Composers and songwriters Books

Book SynopsisArturo Toscanini (1867–1957) was famed for his dedication, photographic memory, explosive temper and impassioned performances. At times he dominated La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the Bayreuth, Salzburg and Lucerne festivals. His reforms influenced generations of musicians, and his opposition to Nazism and Fascism made him a model for artists of conscience. With unprecedented access to the conductor’s archives, Harvey Sachs has written a new biography positioning Toscanini’s musical career and sometimes scandalous life against the currents of history. Set in Italy, across Europe, the Americas and in Palestine, with portraits of Verdi, Puccini, Caruso, Mussolini and others, Toscanini soars in its exploration of genius, music and moral courage.Trade Review"'Monumental’ is surely the mot juste to describe the book’s length... but equally the combination of thoroughness, clarity, psychological perspicacity and deep human feeling which distinguishes every page... for all its massiveness the book proves unputdownable." -- BBC Music Magazine"Harvey Sachs has written the definitive biography of this great, and colourful, character... [His] writing style is precise, fluent and gripping... As a study of the life and times of one of the greatest conductors of all time, this book will not soon be bettered." -- The Economist"It is without doubt the most engaging, the best-written and certainly the most comprehensive Toscanini biography yet to be published..." -- Gramophone"... magnificent biography... To read about him [Toscanini] at this length—and there will surely be no need for another biography—is to be simultaneously inspired and bewildered." -- The Spectator"This book of more than 900 pages, full of personal recollections and testimony... is vastly comprehensive, balanced and indispensable... Sachs’ own dedication to this force of nature has been fulfilled in a book which ranks among the best of 2017." -- Classical Music"Drawing on a wide range of new evidence, including unknown letters and the archives of many of the opera houses that Arturo Toscanini worked with, including La Scala, Harvey Sachs has written a weighty and highly enjoyable account of one of the greatest conductors, a man still renowned for his pursuit of perfection." -- Books of the Year 2017 - The Economist"Harvey Sachs has provided a compendious chronicle of Toscanini's astonishing achievement across almost a century, and it makes for compelling reading." -- Times Literary Supplement"I am currently reading two excellent books: the new Harvey Sachs biography of one of the finest conductors of all time – Arturo Toscanini..." -- Something For The Weekend - Finghin Collins' Cultural Picks - RTÉ"...marvellously researched and continually fascinating...[a] superb book..." -- Stephen Walsh - The Oldie

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments I The Musical Language of Bartok: Historical Backgrounds Folk- and Art-Music Sources Orientation toward French, Russian, and Folk-Music Sources: Nonfunctional Bases in Pentatonic, Modal, and Whole-Tone Constructions Use of Symmetrical Pitch Collections by Russian, French, and Hungarian Composers Russian Nationalists: Symmetrical Properties of the Dominant-Ninth Chord Russian Nationalists, Debussy, and Stravinsky: Symmetrical Properties of Nontraditional as Well as Traditional (Pentatonic and Modal) Pitch Constructions Russian Nationalists, Scriabin, and Kodaly: Symmetrical Partitions of the Octatonic Scale Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Germanic Influences: Symmetrical Organization of Chromatically Related Keys The Schoenberg School: Symmetrical Formations as the Basis of Progression in Free-Atonal Compositions Berg and Webern: Total Systematization of the Concepts of the Interval Cycle and Inversional Symmetry in Dodecaphonic Serial Compositions II Harmonization of Authentic Folk Tunes III Symmetrical Transformations of the Folk Modes IV Basic Principles of Symmetrical Pitch Construction V Construction, Development, and Interaction of lntervallic Cells VI Tonal Centricity Based on Axes of Symmetry Including the Concepts of: Symmetrical Organization around an Axis; Use of Symmetrical Cells in Establishing Axes; Interaction of Traditional Tonal Centers and Axes VII Interaction of Diatonic, Octatonic, and Whole-Tone Formations VIII Generation of the Interval Cycles IX Conclusion Chronological List of Cited Bartok Compositions Works Cited Index to Basic Terms, Definitions, and Concepts Index to Compositions General Index

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Book SynopsisWhat does a rock star do after leaving the band? If you're David Lee Roth, you have a Las Vegas residency, write a memoir, become a radio host, start a YouTube series, star in a Japanese-language short film, launch a tattoo skincare line, and release a digital comic. And then you rejoin the band.The first book focused on Roth in twenty-five years, DLR Book is an intimate look at an epic career. From his start with Van Halen to his highly publicized departure from the band and his triumphant return, entertainment industry expert Darren Paltrowitz covers the highs and lows of Roth's journey. The fruit of nearly one hundred exclusive interviews, the book also delves into Diamond Dave's many extracurricular activities, including his unclassifiable video series The Roth Show, the rise and fall of his syndicated radio program, and his training as an EMT. Included here are conversations with some of Roth's most popular collaborators (among them Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan, Travis Tritt) and contributions from members of rock's all-time biggest bands, such as Korn's Ray Luzier, Bon Jovi's Phil X, and Heart's Ann Wilson. Filled with countless photographs never published in book form, DLR Book is a front-row seat to one of the wildest and most unpredictable shows in rock history.

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Book SynopsisBLACK SABBATH FAQ: ALL THAT'S LEFT TO KNOW ON THE FIRST NAME IN METAL

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Book SynopsisNational Best Seller From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.” M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, and across a landscape of creative aspirations and inspirations, we travel to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico; to a meeting of an Arctic explorer’s society in Berlin; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York’s Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud, and Mishima. Woven throughout are

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Book SynopsisFew artists in recent years have had Bad Bunny's impact on the music industry, popular culture, mainstream and underground aesthetics, and the economies tied to each of these realms. A remarkable anomaly by any measure, Bad Bunny's embodiment of extremity comes through in his gender-fluid style, Afro-Caribbean aesthetics, sexually explicit lyrics, and vibrant critiques of colonial politics. As a Puerto Rican colonial subject himself, he has consistently amplified the voices of oppressed groups, while also championing marginalized communities impacted by the effects of colonialism and conservatism, in Puerto Rico and elsewhere. This collection, the first comprehensive publication focused on the Bad Bunny phenomenon, puts the artist, his work, and activism into conversation with various contexts relevant to culture, society, representation, identity, and politics. Bringing together a cadre of scholars some supporters, others detractors the collection offers a balanced transdisciplinary look at his work and its influence on intersectional resistance struggles. Part critique, part celebration, the chapters contained within question whether his influence signifies a cultural shift or a flash in the pan. Consequently, this collection aims to understand Bad Bunny as a multifaceted signifier whose meanings evolve depending on the generational, geographical, and sociopolitical perspectives framing the enigma.

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Book SynopsisBruce Springsteen might be the quintessential American rock musician but his songs have resonated with fans from all walks of life and from all over the world. This unique collection features reflections from a diverse array of writers who explain what Springsteen means to them and describe how they have been moved, shaped, and challenged by his music. Contributors to Long Walk Home include novelists like Richard Russo, rock critics like Greil Marcus and Gillian Gaar, and other noted Springsteen scholars and fans such as A. O. Scott, Peter Ames Carlin, and Paul Muldoon. They reveal how Springsteen’s albums served as the soundtrack to their lives while also exploring the meaning of his music and the lessons it offers its listeners. The stories in this collection range from the tale of how “Growin’ Up” helped a lonely Indian girl adjust to life in the American South to the saga of a group of young Australians who turned to Born to Run to cope with their country’s 1975 constitutional crisis. These essays examine the big questions at the heart of Springsteen’s music, demonstrating the ways his songs have resonated for millions of listeners for nearly five decades. Commemorating the Boss’s seventieth birthday, Long Walk Home explores Springsteen’s legacy and provides a stirring set of testimonials that illustrate why his music matters.Trade ReviewContributor Lou Maser interview on "One-on-One with Steve Adubato" http://steveadubato.org/bruce-springsteen-s-impact-on-music-history.html— One-on-One with Steve Adubato "E Street Radio" SiriusXM interview with contributors Daniel Wolff Lauren Onkey— E Street Radio - SiriusXM "Local Leaders Never Stop Reading" by Amanda Capps http://www.greenvillebusinessmag.com/2020/03/05/299879/local-leaders-never-stop-reading— Greenville Business Magazine "Springsteen at Seventy," by Wesley Stace https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/09/21/springsteen-at-seventy/— New York Review of Books "Long Walk Home endeavors to examine the impact the art and the artist have had on individual people around the world. The book fulfills this mission admirably. Individual contributions are of uniformly high quality. The collection as a whole is an engaging read that will interest scholars and fans alike." — Prudence Jones, BOSS: The Biannual Online-Journal of Springsteen Studies "Rutgers Univ. Press to celebrate Springsteen’s birthday with ‘Long Walk Home’ book," by Jay Lustig— NJ Arts "Relatable passages and...excellent writing."— Newark Star-Ledger "Growing Up With Bruce Springsteen: I wouldn’t be the man I am without him," by Eric Alterman http://www.publicseminar.org/essays/growing-up-with-bruce-springsteen/— Public Seminar "Dermot Bolger: 'As Bruce turns 70, I thank him for giving voice to my world,'" excerpt from Long Walk Home https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/dermot-bolger-as-bruce-turns-70-i-thank-him-for-giving-voice-to-my-world-38496573.html— Irish Independent “Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen at 70 offers a comprehensive, timely overview of Springsteen’s life and work. The eminently qualified essayists in Sawyers and Cohen’s anthology astutely address Springsteen’s achievement in terms of the artist’s evolving legacy, with a valuable accent upon exploring his lasting contributions to twentieth- and twenty-first- century popular music and culture.”— Kenneth Womack, author of Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles "That’s the greatest joy of Long Walk Home—the little details from fan’s lives, intersecting with moments of historical and artistic significance."— Third Coast Review "Why Bruce Springsteen is the soundtrack of the 2020 primary," by Jonathan D. Cohen https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/23/why-bruce-springsteen-is-soundtrack-primary/— Washington Post "A killer collection of Boss studies and stories, as varied as Springsteen's own body of work and a fitting tribute to the man — at 70, both an American legend and an artist as vital as ever."— Christopher Phillips, Editor of Backstreets.com "Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen did something I wouldn’t have thought possible: it deepened my appreciation for the artist by broadening my understanding of his relevance and influence. I’d long known that Bruce had wide, diverse, international appeal. Now I have a better understanding of why. Highly recommended."— E Street Shuffle "Springsteen at 70: Remembering When The Boss Rocked New Brunswick" by TAP into New Brunswick https://www.tapinto.net/towns/east-brunswick/articles/springsteen-at-70-remembering-when-the-boss-rocked-new-brunswick-8— TAP into New Brunswick "Celebrating Bruce at 70," by Tammy La Gorce— New Jersey Monthly "The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen And The Wide Divide," excerpted from A.O. Scott's piece in Long Walk Home https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/762803629/the-ties-that-bind-bruce-springsteen-and-the-wide-divide— NPR Books "The expanding field of Springsteen Studies is fascinating, and includes stellar volumes written by many of the contributors to this collection. Kudos to co-editors Jonathan D. Cohen (managing editor of “'BOSS: The Biannual Online-Journal of Springsteen Studies') and June Skinner Sawyers (editor of “Racing in the Streets: The Bruce Springsteen Reader”) for giving Springsteen fans an extraordinary new addition to that canon. Long Walk Home is worthy of its subject and a timely reminder of Springsteen’s promise in the 1999 anthem 'Land of Hope and Dreams' that 'dreams will not be thwarted/ faith will be rewarded.'”— Charleston Post & Courier "Bruce Springsteen Is Jew-ish: He may be Catholic, but to many fans—including this one—his lyrics speak to a different creed," by Eric Alterman https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/bruce-springsteen-almost-jewish/599146/— The Atlantic "In a collection as carefully compiled as a Springsteen album, Cohen and Booklist contributor Sawyers celebrate the Boss at 70....For more than four decades, Springsteen’s music has been part of our popular music and culture and will continue to be, long after his final album is released. As this compilation illustrates, his 'Glory Days' are far from over."— Booklist "The book nods to Springsteen’s international, intercultural popularity and success....The most thought-provoking essays in Long Walk Home are by writers who are not from the stereotypical Springsteen fan base."— Times Literary Supplement "Taken together, the 26 essays in Long Walk Home give readers a rich understanding of why the Boss matters so profoundly to his audience; how each of us has been moved, challenged, and shaped by Springsteen's music."— Roxanne Harde, co-editor of Walking the Line: Country Music Lyricists and American Culture "Rutgers Professor Reflects on Springsteen's Legacy ahead of ''The Boss's'' 70th Birthday," by Cynthia Medina https://news.rutgers.edu/qa/rutgers-professor-reflects-springsteens-legacy-ahead-bosss-70th-birthday/20190730#.XVavqehKiUm— Rutgers Today "Rutgers Professor Reflects on Springsteen's Legacy for ''The Boss's' 70th Birthday," by Cynthia Medina https://news.rutgers.edu/qa/rutgers-professor-reflects-springsteens-legacy-ahead-bosss-70th-birthday/20190730?utm_source=newsletterutm_medium=emailutm_campaign=rutgerstoday#.XYmJOOdKjq0— Rutgers TodayTable of ContentsIntroduction: Why Springsteen? Jonathan D. Cohen and June Skinner Sawyers Part I Springsteen Stories 1 Growing Up with Bruce Springsteen Eric Alterman 2 How Bruce Springsteen Made a Middle-Aged Woman Believe in the Magic of Rock and Roll Nancy S. Bishop 3 From the Backstreets to the Badlands: My Springsteen Journey Deepa Iyer 4 The Ripple Effect Frank Stefanko Part II Springsteen, Politics, and American Society 5 The Role of the Popular Artist in a Democratic Society Jefferson Cowie and Joel Dinerstein 6 Starting a Fire: Bruce Springsteen’s Political Journey from “Born in the U.S.A.” to “American Skin (41 Shots)” Gillian G. Gaar 7 Springsteen’s American Dream Louis P. Masur 8 At the River Paul Muldoon 9 The Ties That Bind A. O. Scott Part III Springsteen Live 10 Live at the Roxy Greil Marcus 11 The Magic Circle Wesley Stace 12 Twist and Shout David L. Ulin Part IV Springsteen the Artist 13 Brilliant Disguise: The Completely True Fictional Adventures of Bruce Springsteen Peter Ames Carlin 14 Interview with Martyn Joseph by Irwin H. Streight 15 This Train: Bruce Springsteen as Public Artist Colleen J. Sheehy 16 Born to Write: Bruce Springsteen, Flannery O’Connor, and the Songstory Irwin H. Streight 17 Ten Great Springsteen Moments (and Five Iconic Concerts) Kenneth Womack Part V Springsteen, Sex, Race, and Gender 18 Our Butch Mother, Bruce Springsteen Natalie Adler 19 Springsteen’s Women: Tougher Than the Rest Gina Barreca 20 Shackled and Drawn Lauren Onkey 21 American Skin: Springsteen and Blackness Elijah Wald Part VI Springsteen and Aging 22 Summer’s Fall: Springsteen in Senescence Jim Cullen 23 Work and Play: Mid-Life Music Daniel Wolff Part VII Springsteen beyond Borders 24 Bruce Springsteen’s River in Dublin Dermot Bolger 25 The Boss in Bulgaria Richard Russo 26 We Take Care of Our Own Wayne Swan Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisFrom countercultural resistance to world music craze, Balkan music captured the attention of global audiences. Balkanology, the 1991 quintessential album of Bulgarian music, highlights this moment of unbridled creativity. Seasoned musicians all over the world are still in awe of the technical abilities of the musicians in Ansambl Trakiatheir complex additive rhythms, breakneck speeds, stunning improvisations, dense ornamentation, chromatic passages, and innovative modulations. Bridging folk, jazz, and rock sensibilities, Trakia's music has set the standard for Bulgarian music until today, and its members, especially Ivo Papazov, are revered stars at home and abroad. The album reveals how Romani (Gypsy) artists resisted the state's prohibition against Romani music and fashioned a genre that became a youth movement in Bulgaria, and then a world music phenomenon. Balkanology underscores the political, economic and social roles of music during socialism and postsocialism.Trade ReviewThanks to Silverman’s richly textured and fascinating account of the genre through its most successful album, one may expect that many more questions will emerge not merely among students of Eastern Europe’s popular music, but also among those concerned with ethnic and youth cultures, popular music genres and the broader question of music’s nexus with social change. * Popular Music *Table of Contents1. Balkanology 2. Prelude and Golden Age 3. Mafias and Markets 4. Global Balkanology

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Book SynopsisTony Tost is a scholar and poet who lives in Seattle, Washington. The author of two poetry collections, he was the recipient of the Walt Whitman Award in 2003. He is currently completing a dissertation on myth, technology and the poetic imagination at Duke University.Trade ReviewIt's a terrific, illuminating read that I'd recommend to anyone who loves Johnny Cash, and that record in particular. * No Depression Magazine *Tost cores the Cash mythology with the reverence it deserves, and in so doing gets to the very logic of reckoning. * Miami Sun Post *In a dynamically sequenced succession of short-burst essays, Tost matches driving, energized prose against the titanic scale of the image that Cash created through his public life and career. Writing about a man who contained multitudes, Tost is a poet in his own right. * Nashville City Paper *Like the best work on Cash, it makes no attempt to disentangle myth from history or biography. Tost is an American mythologist in the vein of Greil Marcus, and there are numerous moments in the book where the reader is put in mind of Marcus writing on Dylan (or Cash for that matter). * Tiny Mix Tapes *Tost is like a foster son of Greil Marcus, beating his own path into old, weird America through the life of the Man in Black. * Milwaukee Express *Table of ContentsPreface; Permanence (1); Permanence (2). Americana (1); Independence Day; The Gift; Americana (2); Delia; Let the Train Blow the Whistle; The Beast in Me; Drive On; Why Me, Lord; Bad Luck Wind; Cowboy Prayers; Precedence; To Be Free; He Had the Nerve and He Had the BloodWhere Are Your Guts?; Where the Train Goes Slow; Redemption; Like a SoldierPermanence (3); The Man Who Couldn't Cry; The Old, Weird American.

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Book Synopsis"It's Time To Party," the first track off of I Get Wet, opens with a rapid-fire guitar line — nothing fancy, just a couple crunchy power chords to acclimate the ears — repeated twice before a booming bass drum joins in to provide a quarter-note countdown. A faint, swirling effect intensifies with each bass kick and, by the eighth one, the ears have prepped themselves for the metal mayhem they are about to receive. When it all drops, and the joyous onslaught of a hundred guitars is finally realized, you'll have to forgive your ears for being duped into a false sense of security, because it's that second intensified drop a few seconds later — the one where yet more guitars manifest and Andrew W.K. slam-plants his vocal flag by screaming the song's titular line — that really floods the brain with endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and whatever else formulates invincibility. Polished to a bright overdubbed-to-oblivion sheen, the party-preaching I Get Wet didn't capture the zeitgeist of rock at the turn of the century; it captured the timelessness of youth, as energized, awesome, and unapologetically stupid as ever. With insights from friends and unprecedented help from the mythological maniac himself — whose sermon and pop sensibilities continue to polarize — this book chronicles the sound's evolution, uncovers the relevance of Steev Mike, and examines how Andrew W.K.'s inviting, inclusive lyrics create the ultimate shared experience between artist and audience.Trade ReviewPhillip Crandall's book about Andrew WK's I Get Wet has been one of my favourites from this wonderful series of books. Fans will love it, sure. But if you're like me, if you didn't quite get the fuss first time around, you'll not only find a funny, sad, fascinating story, you'll find great heart-on-(record)-sleeve writing. -- Simon Sweetman * Blog On The Tracks *Crandall gets at the heart of Andrew W.K. better than any other previous writer. You’ll know this much after reading the first few pages of his book. What you’ll have to ponder after you’ve finished reading is the way in which Andrew connects the dots among I Get Wet, Daydream Nation, Appetite for Destruction, Dr. Feelgood, OK Computer, Slippery When Wet, Loveless… -- Paul Gleason * Caught in the Carousel *Phillip Crandall, an acclaimed music writer and Inverness native, has revisited the release of W.K.’s breakout album in his latest paperback on I Get Wet, part of the books-about-albums series 33 1/3. This insightful look into the album features interviews with some of WK’s closest friends and family, as well as vehement endorsement from the party prince himself. -- Andrew Silverstein * Creative Loafing *Table of ContentsIntroduction: INK 1. JUICE 2. SWEAT 3. BLOOD 4. CHAMPAGNE Afterword

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Book SynopsisDecoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time.Praise for Decoded“Compelling . . . provocative, evocative . . . Part autobiography, part lavishly illustrated commentary on the author’s own work, Decoded gives the reader a harrowing portrait of the rough worlds Jay-Z navigated in his youth, while at the same time deconstructing his lyrics.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “One of a handful of books that just about any hip hop fan should own.”—The New Yorker   “Elegantly designed, incisively written . . . an impressive leap by a man who has never been known for small steps.”—Los Angeles Times   “A riveting exploration of Jay-Z’s journey . . . So thoroughly engrossing, it reads like a good piece of cultural journalism.”—The Boston Globe  “Shawn Carter’s most honest airing of the experiences he drew on to create the mythic figure of Jay-Z . . . The scenes he recounts along the way are fascinating.”—Entertainment Weekly “Hip-hop’s renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt, passionate and slick.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Book SynopsisGrammy Award winning Wilco rose from the ashes of one of the most respected alt-country groups of the 1990s, Uncle Tupelo, to emerge as a celebrated (and far more popular) act in their own right. Led by frontman Jeff Tweedy, Wilco have evolved from a country-rock band into an eclectic indie-rock collective that touches on many eras and genres in their music: '70s rock, country, Beach Boys-style pop, noise-rock and folk. As a result, no two Wilco albums sound the same. This biography looks at Jeff Tweedy's early life in Illinois before starting Uncle Tupelo with Jay Farrar and an examination of their four albums. The media attention about Wilco's fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and the controversy surrounding it. After the recording sessions were complete, their record label rejected the album and dismissed Wilco from the label. Yet it became their most successful album to date. An analysis of all their studio albums including their latest - The Whole Love, which was released in September 2011. How Wilco's music has been inspired by a wide variety of artists and styles, including Bill Fay and Television, and has in turn influenced music by a number of modern alternative rock acts.

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Book SynopsisAlma Ros©'s tragic story from her birth and youth in the exalted musical circles of Vienna (her father was leader of the Vienna Philharmonic her uncle was Gustav Mahler) to her death at Auschwitz first came to public attention through the 1980 film ÊPlaying for TimeÊ. As leader of the only women's orchestra in the Nazi camps by force of her will and spirit she molded a terrified group of young musicians into an ensemble that became their sole hope of survival. And although Alma herself died of a sudden illness shortly before the liberation of the camps she saved the lives of some four dozen members of the orchestra. In telling her full story for the first time Richard Newman and Karen Kirtley honor her and the valiant prisoner-musicians for whom music meant life.

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Book SynopsisBuddy Holly occupies an enigmatic position in pop and rock music history, partly because of his premature death at the age of 22 in a plane crash in February 1959. Designated in Don MacLean's hit "American Pie" as 'the day the music died', this enabled him to be included in the trope 'the death of rock 'n roll', alongside the less drastic musical demises of Elvis Presley (joined army), Chuck Berry (imprisoned), Jerry Lee Lewis (disgraced) and Little Richard (joined priesthood). The view that Holly belongs only to the 1950s has often obscured the originality of his music. In an era when the music world was divided into hard rockers, soft pop balladeers and hardcore Nashville country & western singers, his songs transcended the boundaries. Equally innovatory was his use of the recording studio as a laboratory, a place to experiment with sounds. In addition, the two guitars, bass and drums line-up of his group the Crickets was the major contributor to the small group template for generations of rock musicians down to the present day. As well as becoming an influence on other musicians in a conventional sense, Buddy Holly has had his own lengthy musical and cultural afterlife.From the vantage point of 2009, a half century after 'the day the music died', Holly has been the longest-serving member of the rock immortals club, those singers and musicians for whom death seemed to inaugurate a new phase of their career. He has been re-embodied in a biopic, a stage show, in iconic images and numerous reissues of his recordings. While he cannot rival Elvis Presley in terms of sightings (nobody, I think, believes Buddy is still alive) or in terms of 'virtual' performance with his old band, he has been re-embodied in a biopic, a stage show, in iconic images and numerous reissues of his recordings. This book is partly based on the author's 1970 study in the "Rockbooks" series. But it aims to provide a new perspective on Buddy Holly by discussing his career and art in the context of his unique contribution to the swiftly-evolving music scene of the late 1950s and his posthumous 50 year multi-media career through films, stage-shows and copious reissues of his oeuvre.Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1 The West Texas Musicscape and Buddy Holly's Musical Ideolect 1950-1955 Chapter 2 A Studio Career: Nashville -Clovis -New York 1956-1959 Chapter 3 On Stage 1956-1959 Chapter 4 The Recordings 1955-1959 Chapter 5 After The Day The Music Died - Memorialising Chapter 6 After the Day the Music Died - Presence and Representations Timeline

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Book SynopsisRussian composer, Sofia Gubaidulina has achieved international acclaim for her musical oeuvre which draws on Eastern and Western musical traditions. This biography places her life and the evolution of her work within the cultural and political context of post-Stalin Soviet Union.Trade Review. . . Taking a thoroughly biographical tack, Kurtz explains the origins of many of Gubaidulina's compositions . . . He . . . offer[s] accounts of Gubaidulina by colleagues and performers, and these are a rich source of new material on the composer. Including a handful of photographs, notes, a chronological summary, and a list of Gubaidulina's compositions, this book will be useful to those interested in musical culture and religious life in the Soviet Union. . . . Recommended.July 2008 * Choice *. . . a solid piece of work whose straightforward design and clarity of prose (even in translation) will benefit scholar and general reader alike.Vol. 68.2 April 2009 -- David Haas * University of Georgia *. . . valuable as the first English-language guide to Gubaidulina. . . . Kurtz has expertly presented us with valuable material . . .Vol. 90.2 May 2009 -- IVANA MEDIC * University of Manchester *With this thorough and well-researched biography of the eminent Russian composer Sophia Gubaidulina, author and scholar Michael Kurtz has made a landmark contribution to the growing body of literature on that emergent group of post-WWII composers. Vol. 54.2, Summer 2010 * Slavic and East European Journal *This is an extremely helpful publication for future researchers of Gubaidulina's music. It comes with a detailed chronology, and with a full list of the composer's works. Vol. 89.1, January 2011 * Slavonic and East European Review *Kurtz's biography gives a good, thorough account of Gubaidulina's life that is more immediately accessible and less vexing for general readers than for specialists. Yet specialists will find it necessary reading due to the many significant details uncovered thanks to Kurtz's interviews with Gubaidulina and her associates65.1 Sept. 2008 * Notes *Table of ContentsPreface by Mstislav Rostropovich Preface to the American Edition Introduction and Acknowledgments 1. Ancestors 2. Childhood and Youth, 1932-1949 3. At the Kazan Conservatory, 1949-1954 4. At the Moscow Conservatory, 1954-1959 5. Searching for Her Own Way, 1959-1965 6. A Late Artistic Birth, 1965-1970 7. Finding the Legato in the Staccato of Life, 1970-1975 8. Composing and Improvising, 1975-1979 9. "Offertorium"-a Musical Offering, 1979-1981 10. The Rhythm of Musical Form, 1981-1985 11. Travels, Travels, and More Travels, 1985-1991 12. Worldwide Fame-Worldwide Demand, 1991-1996 13. The Center of Life: St. John Passion and St. John Easter, 1996-2004 Chronology of Gubaidulina's Life List of WorksNotesBibliography Index

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Book SynopsisJohn Zorn is an active American composers/performer. This book offers a number of perspectives for understanding Zorn's music and musical practices, while challenging certain assumptions that limit the ways in which contemporary music is typically addressed.Trade ReviewThe composer John Zorn likes to think of himself as an outsider, wallowing in paradoxes, and he's done a terrific job of it. The musicologist John Brackett has written what is apparently the first book-length study of the man's music, titled John Zorn: Tradition and Transgression. He's done not quite so terrific a job, but for anyone interested in an initial foray into the thickets of complexity and contradiction enveloping Zorn and his "poetics" (a Brackettian favorite), this is a start. It's a tribute to Zorn, who was born in 1953, that he has remained so stubbornly unknown to the general public for so long; he's been making his music on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for more than thirty years. Part of his problem—if it is a problem for a defiant outsider, who is seemingly willing to offend anyone who might help propel him into the mainstream—is his determined catholicity of taste. He has undertaken free improvisation, jazz, hardcore rock, noise, and classical chamber and orchestral scores. In most of his music, idioms and genres flash by with disorienting rapidity. It can be fun but wearing, too, a roller-coaster ride of composition that is a long way from symphonic form or harmonic logic in any conventional sense. His albums and tracks pay homage to an equally dizzying number of icons, musical and otherwise, from the Schoenberg-Berg-Webern triumvirate to Stravinsky to Messiaen and Kagel to Cage and Feldman to Coleman and Dolphy to Bataille to Crowley and Lovecraft to Anger (Zorn means "anger" in German, appropriately enough, given his edgy aesthetic, but this Anger is Kenneth) to Deren to Bacon to Cornell to Spillane and Morricone. European postmodernist theoreticians and, yes, transgressives (Genet, Derrida, Foucault) stud his liner notes. Japanese erotic and sadistic manga serves as musical inspiration, as well as lurid album art, as do all manner of shadowy Kabbalists and Gnostics. It's quite a stew. With all these ingredients, Zorn whips up a frenetic froth of sound, although every once in a while he calms down into lyricism. The effect is sometimes ebullient and amusing, though Zorn's all-purpose anger insists on priority. It all sounds anarchic on a first listen, for good or ill, and Brackett labors mightily to impose some sort of order on this chaos. Although his musical discussions are more descriptive than deeply analytic—the nonmusical ones are better—Brackett shows us how Zorn uses numerological symbolism, as did Bach, Mahler, and the twelve-tonalists. (Music and mathematics lie close, and lots of composers have embedded number secrets in their scores.) Compressed chunks of others' scores often act as jumping-off places for Zorn's own compositions, providing historical reference points and skeins of unity, at least on paper. The sonic equivalent of film montage is another favored device. The trouble is that Zorn himself has said, "My concern is not so much how things sound, as with how things work." In other words, he loves the process of creating intricate scores that sound like maniacs improvising on the fly. In that limited sense, he's like an abstruse academic modernist composer, as in the old distinction between "ear music" you can listen to and "eye music" best appreciated through a close reading of the notes. But by any reasonable criterion—and despite Brackett's deliberate obfuscation of the fact—Zorn is a postmodernist, even the king of the New York postmodernist hill. People like or dislike his music for its jumpy flow, its wild clashes of style, its passion and humor, its hair-trigger virtuosity in conception and performance. Brackett, an assistant professor of music at the University of Utah, boasts an impressive knowledge of classical, jazz, and pop, of avant-garde theory and practice, and of literary, filmic, and visual histories. Bursting with all these references, the book reads like a doctoral dissertation blown up into a bid for tenure, yet despite his work's flaws, Brackett probably deserves the promotion: His interests really are that broad and that deep—almost as diverse as Zorn's. The book's four chapters are devoted to Zorn's problematic erotic themes, including the sadomasochistic artwork on many of his albums from the late '80s through the mid-'90s (especially involving the torture of Asian women); what Brackett calls "magick and mysticism" in Zorn's more recent work; and Zorn's nonmusical (chapter 3) and musical (chapter 4) homages. In the epilogue, Brackett tries to sum everything up but only ties himself in knots over how best to categorize Zorn (modernist? postmodernist? historical? transgressive?). All of this is at least mildly piquant, and Brackett's tactic of zeroing in on particular pieces works well. But he has a habit of filtering his discussions through some usually trendy, often French essayist or theorist. Thus he attempts to deconstruct and blur the straightforward moral repugnance that Ellie Hisama, Catharine MacKinnon, and other feminists feel toward Zorn's pornographic album art, offering elaborate theories about the borders between reality (a word Brackett often puts in quotation marks) and fantasy, invoking Bataille über alles. Crowley et al. figure heavily in "magick and mysticism." Marcel Mauss's gift theory, in which a seemingly simple act is embedded in a complex network of social obligations, dominates Brackett's homage chapters, though curiously he never extends the discussion to sampling (not a big part of Zorn's more overtly compositional aesthetic, but one might have thought it worth considering). The French hover more than the Germans, no doubt because of the Frankfurt School's snooty disdain for commercial music—not that Zorn has gotten rich from his vast output of mostly cult CDs. John Zorn reads like a series of extended aperçus. There is no biographical information to speak of, and as Brackett readily concedes in his introduction, he slights Zorn's work prior to the late '80s, his improvisation, his role and skills as a saxophonist and performer, and his place in the fecund downtown-Manhattan jazz/rock/improv scene of the late '70s and '80s and beyond. Aside from the academic jargon, the book's conceptual confusion supposedly mirrors Zorn's own multivalent compositional method. But even Brackett has his doubts: "Many readers are probably wondering about the value or utility of quasi-formalistic close readings such as those presented above," he muses at one point. Later, after his failure to take a position on Zorn's troubling artwork, he frets that "for some readers, my position might be understood as a 'cop-out.'" The prose is nothing if not dense, as in "Furthermore, given Lowe's emphasis on the fictionalized 'remembering' or the 'putting-back-togetherness' of an emergent Asian American cultural identity . . ." Yet there is much to admire here, particularly the discussions, to which Brackett repeatedly loops back, of the narrow, dangerous space between tradition and transgression. For him, Zorn doesn't so much wish to destroy social and aesthetic norms as challenge them, although whether Zorn has thought about his own work in quite this manner—sometimes he's more like an intellectualized Road Runner than an academic cogitator—seems doubtful. In interviews, he has sounded diffident about his undoubted intellect; after reading Brackett's gift theorizing, it's refreshing to find the composer himself joking about his "plagiarism" and "stealing." Though it's fair to say that this book would be Greek to anyone not already interested in Zorn and his music, Brackett does successfully limn the tensions in the music of a remarkable composer. It is a testament to how far academic musicologists have ventured since the dear, unlamented years when they merely buried their noses in lute tablature, afraid to creep anywhere near the present, let alone the demotic. There's a heady new world out there, and Brackett is part of it. If he could only match his thinking and his academically cloaked passions with a prose style equivalent to the passion and humor of his subject, he would have a book really worth reading. -- John Rockwell * Bookforum *[T]he book is a heady brew of fascinating ideas, analyses, conjectures, and unifying theories, which presents some masterful strategies for the 'game of analysis' to which Zorn challenges all comers. Vol. 5, No. 1 * Critical Studies in Improvisation *Brackett has made an indispensible contribution to scholarship a subject that deserves many more important books, and he has set the bar high for future authors. December 2009 * Notes *As the first book of scholarship on this multifaceted artist, John Zorn . . . accomplishes a great deal and should initiate a new and more serious phase in Zorn's treatment at the hands of academic authors. Winter 2010 * American Music *Though his book plumbs depths of theory and esoteric cultural history that may interest only the most hardcore Zorn and experimental-art fans, those very depths make it an invaluable guide to the aesthetic methods and motivations of an artist who pays homage to the old as he seeks to make it new. August/September 2009 * Bloom Magazine *. . .scholar John Brackett moves away from the clichéd interpretation of Zorn as a postmodernist . . . to offer a more nuanced interpretation, one that considers his role as historian and caretaker of earlier artworks. June 2009 * AllAboutJazz-New York *Brackett offers a number of perspectives for understandign Zorn's music and musical practices, while challenging certain assumptions that limit the ways in which contemporary music is typically addressed.January 26, 2009 * www.avantmusicnews.com *. . . Brackett does a thorough job of addressing the various complexities and contradictions found in Zorn's body of work. The author provides a well-grounded starting point for exploring Zorn's output . . . May 2009 * Choice *. . . [Brackett's] passion for Zorn's work is evident throughout his remarkably insightful [book]. Brackett has attained a significant level of involvement from Zorn himself, and the book includes segments from their conversations as well as previously unseen sketches, notes, and documents relating to the composer's work. For die-hard followers, the book is an invitation into the inner sanctum.January 28, 2009 -- Michael Patrick Brady * PopMatters *Brackett's groundbreaking book . . . confronts Zorn's contradictory modes of expression . . . brilliantly demonstrating how these powerful dualities of thought—real yet fantastic, pleasing yet horrifying—synergize to make Zorn's compositional voice unique and seminal in the 21st century.November 3 2008 -- Severine Neff * Mainly Music Meandering *Table of ContentsContentsForeword by John ZornAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. From the Fantastic to the Dangerously Real: Reading John Zorn's Artwork2. Magick and Mysticism in Zorn's Recent Works3. Tradition, Gifts, and Zorn's Musical Homages4. Continuing the Spiral: Aporias and the Prisms of TraditionEpilogueDiscography/FilmographyNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisSergei Rachmaninoff - the last great Russian romantic and arguably the finest pianist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries - wrote 83 songs, which are performed and beloved throughout the world. This title provides English translations of the songs, along with accurate transliterations of the original texts and detailed commentary.Trade ReviewA treasure for the serious music reference library, Sylvester's work compiles art song data needed by students, teachers, researchers, and performers. . . . This is a scholarly effort welcome in university, conservatory, and large public library collections as well as the home shelves of music lovers. * American Reference Books Annual *Richard D. Sylvester's companion to Rachmaninoff's songs is a perfect guide for performers and Rachmaninoff enthusiasts. * Russian Review *The author . . . makes Russian songs accessible to those without previous language training. Multiple indexes make this a fine reference source for texts. * Choice *Sylvester . . . paints a rich, detailed, and variegated picture of Rachmaninoff's output as a song composer, the range and variety of his literary reading, and his many creative interactions with singers. * Music and Letters *In his Companion, Richard D. Sylvester not only puts under careful factual scrutiny the entirety of Rachmaninoff's solo vocal output; he also invites his readers to consider the aesthetic and historical significance of Rachmaninoff's 26-year-long engagement with lyric poetry. This multi-functional volume offers much more than its meek title may suggest. * Canadian Slavonic Papers *[T]he writer exposes the real-life practitioner of music, whether student, teacher, or seasoned performer, to an accessible source of rich, meticulously researched data so central for au fait artistic interpretation of classics, and often so hard to glean from routinely dry and difficult musicology texts. The robustness of research behind the book is in no way compromised by its accessibility, and is evident from an astounding bibliography section that spans ten pages and contains 289 references. * Journal of Singing *All lovers of Russian music owe a great debt of gratitude to Professor Sylvester, whose latest book may be recommended without qualification. * Slavonic and East European Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsPrefaceA Note on Dates and Spelling1. Early Years (1873-1892) Nine Unpublished Songs (1890-1899)2. First Published Songs, Opus 4 (1893) Songs 10-153. Six Romances, Opus 8 (1896) Songs 16-214. Twelve Romances, Opus 14 (1896) Songs 22-33 5. Twelve Romances, Opus 21 (1902) Songs 34-45 Song 46, Without Opus (1900)6. Fifteen Romances, Opus 26 (1906) Songs 47-61 Song 62, Without Opus (1900)7. Fourteen Romances, Opus 34 (1912-1915) Songs 63-76 Song 77, Without Opus (1914)8. Six Poems, Opus 38 (1916) Songs 78-839. After Russia (1917-1943) Two Unpublished Songs (1916)BibliographyIndex of SingersIndex of Song Titles in RussianIndex of Song Titles in EnglishIndex of Names

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Book Synopsis'Before there was Star Wars before there was Close Encounters there was The Man Who Fell To Earth. advertising tag line for 1981 reissue of the film. Earthbound is the first book-length exploration of a true classic of twentieth-century science-fiction cinema, shot under the heavy, ethereal skies of New Mexico by the legendary British director Nicolas Roeg and starring David Bowie in a role he seemed born for as an extra-terrestrial named Thomas Newton who comes to Earth in search of water. Based on a novel by the highly regarded American writer Walter Tevis, this dreamy, distressing, and visionary film resonates even more strongly in the twenty-first century than it did on its original release during the year of the US Bicentennial. Drawing on extensive research and exclusive first-hand interviews with members of the cast and crew, Earthbound begins with a look at Tevis s 1963 novel before moving into a detailed analysis of a film described by its director as 'a sci-fi film without a lot of sci-fi tools and starring a group of actors Bowie, Buck Henry, Candy Clark, Rip Torn later described by one of them (Henry) as 'not a cast but a dinner party. It also seeks to uncover the mysteries surrounding Bowie s rejected soundtrack to the film (elements of which later ended up his ground-breaking 1977 album Low) and closes with a look at his return to the themes and characters of The Man Who Fell To Earth in one of his final works, the acclaimed musical production Lazarus.

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Book SynopsisDanko Jones collects ten years of onstage and backstage stories in this eye-poppingly funny rock-n-roll collection.

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Book SynopsisMike Love is a founding member of the Beach Boys and the lead singer and lyricist of their biggest hits. With their lush vocals and endlessly inventive arrangements, the band forged art from songs about cars, surfing and first love. But beneath the Beach Boys' wholesome appearance lurked darker truths: drugs and dissent, deceit and betrayal, illness and infidelity, line-up changes and litigation. In Good Vibrations, Mike Love tells the unvarnished story of his five-decade tenure as frontman of the quintessential American band, whose music continues to reverberate today.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Kraus has collected a multitude of telling personal accounts. Charming and illuminating anecdotes that depict interactions among the players and between individual players and the maestro abound, along with sometimes humorous and sometimes harsh instances of Szell's behavior." --Mary Sue Welsh, author of One Woman in a Hundred: Edna Phillips and the Philadelphia Orchestra"The author gives us an entertaining and revealing picture of Szell working with his musicians over the years. After you read this you will know him better than if it had been a mere biography. When you finish a chapter you are eager to go on to the next, because it's a fascinating tale--and sometimes it's even rather amazing."--American Record Guide

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Book SynopsisBiography of one of the key personalities of 20th-century music.Trade Review"Includes rare and revealing illustrations... [A] sane and sensitive biography... A readable illustrated biography of Schoenberg is such an obvious idea what one wonders why it has taken so long for one to appear. Certainly Phaidon's 20th Century Composers series [...] is an ideal format... Bojan Bujic [...] has performed his task with skill and sympathy. It is refreshing to see Schoenberg treated as a passionate human being... Bujic's explication of the serial method and its imaginative origins is sensible and concise... He is also ingenious in using his pictorial material to illuminate musical issues... Overall an extremely useful introduction."—BBC Music "The major (and rare) achievement of the book is its slow but sure description of Schoenberg's move through post-romantic tonality, atonality and serialism. The explanation of musical language is always tricky […] but Bujic remains clear and honest without baffling. … particularly deft is his invitation to listen to Schoenberg in a different way. … Bujic's biography, like its subject, dazzles and delights."—Classical Music "A considerable success – an overview that manages to be serious without ponderousness, fresh without superficiality … in Bujic's hands there is always a degree of shrewdness to counter the dangers of over-simplification, boosted by a striking comparison or novel suggestion of context. … Bujic offers many […] deft characterisations of how to think constructively about his subject's most challenging compositional concerns, and his narrative wears its own scholarship lightly."—Musical Times On the 20th Century Composers Series "As a series, Phaidon's 20th Century Composers has brought remarkable variety and a welter of information, both necessary and delightfully trivial. Intended both for the general reader and for the more enthusiastically musical."—The ScotsmanTable of ContentsPreface / Chapter 1: Prelude - An Austrian Setting/ Chapter 2: Musical Apprenticeship/ Chapter 3: "The air from another planet" / Chapter 4: Heroes, Clowns and Beasts/ Chapter 5: Interlude - The Last Days of Kakania / Chapter 6: Searching for Truth in Vienna / Chapter 7: Berlin - An Uneasy Calm before the Storm / Chapter 8: Into Exile / Chapter 9: A Survivor from Europe/ Chapter 10: Epilogue - Schoenberg is Dead/Classified List of Works / Further Reading / Selective Discography / Index

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Book SynopsisCésar Franck (18221890), Belgian born and French domiciled, was one of the most remarkable composers of the 19th century. A number of his works are commonly recordedsuch as his Symphony in D Minor, Symphonic Variations, Violin Sonata, and the ever-popular Panis Angelicusand yet 38 years have elapsed since a biography of him appeared in English. Now with César Franck: His Life and Times, R. J. Stove fills this gap in the history of late 19th-century classical music with a full-length study of the man and his music. Drawing on sources never before cited in English, Stove paints a far more detailed picture of this great musician and deeply loved man, whose influence in both his native and adopted lands was exceptional. Stove carefully delves into intimate matters of Franck's life, including his resilience in the face of his exploitation as a child prodigy at the piano, his development from a shy and harassed piano teacher into one of the most sought-after luminaries of Paris's ConservatTrade ReviewNineteenth-century composer César Franck spent most of his career teaching at the Conservatoire de Paris and serving as organist at Sainte-Clotilde. Only late in life did he achieve fame through a handful of important chamber and orchestral compositions, several of which continued to be performed regularly during the first half of the 20th century. Franck's reputation has suffered, however, since the 1960s. Stove (a performing organist based in Melbourne, Australia) has produced a fresh, eminently readable biography of the composer, the first in English to be based on extensive familiarity with (and translation of) the composer's letters and other primary sources. With the goal of inspiring "better comprehension of Franck himself," the author focuses on Franck's life and the critical reception of his music while the composer was alive and in the century since his death. The result is a fine (and often entertaining) introduction to the man, his compositions, and the political, social, and cultural contexts that shaped both Franck and his music....Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE *R.J. Stove’s intensively researched biography of Belgian French composer César Franck (1822-1890) has striking merits. Stove writes exquisitely, in periodic sentences, and manages to make detailed discussions of musicology an aesthetic experience for experts and neophytes alike. He also blends his musical discussions with well-told anecdotes, the most appealing of which is his recounting of Franck’s passion for a young beauty with an Irish father, Augusta Mary Anne Holmès. * The American Conservative *Stove notes a resuscitation of interest in Franck starting in 1990, the 100th anniversary of the composer's death, with a flurry on concert performances and new recordings of long neglected works. Never before has his music been so readily available in commercial recordings. * American Record Guide *This book is not quite for the ordinary reader, but having said that, it would be a huge compliment to give someone a copy of it. It would be a way of saying, “You have sufficient general education and interest in music to make this of more than passing interest to your good self. * Quadrant: The Journal of the C.G. Jung Foundation *Stove has done an admirable job in evoking Franck and his world, as well as giving us a fairly balanced appreciated of his life’s work…. Interesting connections made between people and compositions, as well as the author’s own insights, attest to the depth of Stove’s research. * Limelight Magazine *This book will not be the last word on Franck, but Stove presents us with a readable portrait which will certainly appeal to those for whom Franck is still a bit of a mystery. * Salisbury Review *What makes Stove’s biography especially interesting is not just the author’s own musical expertise, which enables him to go way beyond a standard biographer in analysing Franck’s work, but the way he weaves in the historical background… Cesar Franck: His Life and Times reminds us that artistic geniuses don’t have to be tortured souls with problematic personalities. * Spectator Australia *Stove has chosen to eschew scholarly detachment in treating his subject’s life, and the reward in engagement and sheer wit is considerable, while the extensive annotations reveal just how carefully and thoroughly the author has done his research. * Organ Australia *It is the first study of the composer in English for some time, and even an audience already familiar with the subject will welcome its extensive quotation from contemporary sources. * Choir & Organ *Stove has delivered scrupulous scholarship, correcting errors of earlier writers and providing a full scholarly scaffolding of bibliography and endnotes. * classical.net *“This is an admirably thorough and detailed exploration not only of Franck himself, but also of his historical environment and varied connections, done with obvious sympathy and admiration but without failing to present all sides in the critical spectrum” “We get a wide range of opinion about the man and his music and a feeling that the author knows intimately the music he describes care and detail. And we have confidence that he has gone the extra mile to correct little discrepancies and inaccuracies that have been perpetuated in Franck scholarship to date” “It is fascinating reading, and the author has no hesitation in pursuing amusing side stories or interesting political historical settings. Don’t miss the notes which are often very funny” “The book is full of engaging and charming turns of phrase and wry observations.” This is a very rich book, full of surprises and interest and written in a very appealing and lively way. It should reignite interest in works other than the few standard ones and round out our ideas of Franck’s legacy. I strongly recommend it.” * Annals Australasia *Overall I found this a diverting read and appreciated a writer whose turn of phrase and command of English prose never fail to delight, itself an all-too-rare event these days. * Organz News *

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Book SynopsisRichard Wagner (1813-1883) was better known in the nineteenth century for his provocative musical eroticism. This title studies the composer and his works, showing how Wagner's obsession with sexuality prefigured the composition of operas such as "Tannhauser", "Die Walkure", "Tristan und Isolde", and "Parsifal".Trade ReviewBy shifting our attention from Wagner's politics to his erotics, Dreyfus enriches our understanding of all the major Wagner operas, as well as of the composer himself. This book will transform Wagner studies and the study of music and sexuality. -- Karol Berger, Stanford UniversityDreyfus's searching study of Wagner's sexuality – one with distinctively feminized and fetishistic qualities – penetrates to the core of both the man and the artist. His achievement is that he not only tells us more about the nature of Wagner's eroticism per se, but also makes clear how this substantively affected the music he wrote. An important contribution that brilliantly illuminates some crepuscular zones of the Wagner phenomenon. -- Barry Millington, Editor of the Wagner JournalLaurence Dreyfus has written an immensely important book about the importance of the erotic in Wagner's life and work. The exploration of the fascinating and contradictory subject is both profound and witty. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Wagner's music. -- Vladimir Jurowski, Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic OrchestraA fascinating study of a distinct dimension of Wagner's life and art. -- Larry Lipkis * Library Journal *The Nazis have cast a long, retrospective shadow over Wagner, but as Laurence Dreyfus argues in Wagner and the Erotic Impulse, what scandalized (and delighted) 19th-century listeners to Wagner's music was not its politics but its unbridled sensuality. Dreyfus explores the aesthetic and biographical issues (including the composer's fondness for wearing women's silk lingerie) with admirable clarity, laying bare an aspect of the composer that is both central and often strangely ignored. -- Adam Lively * Sunday Times *Even in this supposedly liberal era Wagner's detractors still wag fingers at his love-life...As this ground-breaking new study suggests, it's the erotic yearnings so central to his great works that remain arresting. -- Michael Scott Rohan * BBC Music *Revelatory. -- Alex Ross * New Yorker *[Dreyfus] has produced a scholarly yet eminently readable volume that will bewitch any opera-lover. Like a benign magician--like Wagner himself, perhaps--Dreyfus conjures up a vivid array of characters and allows them to reveal their innermost thoughts through their own words and deeds. Nietzche and Schopenhauer are there, as are Baudelaire, Bulow, Heine, D'Annunzio, Thomas Mann, Krafft-Ebing and Henry James. -- Daniel Snowman * Opera *At this point, the only good reason to add to the mountains of Wagner scholarship is to add another peak, which is precisely what Laurence Dreyfus has done in Wagner and the Erotic Impulse...The payoff for following him through his 250-page argument is that Wagner's music sounds deeper, richer and better than ever...Dreyfus' greatest achievement, a great deal of it pioneering, is in his investigation of Wagner's eroticism in the music itself. It's the hardest kind of work a writer about music can do, and Dreyfus does it with rare insight and imagination, and in language as accessible to the interested lay reader as it would be to fellow scholars...Wagner and the Erotic Impulse tears the roof off Wagner scholarship. The artistic cosmos it finds inside is a vastly more vital and compelling place. -- Tim Pfaff * Bay Area Reporter *[Dreyfus's] persuasive contention is that this music is not only erotic to our ears and understanding, but that it was interpreted as such from the very start. Furthermore, he shows that the explicit connections of eroticism with music long predate the nineteenth century, going back at least as far as the terpsichorean tradition of the sixteenth century. Dreyfus impressively manages to argue that music can be interpreted as expressly erotic without getting himself entangled in the complexities of whether music can in general be assigned particular interpretation. -- Bernard O'Donoghue * Times Literary Supplement *Dreyfus' book is an excellent account of what is by any measure a crucial aspect of Wagner's extraordinary art. -- Bradley Winterton * Taipei Times *This is an altogether unusual portrait of the composer, one resting on a platform of brazen sexuality. Dreyfus posits Eros both as a prism through which to access Wagner's biography and oeuvre anew, and as the impulse driving the latter into existence...The hazards attendant on a study of Eros are offset by the strength of Dreyfus's argument. He elevates the erotic to a central paradigm for Wagner: its force is thematised in Tannhäuser, Tristan and Parsifal, documented throughout Wagner's writings, and substantiated by contemporary discourse, both passionate espousal and disgust. But as the author later explains, erotic impulse is also fundamental to the experience of music...Telling details are often the gems in any history, and this book is richly studded...Dreyfus's command of sources is impressive; all are newly translated, their contextual breadth forming a latter-day answer to Greenblatt's so-called new historicism...A rich study, saturated with insight, fresh perspective and delivered with panache. The virtuosity of Dreyfus's readings is often dazzling, if challenging to a more mainstream approach to Wagner...Yet Dreyfus's strategy of bringing historical voices to the fore allows him to open up broader hermeneutic horizons with ease...So thought-provoking is this study in its claims that it will surely give impetus to further scholarly work on erotics, as an historical nodal point both for Wagner reception, and perhaps for music more broadly. -- David Trippett * Cambridge Opera Journal *Nietzsche's posthumous fragment [on the ardours of music for Tristan und Isolde] is one of many examples which Laurence Dreyfus cites in his book to prove that it wasn't Richard Wagner's broadsides against "Judaism" but rather his connection to eroticism and sexuality which enraged contemporaries. Dreyfus notes rightly that the relationships between what Nietzsche termed Wagner's "morbid sexuality," the treatment of Eros in his music dramas, and its reception at the time has thus far been treated only hesitantly in Wagner scholarship. Wagner and the Erotic Impulse tries to fill this gap, and Dreyfus, to come directly to the point, doesn't shy away from naming "the actual word for the ardours of the music in Tristan." That this musicologist (and virtuoso on the viola da gamba) who teaches at Magdalen College Oxford also exhibits a downright off-the-cuff and refreshingly irreverent handling of Wagner and the subject of eroticism is certainly surprising...That music should be able to simulate (or even stimulate) desire because it lacks an erotic object, and that by "purely musical" means should be able to represent tension, impulses, arousal and deliverance ought to enlighten every Wagner-listener. And how the tender love motive in the first scene of Die Walküre has risen to a wild mania at the end of the first act is conveyed to the listener, if not consciously, then certainly unconsciously. One can confidently subscribe to Dreyfus's conclusion that Wagner's erotics had decidedly more significant artistic consequences than did his anti-Semitism...[Dreyfus] must be credited with having treated a noteworthy theme without striking wrong notes. -- Wolfgang Fuhrmann * Wagner Spectrum *

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Book SynopsisWhen Dylan came off the 1966 tour he was completely exhausted. The world thought he had the answers but Dylan was lost, crushed by the weight of expectations. The next 13 years saw Dylan trying to find his direction home. He found it when someone threw a Bible on stage and he found Christianity.

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Book Synopsis In 1989 the Geto Boys released a blistering track, “Size Ain’t Shit,” that paid tribute to the group’s member Bushwick Bill. Born with dwarfism, Bill was one of the few visibly disabled musicians to achieve widespread fame and one of the even fewer to address disability in a direct, sustained manner. Initially hired as a dancer, Bill became central to the Geto Boys as the Houston crew became one of hip-hop’s most important groups. Why Bushwick Bill Matters chronicles this crucial artist and explores what he reveals about the relationships among race, sex, and disability in pop music. Charles L. Hughes examines Bill''s recordings and videos (both with the Geto Boys and solo), from the horror-comic persona of “Chuckie” to vulnerable verses in songs such as “Mind Playing Tricks On Me,” to discuss his portrayals of dwarfism, addiction, and mental illness. Hughes also explores Bill’s importance to his era and to the longer history of disability in music. A complex figure, Bill exposed the truths of a racist and ableist society even as his violent and provocative lyrics put him in the middle of debates over censorship and misogyny. Confrontational and controversial, Bushwick Bill left a massive legacy as he rhymed and swaggered through an often-inaccessible world. Trade ReviewThe Bushwick Bill story is complex, more complex than a batch of controversial lyrics and a record cover would suggest...Why Bushwick Bill Matters does that complexity justice, and gives a Houston hip-hop legend his due. * Houstonia *[Hughes is] expert at interweaving music criticism, cultural history, disability studies, and a touch of personal reflection [in Why Bushwick Bill Matters]. Hughes is well-studied and acutely informed on race and music. * Rain Taxi *Why Bushwick Bill Matters is invaluable for its examination of how race, gender, and disability shaped Bushwick Bill’s contributions to hip-hop culture and to the music industry...Hughes proves that Scarface was not the only member of the Geto Boys to have a lasting impact on hip-hop music. Bushwick Bill deserves that distinction, too. * Journal of Popular Music Studies *This small, well-considered, deeply felt, and often very funny volume is invaluable in the continued discourse of difficult people making difficult work, which seems necessary for the continued, spiky, and difficult possibility of disabled selfhood and expression. * Canadian Journal of Disability Studies *Table of ContentsA Note on Terminology Introduction How Little Billy Became Bushwick Bill Bum-Rush the Freak Show “Size Ain’t Shit” Can’t Be Stopped “He Ain’t What You Expect” Child’s Play “Brand New Preacher, Rap Game Teacher” Greatest Showmen Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography

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