repertory, composers, instruments, and more. Original.
Download or read book What Makes It Great written by Rob Kapilow and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh guide to classical music from the acclaimed creator of NPR's "What Makes It Great"™ Rob Kapilow has been helping audiences hear more in great music for two decades with his What Makes It Great? series on NPR's Performance Today, at Lincoln Center, and in concert halls throughout the US and Canada. In this book, he focuses on short masterpieces by major composers to help you understand the essence of each composer's genius and how each piece—which can be heard on the book's web site—transformed the musical language of its time. Kapilow's down-to-earth approach makes music history easy to grasp no matter what your musical background. Explores the musical styles and genius of great classical composers, including Vivaldi, Handel, J.S. Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Chopin, Puccini, Wagner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and Debussy Features an accompanying web site where you can see, hear, and download each short masterpiece and all of the book's musical examples Introduces you in depth to popular pieces from the classical repertoire, including "Spring" from the Four Seasons (Vivaldi), "Dove Sono" from The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde (Wagner), and "Trepak" from The Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovsky) Written by acclaimed composer, conductor, and pianist Rob Kapilow: "You could practically see the light bulbs going on above people's heads" (The Philadelphia Inquirer); "Rob Kapilow is awfully good at what he does" (The Boston Globe); "A wonderful guy who brings music alive!" (Katie Couric) This book, along with the music on the companion web site, is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in classical music, whether first-time listener, experienced concertgoer or performing musician, offering an entree into the world of eighteen great composers and a collection of individual masterpieces spanning almost two hundred years.
Download or read book Famous Composers and Their Works written by John Knowles Paine and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Famous Composers and Their Works Joseph Joachim Raff written by John Knowles Paine and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven written by Glenn Stanley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-05-11 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion, first published in 2000, provides a comprehensive view of Beethoven and his work. The first part of the book presents the composer as a private individual, as a professional, and at the work-place, discussing biographical problems, Beethoven's professional activities when not composing and his methods as a composer. In the heart of the book, individual chapters are devoted to all the major genres cultivated by Beethoven and to the elements of style and structure that cross all genres. The book concludes by looking at the ways that Beethoven and his music have been interpreted by performers, writers on music, and in the arts, literature, and philosophy. The essays in this volume, written by leading Beethoven specialists, maintain traditional emphases in Beethoven studies while incorporating other developments in musicology and theory.
Download or read book The Alexander Scriabin Companion written by Lincoln Ballard and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique collaboration between a musicologist and two pianists – all experts in Russian music – takes a fresh look at the supercharged music and polarizing reception of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. From his Chopin-inspired miniatures to his genre-bending symphonies and avant-garde late works, Scriabin left a unique mark on music history. Scriabin’s death centennial in 2015 brought wider exposure and renewed attention to this pioneering composer. Music lovers who are curious about Scriabin have been torn between specialized academic studies and popular sources that glamorize his interests and activities, often at the expense of historical accuracy. This book bridges the divide between these two branches of literature, and brings a modern perspective to his music and legacy. Drawing on archival materials, primary sources in Russian, and recently published books and articles, Part One details the reception and performance history of Scriabin’s solo piano and orchestral music. High quality recordings are recommended for each piece. Part Two explores four topics in Scriabin’s reception: the myths generated by Scriabin’s biographers, his claims to synaesthesia or “color-hearing,” his revival in 1960s America as a proto-Flower Child, and the charges of anti-Russianness leveled against his music. Part Three investigates stylistic context and performance practice in the piano music, and considers the domains of sound, rhythm, and harmony. It offers interpretive strategies for deciphering Scriabin’s challenging scores at the keyboard. Students, scholars, and music enthusiasts will benefit from the historical insights offered in this interdisciplinary book. Armed with this knowledge, readers will be able to better appreciate the stylistic innovations and colorful imagination of this extraordinary composer.
Download or read book The NPR Curious Listener s Guide to Classical Music written by Timothy K. Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-08-06 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the beginner or the devotee—it's everything the classical music buff needs to know. The major composers from Bach and Bartok to Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky Significant performers from Maurice Andre and Leornard Bernstein to Georg Solti and Yo Yo Ma The landmark works from Appalachian Spring to Don Juan A concise history of classical music A deconstruction of the art form The language of classical music Valuable resources for the Curious Listener
Download or read book Listen to This written by Alex Ross and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-09-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of The Telegraph's Best Music Books 2011 Alex Ross's award-winning international bestseller, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, has become a contemporary classic, establishing Ross as one of our most popular and acclaimed cultural historians. Listen to This, which takes its title from a beloved 2004 essay in which Ross describes his late-blooming discovery of pop music, showcases the best of his writing from more than a decade at The New Yorker. These pieces, dedicated to classical and popular artists alike, are at once erudite and lively. In a previously unpublished essay, Ross brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music history—from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin—through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He vibrantly sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Björk and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark high school and indie-rock hipsters in Beijing. Whether his subject is Mozart or Bob Dylan, Ross shows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition. Witty, passionate, and brimming with insight, Listen to This teaches us how to listen more closely.
