Music reviews and criticism Books

Book SynopsisGoing beyond merely explaining how the artists in these genres achieved their peculiar effects, he presents challenging new analyses of telling craft details which help students and scholars come to know more fully this bold age of aesthetic extremism.Trade ReviewScholarly and impressive... Such a thorough consideration of the interconnectedness of modernism illuminates how truly revolutionary this artistic movement was. ChoiceTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsIntroduction. Modernist TransvaluationI. Two Originary Texts1. Baudelaire and Symbolism2. Nietzsche and the DionysiacII. Isms3. Impressionism4. Expressionism5. Futurism6. Cubism7. Abstractionism8. Primitivism9. Imagism10. Neoclassicism11. Dadaism12. Surrealism13. Aestheticism14. Corporealism15. Totalizing Art16. Communism, Fascism, and Later ModernismEpilogue. The End of Modernism?Notes

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Book SynopsisThe recording studio, she argues, is at the center of musical culture in the twentieth century.Trade Review[ Chasing Sound] does more than traverse the technology of sound recordings: it provides a history on the evolution of sound recording, quality, and even popular music movements, and is a 'must' for any music history or music technology library. Midwest Book Review Chasing Sound is a welcome addition to a growing literature illuminating the history of sound recording... What makes the book unique are the author's interviews with dozens of engineers and producers. The voices of those who worked in the studios day in and day out enliven the rest of the book's narrative with a perspective born of practical experience. Journal of American History This 292-page hardbound book goes back to Edison's invention, moves through the electrical recording era and brings us to the end of the analog recording studio. -- Steve Ramm Anything Phonographic Schmidt Horning's excellent dissertation... provides us with valuable and well-founded information of the recording music business from its early beginnings until the rock music era. This book can be recommended to all not only interested in the technological development of sound recording, but also in the sociological change of the recording profession from the 1890s to the late 1960s. -- Peter Tschmuck Music Business Research Chasing Sound represents an indispensable and critical approach for historians of sound, one that is unafraid of reconfiguring the central players in a narrative as big as the history of recorded music. -- Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo Sounding Out! Schmidt Horning provides an insightful look into the conception and maturation of the recording industry and ways the continuing quest for improved sonic fidelity impacts popular music and Western culture. Susan Schmidt Horning's recent book, however, is a compelling exploration of a world largely hidden from view that has been shaped by scientists and recording engineers whom she calls tinkerers. More importantly, Chasing Sound is a vital contribution to sound studies that traces the shift from the aesthetic of live performance to the recorded object that has dominated the popular imagination for nearly a century... Moreover, Schmidt Horning attends to intricate detail but includes so much archival research that recordists, scientists, musicians, and others are humanized players in an important tale of American culture. Schmidt Horning cleverly unfolds this unique history while underscoring the significant accomplishments that they wrought. -- Kathryn Metz ARSC Journal (Association for Recorded Sound Collections) An engaging and colorful narrative about the evolution of a profession. -- Andre Millard American Historical Review This book is rich in detail and analysis, resulting from years devoted to researching into archives and collecting interviews (as well as Schmidt Horning's knowledge of the trade as a musician herself). -- Simone Turchetti British Journal for the History of Science Meticulously researched... -- Steve Savage Journal on the Art of Record Production Chasing Sound is a masterful accomplishment. It offers a crucial addition to the burgeoning scholarship on sound and recording and holds significant value for students and scholars of labor, technology, and popular culture in the twentieth-century United States. With a sharp eye and keen ear, Susan Schmidt Horning gives us that rarest of treasures: a book that succeeds equally well as sophisticated analysis and engrossing narrative. It is highly recommended. -- Charles L. Hughes History: Reviews of New Books Schmidt Horning provides a diligent and thoughtful contribution to the history of the recording industry... A valuable addition to the body of scholarship on the recording industry... Marvel at the intricacy of the art, the miracle that we can preserve and retrieve sounds from decades ago, and appreciate the individuals who worked so thanklessly for the love of the music. The Journal of Popular Culture A well-written, fascinating account of the multiple shifts and changes in studio recording--from the art of capturing a live performance to the art of engineering an illusion and the concomitant reversal of the historical relationship between live and recorded music. Isis Recording technology is at the heart of Chasing Sound, Horning has made it user-friendly for those without extensive technical backgrounds, and she draws attention to matters easily overlooked by specialists... A welcoming introduction to the history of musical recording. Technology and Culture Schmidt has gone above and beyond the call of duty. By letting more than 80 deffent types of stinging incets jab him, he has developed a "pain index" for each sting... His descriptions of the pain are wry and eloquent. ScienceTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Capturing Sound in the Acoustic Era2. The Studio Electrifies3. A Passion for Sound4. When High Fidelity Was New5. Control Men in Technological Transition6. The Search for the Sound7. Channeling SoundConclusionNotesEssay on SourcesIndex

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Trade ReviewSpecialists in English, media, film and television have also been invited to take part in this conversation, which feels authentic to the spirit of Eno ... The book mulls over those necessary questions that anyone thinking about Eno must eventually face. * The Wire *Contributions include meticulous descriptions of compositions; a chapter about Eno’s ambient oeuvre (which quirkily compares him to Tolkien at great length) ... Albiez contributes to the best piece on precursors to Eno’s use of the studio to create new sounds. ... Intellectually stimulating. * Record Collector *The collection’s standouts are Martin James’ pithy, pacy account of Eno’s years in New York (1978-84) … and Hillegonda Rietveld’s coolly attentive reading of the soundtrack to the film The Lovely Bones, in which his “oblique music seems like a ghostly call from the ‘in-between’”. * Times Higher Education *For quite some time, Brian Eno has been jokingly referred to as the ‘professor of pop’. It’s about time, then, that real academics caught up with a body of work that is as perplexing as it is complex. ... Essential reading for all academic listeners. * Times Higher Education ('What are you reading?') *This much needed book explores the many trajectories of Eno’s varied career, and it will engage and excite any music lover, regardless of your opinion of Eno’s work. It’s a richly rewarding collection that deftly explores and unpacks the work of one of popular music’s pioneering figures. ... Oblique Music does an outstanding job of critically capturing both the well-known and less familiar elements of Eno’s work ... [It] provides some thought-provoking material on broader issues such as collaboration, composition, creativity, experimentation, musicianship, technology and more, and as such will stimulate the interest of anyone engaged in music creation and production. This is a book that you will return to time and again — like Eno’s best work, its rewards make themselves most evident after repeated visits. * Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture *Meticulously written, rich in detail and factually argued ... Anyone who wants to know Eno from the beginning, to understand his experimental strategies in the studio or to study his eternal movement between pop music and free sound, will not be disappointed. * Groove (Bloomsbury translation) *[T]he essays or chapters in this anthology are thoughtful, thought-provoking, informed and interesting ... [and] they come at their subject from an appropriately wide-ranging and inter-disciplinary number of fields ... It’s a lively and varied collection, that leaves room for even more consideration of the elusive, enigmatic and influential Eno. * International Times *[A] series of essays by academics each focussing on an aspect of Eno's work and ideas. ... There's even a chapter about Devo. A fascinating [read]. * Electronic Sound *As producer, musician, theorist, facilitator and more, Brian Eno has left significant traces across popular culture since the 1970s and this wide-ranging volume skillfully brings to light both well-known and more obscure aspects of his work and legacy. * Alexei Monroe, Cultural theorist and author of Interrogation Machine: Laibach & NSK *Few figures in the history of modern music stand up to the kind of wide-ranging, detailed and careful treatment meted out in this brilliant collection. Eno’s expansive repertoire – from glam rock icon to avant-garde composer - constitutes the fertile grounds for what is a learned and lively intervention. Deigned to be a benchmark collection for anyone interested in process-oriented creativity and experimental musicianship, the collection shines a light on Eno’s dynamic craftsmanship. It fills a crucial gap in the field, bestowing on the reader a unique insight into Eno the polymath, singer, collaborator, composer, avant-gardiste, intellectual and self-defined “non-musician”. A richly-informed, lucidly written and rigorously compiled collection that provides new insights with every turn of the page. * Nick Prior, Senior Lecturer and Head of Sociology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Brian Eno: A problem of organization - David Pattie and Sean Albiez PART ONE - Eno: Composer, musician and theorist 1 The Bogus Men: Eno, Ferry and Roxy Music - David Pattie 2 Brian Eno, non- musicianship and the experimental tradition - Cecilia Sun 3 Taking the studio by strategy- David Pattie 4 Between the avant- garde and the popular: The discursive economy of Brian Eno’s musical practices - Chris Atton 5 Yes, but is it music? Brian Eno and the definition of ambient music - Mark Edward Achtermann 6 The Lovely Bones: Music from beyond - Hillegonda C. Rietveld 7 The voice and/of Brian Eno - Sean Albiez PART TWO - The University of Eno: Production and collaborations 8 Before and after Eno: Situating ‘The Recording Studio as Compositional Tool’ - Sean Albiez and Ruth Dockwray 9 Control and surrender: Eno remixed – collaboration and Oblique Strategies - Kingsley Marshall and Rupert Loydell 10 Avant-gardism, ‘Africa’ and appropriation in My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - Elizabeth Ann Lindau 11 Eno and Devo - Jonathan Stewart 12 Another Green World? Eno, Ireland and U2 - Noel McLaughlin 13 Documenting no wave: Brian Eno as urban ethnographer - Martin James Select Discography

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Book SynopsisSelling Folk Music: An Illustrated History highlights commercial sources that reveal how folk music has been packaged and sold to a broad, shifting audience in the United States. Folk music has a varied and complex scope and lineage, including the blues, minstrel tunes, Victorian parlor songs, spirituals and gospel tunes, country and western songs, sea shanties, labor and political songs, calypsos, pop folk, folk-rock, ethnic, bluegrass, and more. The genre is of major importance in the broader spectrum of American music, and it is easy to understand why folk music has been marketed as America''s music. Selling Folk Music presents the public face of folk music in the United States via its commercial promotion and presentation throughout the twentieth century. Included are concert flyers; sheet music; book, songbook, magazine, and album covers; concert posters and flyers; and movie lobby cards and posters, all in their original colors. The 1964 hootenanny craze, for eTrade ReviewThe work will underline the importance of such sources and perhaps encourage their preservation.

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Book SynopsisFocuses on the white, female artists of the 1950s, a time that predated the chart-topping girl groups of the early 1960s. These popular performers, many of whom graduated out of the big bands of the 1940s, impacted popular music in a huge way.Trade ReviewAuthors have long neglected the fabulous females of the fifties, but Steve Bergsman makes up for that neglect with this fascinating, fact-filled book. All I Want Is Loving You fills a major gap in pop music history and Bergsman is the author who should fill it." - Peter Benjaminson, author of The Story of Motown, Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown's First Superstar

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Book SynopsisHighlights the Black female artists of the 1950s, a time that predated the chart-topping girl groups of the early 1960s. Many of the singers of this era became wildly famous and respected, and even made it into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. However, there were many others, who made one or two great records and then disappeared from the scene.Trade ReviewA singular look and fully researched account of the women singers who were trailblazers in the early 1950s as R&B evolved into rock ’n’ roll." - Aaron Cohen, author of Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power and Aretha Franklin's 'Amazing Grace'"An encyclopedic history that conveys important contributions of individual artists as well as the collective body of women singers." - Frank Matheis, contributing writer for Living Blues, publisher of thecountryblues.com, and coauthor of Sweet Bitter Blues: Washington, DC's Homemade Blues

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Book SynopsisRobert Carl is chair of Composition at the Hartt School, University of Hartford. His music is performed worldwide. His first teacher was Jonathan Kramer.Trade ReviewThe value and importance of the book is properly expressed in the conclusion of the preface by Jann Pasler ... Indeed a deep reading of this book will provoke an objective critical relationship towards postmodernism even among those (like myself) who cautiously use this term – if they use it at all. * International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music *Jonathan Kramer’s Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening reflects his voracious mind and offers the reader a highly original tour through the philosophy, aesthetics, and analysis of musical postmodernism. The book is both accessible and authoritative, and it fills an important gap in the musical literature. * Fred Lerdahl, Professor of Music, Columbia University, USA *A brilliant “both/and,” inclusive thinker, Jonathan Kramer has always been accessible and engaging, eclectic and learned. As a consummate writer, teacher and composer, he has astutely theorized postmodernism—that slippery, contentious beast—from the evidence of contemporary music itself and from the social values of its listeners, as well as creators. In this multi-layered, innovative study of music in our world of “social saturation”, the postmodern is neither a category nor an era: it is a way of hearing, a musical attitude shared by composers and listeners alike. This captivating book will make you rethink modernism, anti-modernism, and of course postmodernism. * Linda Hutcheon, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada *For years Jonathan Kramer has been the leading thinker on the vexed subject of postmodernism in music through his articles and lectures. Now his long-awaited book on the topic is finally posthumously out, and the subtlety and nuance with which he draws a consistent and reasonable argument from so much disparate and seemingly contradictory data is breathtaking. This is likely to be the standard work on musical postmodernism for a long time, and will vastly increase the depth of the discussion. * Kyle Gann, Hawver Professor of Music, Bard College, USA *Table of ContentsEditor’s Introduction by Robert Carl Preface by Jann Pasler Acknowledgements Foreword BOOK 1. IDEAS PART I. CHAPTERS ON POSTMODERN CONCEPTS OF MUSIC Chapter 1: The Nature and Origins of Musical Postmodernism Chapter 2: Postmodernism (Not) Defined Chapter 3: Modernism, Postmodernism, the Avant Garde, and Their Audiences PART II. CHAPTERS ON CONCEPTS OF POSTMODERN MUSIC Chapter 4: Postmodernism and Related Isms in Today’s Music Chapter 5: Unity, Organicism, and Challenges to Their Ubiquity Chapter 6: Beyond Unity Chapter 7: Postmodern Listening Chapter 8: Postmodern Musical Time Chapter 9: Surrealism, Neoclassicism, and Postmodernism PART III. POSTMODERN CHAPTERS ON THE CONCEPT OF MUSIC Chapter 10: Economics, Politics, Technology, and Appropriation Chapter 11: Beyond the Beyond: Postmodernism Exemplified BOOK II. CASE HISTORIES Chapter 12: Postmodernism in the Finale of Mahler's Seventh Symphony Chapter 13: Unity and Disunity in Nielsen’s Sixth Symphony BOOK III. ESSAYS ON POSTMODERNISM AND JONATHAN KRAMER Editor’s note 1. Postmodern Musings, Postmodern Performing by Deborah Bradley-Kramer 2. Are We Postmodern Yet? By Brad Garton 3. Music in the Anthropocene by John Luther Adams 4. On (re-) Hearing Kramer: Five Reactions to Postmodernism Music, Postmodern Listening by John Halle 5. Uncommon Kindness: Reflections on Jonathan Kramer by Duncan Neilson 6. Kramer Post Kramer by Martin Bresnick Biographies Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis international collection of eleven original essays on Australian Aboriginal literature provides a comprehensive critical companion that contextualizes the Aboriginal canon for scholars, researchers, students, and general readers. Australian Aboriginal literature, once relegated to the margins of Australian literary studies, now receives both national and international attention. Not only has the number of published texts by contemporary Australian Aboriginals risen sharply, but scholars and publishers have also recently begun recovering earlier published and unpublished Indigenous works. Writing by Australian Aboriginals is making a decisive impression in fiction, autobiography, biography, poetry, film, drama, and music, and has recently been anthologized in Oceania and North America. Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive critical companion that contextualizes the Aboriginal canon for scholars, researchers, students, and general readers. This international collection of eleven original essays fills this gap by discussing crucial aspects of Australian Aboriginal literature and tracing the development of Aboriginalliteracy from the oral tradition up until today, contextualizing the work of Aboriginal artists and writers and exploring aspects of Aboriginal life writing such as obstacles toward publishing, questions of editorial control (orthe lack thereof), intergenerational and interracial collaborations combining oral history and life writing, and the pros and cons of translation into European languages. Contributors: Katrin Althans, Maryrose Casey, Danica Cerce, Stuart Cooke, Paula Anca Farca, Michael R. Griffiths, Oliver Haag, Martina Horakova, Jennifer Jones, Nicholas Jose, Andrew King, Jeanine Leane, Theodore F. Sheckels, Belinda Wheeler. Belinda Wheeler is Associate Professor of English at Claflin University, Orangeburg, SC.Trade Review[The editor] and the contributors have used the book's position as one of the only international introductory texts on Australian Aboriginal literature as a gateway to understanding Aboriginal output more broadly. . . . * WASAFIRI *[C]hallenges the very notion of literature itself. . . . [I]nsist[s] on the literary quality and seriousness of Australian Aboriginal texts. . . . [H]ighly recommended. . . . [F]ills a large gap in Asia-Pacific literary and cultural studies. It will be of benefit to teachers and students, artists and critics, scholars and general readers, the indigenous and nonindigenous. * PACIFIC ASIA INQUIRY *This comprehensive anthology gives students and beginning researchers a clear overview of the issues at play in indigenous Australian literature today. . . . Handsomely produced and well indexed, this volume is a substantial contribution to the literature. . . . Highly recommended. * CHOICE *

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Book SynopsisAn examination of the role of the pedal clavichord in understanding the work of J. S. Bach, as well as its relevance to contemporary organ performances. Friederich Griepenkerl, in his 1844 introduction to Volume 1 of the first complete edition of J. S. Bach's organ works, wrote: "Actually the six Sonatas and the Passacaglia were written for a clavichord with two manuals and pedal,an instrument that, in those days, every beginning organist possessed, which they used beforehand, to practice playing with hands and feet in order to make effective use of them at the organ. It would be a good thing to let suchinstruments be made again, because actually no one who wants to study to be an organist can really do without one." What was the role of the pedal clavichord in music history? Was it a cheap practice instrument for organistsor was Griepenkerl right? Was it a teaching tool that helped contribute to the quality of organ playing in its golden age? Most twentieth-century commentary on the pedal clavichord as an historical phenomenon was written in a kindof vacuum, since there were no playable historical models with which to experiment and from which to make an informed judgment. At the heart of Bach and the Pedal Clavichord: An Organist's Guide are some extraordinary recentexperiments from the Göteborg Organ Art Center [GOArt] at Göteborg University. The Johan David Gerstenberg pedal clavichord from 1766, now in the Leipzig University museum, was documented and reconstructed; the new copy was thenused for several years as a living instrument for organ students and teachers to experience. On the basis of these experiments and experiences, the book explores, in new and artful ways, Bach's keyboard technique, a technique preserved by his first biographer, J. N. Forkel [1802], and by Forkel's own student, Griepenkerl.Trade ReviewThis is an extremely important study which brings together valuable musicological research and practical experimentation in a unique way -- every organist should read it! * CHOIR & ORGAN, September 2004 *Synthesizing a wealth of historical documentation along with the results of new, experimental studies, Speerstra [Eastman School of Music] has written a thorough analysis of the musicological and performance issues that surround the ambigious history and usage of the pedal clavichord. Despite its subtitle, this book should prove valuable for a broad audience not limited to organists; it speaks to all keyboardists interested in expanding their interpretation of Baroque literature. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Joel Speerstra's work presents a fascinating paradigm for the study of J.S. Bach's organ music that leads performance practice research in a new direction . . . [Speerstra] lays a path for a living performance practice that promotes an integral relationship between the organ and the pedal clavichord. * NOTES, March 2005 *There is much of brilliance in this book. * EARLY MUSIC, January 2005 *Joel Speerstra's book is a wide-ranging study of the pedal clavichord's role in the interpretation of Bach's organ music. Whether one accepts the author's premise or not, organists and clavichordists without access to such a rare instrument may discover new insights into baroque performance practice that can be applied to more readily available instruments. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC, 2005 [Stewart Pollens] Original and brilliant study . . . Anyone interested in keyboard instruments of any kind will find in it a great fund of information and insight into matters of general musical interest, especially the performance of Bach's music. * EARLY MUSIC TODAY *Table of ContentsThe Historical Pedal Clavichord J.S. Bach's Trip Sonatas: A Reception History of a Rumor Reconstructing the Gerstenberg Pedal Clavichord J.S. Bach and the Clavichord: A Reception History of a Technique Performance Practice at the Pedal Clavichord Musica Poetica and Figural Notation J.S. Bach's Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582: A Case Study The Pedal Clavichord and the Organ in Dialogue

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Book SynopsisAn engaging, practical, sometimes poetic account of the new world of percussion music -- from the 1930s (Varese, Cage) to today -- by one of its leading practitioners. In the beginning there was noise. Drumming, the world's most ancient instrumental tradition, re-emerged explosively in the concert music of the twentieth century as music for percussion, involving drums and many other kinds of noisemakers. The music that resulted has spanned an expressive and intellectual gamut: from Cage, Varèse, and Cowell came the first ear-splitting sounds of an American percussion revolution that began in the 1930s; from Stockhausen,Ferneyhough, and Xenakis we have music whose intellectual demands are matched by a vibrant physicality; Feldman gave us gently unfolding structures; John Luther Adams finds music within the earth itself. The Percussionist's Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams examines this music through the eyes of a performer. The book is a practical philosophy, looking not just at the big ideas behind these and other pieces, but also at how those ideas find expressionin sound. Foreword written by Paul Griffiths. Contains a Compact Disc of Steven Schick performing eight musical works that he discusses in detail in the book. Composers include John Luther Adams, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Edgard Varèse, Charles Wuorinen, and Iannis Xenakis. Steven Schick is the world's leading exponent of solo percussion music involving multiple instruments. He has commissioned more than one hundred piecesfrom renowned composers including David Lang, Brian Ferneyhough, and Roger Reynolds. He was a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (1992-2002) and Artistic Director of the Centre International de Percussion de Genève (Switzerland, 2002-4). He teaches at the University of California, San Diego, where he directs the percussion group "red fish blue fish."Trade ReviewA thoroughly impressive endeavour by master percussionist Steven Schick, The Percussionist's Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams is hugely informative and entertaining. Based entirely on Schick's first-hand experiences as a musician, The Percussionist's Art encompasses great insight into some of the great music written for solo percussion. A 'must read' for every breathing musician, The Percussionist's Art will also fascinate those curious to know more about the current explosion of interest in the percussion world. -- -- Dr. Evelyn Glennie, OBE, world-renowned solo percussionistThis is a really well-written, extremely knowledgeable, and thoroughly enjoyable book. . . . Incredible insights into and analysis of a huge array of important percussion music by one of our finest players. Highly recommended! -- -- Steve Reich, composer, and author of Writings on Music (1965-2000)Life-affirming. . . The 'Art' in the title is a massive understatement, it should ideally be 'The Percussionist's Philosophy, Psychology, Physiology, Theatricality, Choreography, Memory, Learning Process and Freedom of Choice' . . . Handsomely presented with copious score excerpts throughout and a CD of Schick's performances of seven of the pieces examined. -- Paul Sarcich, Music and Vision The full review can be consulted at http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2006/12/schick1.htmThis book gives scholars, composers, aficionados of percussion music, and percussion students and teachers an invaluable resource that can be considered the definitive source of information about the major works in the solo repertoire and the art of multiple percussion performance. One can scarcely turn the page without finding observations by the author that will help percussionists develop musically, intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. , 2006 * PERCUSSIVE NOTES *A magnificent work and indispensable book! [Magnifique ouvrage! Indispensable bouquin!] The production aspects (typography, page layout, readability of music examples) match the high standard of the writing. . . . A study written with rigor, but a rigor that leaves room for poetry. -- Michel Faligand * PERCU_INFOS 271 *Steven Schick's recent book The Percussionist's Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams is an extraordinary example of musical writing that comes from inside the action. -- -- Paul GriffithsTable of ContentsForeword by Paul Griffiths Preface Because the World is Round Learning Bone Alphabet The Affliction of memory Face the Music: A look at Percussion Playing Selected Discography This Is Not a Drum: Manipulating the Material of Percussion Music Same Bed, Different Dreams: A Personal Epilogue Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisUnlocks the secrets behind the images and music of an important Spanish musical manuscript compiled for a brotherhood of suspected heretics ca. 1500. The Rosary Cantoral is a rare and beautifully decorated manuscript of Latin plainchant for the Catholic Mass compiled in Toledo, Spain, around the year 1500. In an engaging and richly interdisciplinary essay, Lorenzo Candelaria approaches the Rosary Cantoral as a cultural artifact, unlocking the secrets behind its images and music to reveal the social history and rituals of an elite brotherhood dedicated to the rosary and aspects of the religious communityit served: the Dominicans of San Pedro Mártir de Toledo. The Rosary Cantoral: Ritual and Social Design in a Chantbook from Early Renaissance Toledo presents a model for realizing the fuller significance of illuminatedmusic manuscripts as cultural artifacts and offers unprecedented insights into the social and devotional life of Toledo, Spain, around the turn of the sixteenth century. After solving the mystery of the Rosary Cantoral's origins,subsequent essays probe the meaning and cultural significance of the manuscript's iconography (including a border decoration after Albrecht Dürer), its rare Spanish chants for the Mass, and two striking musical works for multiplevoices (one by Josquin Desprez and another on "L'homme armé"). Ultimately, this book focuses on the extraordinary circumstances that engendered the compilation of the Rosary Cantoral around 1500: a system of patronage between a brotherhood of suspected heretics and a religious house that was a key supporter of the Inquisition in Toledo. Lorenzo Candelaria (University of Texas at Austin) is co-author of American Music: A Panorama.Trade ReviewWinner of the American Musicological Society's Robert M. Stevenson Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Iberian Music, 2009 * . *Scholars such as [Candelaria], informed, analytical and well-balanced, deserve to reach as large a number of the interested academic world as possible. BIBLIOTHEQUE D'HUMANISME ET RENAISSANCE [Leonard R. N. Ashley] [An] impressive piece of historical detection...which successfully straddles the concerns of liturgy, polyphony, and manuscript illumination. [It] will stand as an intriguing contribution to a much-overlooked field. -- Iain Fenlon * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW *The scope of the book. . . makes this valuable reading for scholars in a wide variety of disciplines, while its lucid and clear writing style makes it accessible to anyone interested in Spanish cultural history, liturgy, or medieval and early-modern studies. -- James Boyce O.Carm. * SPECULUM *The author is to be applauded for shining a much-needed spotlight on the vast corpus of similar Spanish and New World cantorales that until very recently have been regarded as 'of very little interest. -- Michael Noone * MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTES *Few [interdisciplinary] studies have been more compelling. . . . [Candelaria] is equally at home when dealing with the finer points of art history or the sometimes murky nature of the antiquities market. . . . [He] crafts a story that rivals good detective fiction. It even has a surprise at the end that involves the dark halls of the Spanish Inqusition. -- Michael B. O'Connor * RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY *The book is in many ways a detective story which identifies the MS's provenance and function by fascinating and devious approaches: I won't try to summarise it and spoil the story. . . .This study throws light not only on this particular MS but on the usage of the Rosary in Spanish politics and history. And there is a moral for art historians studying MSS with music and vice-versa: see beyond your own discipline. -- Clifford Bartlett * EARLY MUSIC REVIEW *. . . one of the most attractive and intriguing books on Spanish music history to reach the market in recent years. . . . It is thoroughly to be recommended. -- Bernadette Nelson * EARLY MUSIC *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Mystery of the Rosary Cantoral San Pedro Mártir de Toledo "El Cavaller de Colunya": A Legend of the Rosary The Emblem of the Five Wounds Hercules and Albrecht Dürer's Das Meerwunder Roses for the Blessed Virgin: The Music The Confraternity of Toledo and Its Patronage Epilogue Appendices Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book is a philosophical tour through the experience of beauty: what it is, and how the composer, performer, and listener all contribute. It explores -- with insight, patience, and humor -- profound issues at the essence of our experience. A student performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, known as the "Harp," serves as a point of departure and a recurring theme. For the layperson the core of the book is five dialogues betweenIcarus, an inquiring student intensely concerned with fulfilling his highest potential as a musician, and Daedalus, a curmudgeonly, iconoclastic teacher who guides Icarus's search. Three technical articles, geared to the music professional and academic, treat the issues in greater depth. Supplementary online audio files and musical examples. Markand Thakar, music director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, is an internationally renownedpedagogue of conducting. A protégé of the legendary Sergiu Celibidache and former assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Thakar is author of On the Principles and Practice of Conducting (University of RochesterPress, 2016) and Counterpoint: Fundamentals of Music Making (Yale University Press, 1990).Trade ReviewThakar's ideas are valuable, his exposition of them is clear, and the book is supported by materials on his website, including sound files. . . . Would be useful as the main text in an upper-level or graduate seminar, or as a component of a survey of analytical techniques or aesthetics. The consideration of what constitutes musical objects and the transcendent experience of beauty would be of great value to students. The dialogue format provides a model for a healthy mentor/protégé relationship, and, at a time when the outlook frequently seems very dark, Thakar paints a hopeful picture for the future of art music. * MUSIC THEORY ONLINE Full review at: http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.15.21.4/mto.15.21.4.turner.html *A journey to discover where beauty lives in music. . . . It is rare for schooling to be this blissful. --Composer and radio host Kile Smith. See his full posting at http://www.kilesmith.com/2011/04/20/looking-for-the-harp-quartet * . *A thoughtful inquiry into the nature of beauty and the aesthetic experience. . . . Will serve not only those interested in exploring the 'transcendent' aesthetic experience, but also those who labor to embody their art through performance. * CHOICE *A 225-page tour de force. . . . An exercise in academic excellence and a seminal contribution for personal, professional, and academic Classical Music Studies reference collections and supplemental readings lists. * MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW *Markand Thakar's playful Socratic-like dialogue acts out a kind of performer's odyssey toward the ideal performance, toward making one particular strand of Western classical music all that it can be. * SCOTT BURNHAM, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY *Immensely stimulating and rewarding . . . buy a copy and read it twice, not necessarily in rapid succession, and keep it around for the time you may want to reach for it again. * BERKSHIRE REVIEW *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Note about Online Supporting Material Looking for the "Harp" Quartet Renoir and the Survival of Classical Music: On the Listener's Contribution Let's Be Mookie: On the Composer's Contribution Gurus: On the Performer's Contribution First, Last, and Always Remembrance of Things Future: On the Listener's Contribution Patterns of Energy: On the Composer's Contribution Dynamic Analysis: On the Performer's Contribution Appendix: Forms Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisQueen Ida. Danny Poullard. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank. Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records. These are names that are familiar to many fans of Cajun music and zydeco, and they have one other thing in common--longtime residence in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are all part of a vibrant scene of dancing and live Louisiana-French music that has evolved over several decades. Cajun and Zydeco Dance Music in Northern California traces how this region of California has been able to develop and sustain dances several times a week with more than a dozen bands. Description of this active regional scene opens into a discussion of several historical trends that have affected life and music in Louisiana and the nation. The book portrays the diversity of people who have come together to adopt Cajun and Creole dance music as a way to cope with a globalized, media-saturated world. Ethnomusicologist Mark F. DeWitt innovatively weaves together interviews with musicians and dancers (some from Louisiana, some not), analysis of popular media, participant observation as a musician and dancer, and historical perspectives from wartime black migration patterns, the civil rights movement, American folk and blues revivals, California counterculture, and the rise of cultural tourism in ""Cajun Country."" In so doing, he reveals the multifaceted appeal of celebrating life on the dance floor, Louisiana-French style.

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Book SynopsisThe Poetics of American Song Lyrics is the first collection of academic essays that regards songs as literature and that identifies intersections between the literary histories of poems and songs. The essays by well-known poets and scholars including Pulitzer Prize winner Claudia Emerson, Peter Guralnick, Adam Bradley, David Kirby, Kevin Young, and many others, locate points of synthesis and separation so as to better understand both genres and their crafts. The essayists share a desire to write on lyrics in a way that moves beyond sociological, historical, and autobiographical approaches and explicates songs in relation to poetics. Unique to this volume, the essays focus not on a single genre but on folk, rap, hip hop, country, rock, indie, soul, and blues.The first section of the book provides a variety of perspectives on the poetic history and techniques within songs and poems, and the second section focuses on a few prominent American songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Stipe. Through conversational yet in-depth analyses of songs, the essays discuss sonnet forms, dramatic monologues, Modernism, ballads, blues poems, confessionalism, Language poetry, Keatsian odes, unreliable narrators, personas, poetic sequences, rhythm, rhyme, transcription methods, the writing process, and more. While the strategies of explication differ from essay to essay, the nexus of each piece is an unveiling of the poetic history and poetic techniques within songs.Charlotte Pence of Knoxville, Tennessee, is the author of The Writer's Path: Creative Exercises for Meaningful Essays. She is also the winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition for her poetry chapbook The Branches, the Axe, the Missing.

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Book SynopsisCarter and Ralph Stanley--the Stanley Brothers--are comparable to Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs as important members of the earliest generation of bluegrass musicians. In this first biography of the brothers, author David W. Johnson documents that Carter (1925-1966) and Ralph (b 1927) were equally important contributors to the tradition of old-time country music. Together from 1946 to 1966, the Stanley Brothers began their careers performing in the schoolhouses of southwestern Virginia and expanded their popularity to the concert halls of Europe. In order to re-create this post-World War II journey through the changing landscape of American music, the author interviewed Ralph Stanley, the family of Carter Stanley, former members of the Clinch Mountain Boys, and dozens of musicians and friends who knew the Stanley Brothers as musicians and men. The late Mike Seeger allowed Johnson to use his invaluable 1966 interviews with the brothers. Notable old-time country and bluegrass musicians such as George Shuffler, Lester Woodie, Larry Sparks, and the late Wade Mainer shared their recollections of Carter and Ralph. Lonesome Melodies begins and ends in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. Carter and Ralph were born there and had an early publicity photograph taken at the Cumberland Gap. In December 1966, pallbearers walked up Smith Ridge to bring Carter to his final resting place. In the intervening years, the brothers performed thousands of in-person and radio shows, recorded hundreds of songs and tunes for half a dozen record labels, and tried to keep pace with changing times while remaining true to the spirit of old-time country music. As a result of their accomplishments, they have become a standard of musical authenticity.

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisA cello has no language, yet it possesses a vocabulary wide enough to tell, bear witness, and make connections across time and continentsa feat brought to life in this brilliant new book. In this luminous narrative, Kate Kennedy, a writer and cellist herself, weaves together the story of four cellists who suffered various forms of persecution, injury, and misfortune. The stories are those of the forgotten Jewish cellist Pl Hermann, who is likely to have been murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania during the Holocaust; Lise Cristiani, another forgotten performer, who is considered to be the first female professional cello soloist and who embarked on an epic concert tour of Siberia in the 1850s taking with her a Stradivarius cello that can be seen to this day in a museum in Cremona in northern Italy; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who played in the orchestra at Auschwitz and survived spells in both that camp and in Bergen-Belsen; and Amedeo Baldovino of the Trieste piano trio,

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Book SynopsisThat Thin, Wild Mercury Sound is the definitive treatment of Bob Dylan’s magnum opus, Blonde on Blonde, not only providing the most extensive account of the sessions that produced the trailblazing album, but also setting the record straight on much of the misinformation that has surrounded the story of how the masterpiece came to be made. Including many new details and eyewitness accounts never before published, as well as keen insight into the Nashville cats who helped Dylan reach rare artistic heights, it explores the lasting impact of rock’s first double album. Based on exhaustive research and in-depth interviews with the producer, the session musicians, studio personnel, management personnel, and others, Daryl Sanders chronicles the road that took Dylan from New York to Nashville in search of “that thin, wild mercury sound.” As Dylan told Playboy in 1978, the closest he ever came to capturing that sound was during the Blonde on Blonde sessions, where the voice of a generation was backed by musicians of the highest order.

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Book SynopsisA revelatory exploration of the relationship between music and running by one of our foremost music writers

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Book SynopsisThe process of creating and reflection upon autobiographical memory is an everyday practice that is typical within the human experience. When music becomes integrated into personal memories, an invitation to remember is provided through both purposeful listening activities and incidental engagement with music in the everyday. The result is a metaphorical canon of music that accompanies life experiences. The Lifetime Soundtrack investigates musically motivated autobiographical memories as they relate to the lifetime soundtrack in order to provide further understanding of their occurrence, nuance, emotionality, and function for individuals. Drawing on in-depth discussions with younger and older adults, each chapter reflects on a common theme or aspect of musically motivated memory. People, places, and eras feature frequently, with memories of childhood, family, past romantic relationships, and the major and minor events occurring within them acting as prime sites for memory and music interaction. The book also considers the ways in which musically memory may manifest differently for trained musicians, for whom music represents both leisure and work. Forging a broad foundation in an overlooked area, this study brings together sociological views on the personal use of music and existing ideas on the workings of human memory. At the same time, it aims to fortify the concept of the Lifetime Soundtrack as a sociological concept with broad application in future research. In so doing, the book highlights the significance of music-enhanced reflection as a tool for the composition of meaning within everyday life.

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