Music reviews and criticism Books
Scarecrow Press Buffy Ballads and Bad Guys Who Sing
Book SynopsisWhen writer and director Joss Whedon created the character Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he could hardly have expected the resulting academic interest in his work. Yet almost six years after the end of Buffy on television, Buffy studiesand academic work on Whedon''s expanding oeuvrecontinue to grow. Now with three hugely popular television shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, and the film Serenity all available on DVD, scholars are evaluating countless aspects of the Whedon universe (or Whedonverse). Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon studies the significant role that music plays in these works, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the internet musical Dr. Horrible''s Sing-Along Blog.Kendra Preston Leonard has collected a varying selection of essays that explore music and sound in Joss Whedon''s works. The essays investigate both diegetic and non-diegetic music, considering music from various sources, including the shows'' original scores,Trade ReviewAnyone familiar with the cult television favorites created by writer Joss Whedon knows how important music is in his shows. The essays in this collection focus entirely on the music in Whedon’s television shows and web musical, analyzing the way music complements and enhances the narrative. Jacqueline Bach traces out various musical arcs over the course of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s run, such as the way the music of Sarah McLachlan is used to reflect Buffy’s complex feelings about her friends and her relation to them in several pivotal instances. Elizabeth A. Clendinning’s chapter centers on the vampire Spike, revealing how, even though he was first introduced as a villain in Buffy, Spike’s musical knowledge and references link him much more closely with humanity than the other nemeses on the show. Stanley C. Pelkey’s essay explores the music of Whedon’s futuristic space western Firefly, which blends exotic Asian music with folk-country music meant to represent the characters’ personalities and stations in life. For the many fans devoted to Whedon’s work, this will be an enlightening read. * Booklist *Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing makes a fine contribution to the still-young field of TV music scholarship. * American Music *
£51.00
Scarecrow Press Reading the Grateful Dead
Book SynopsisSince the 1960s, the Grateful Dead have welcomed and participated in academic work on the band, encouraging scrutiny from a wide variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, from anthropology to sociology. Interest in Dead studies is growing across the country and around the world, and UCSanta Cruz's Grateful Dead Archive continues to attract a high level of attention. In Reading the Grateful Dead: A Critical Survey, Nicholas G. Meriwether has assembled essays that examine the development of Grateful Dead studies. This volume features work from three generations of scholars, including a wide variety of perspectives on the band and its cultural significance. From insiders like lyricist John Perry Barlow and longtime band publicist and historian Dennis McNally to well-known Deadhead scholars such as Barry Barnes and Rebecca Adams, the contributors to this volume offer valuable insights into the Grateful Dead phenomenon. No other Dead book focuses on the growth and developmenTrade ReviewIn addition to the remarkable variety of contents and approaches represented in the main articles, the collection is framed by a handful of poems, anecdotes, and addenda to enhance the whole package. But it would underestimate this collection’s importance to think of it as a feast for Deadheads. This offering does more than show the intrinsic interest of the Dead as a musical phenomenon; these essays establish their significance as a watershed in the development of American counterculture, not as a mega-influence (in the manner of the Beatles), but as a microcosm of the many cultural threads that came together in the sixties and continue to weave their way through the very different decades that followed. * Dead Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments “Halloween Costume Party” Bob Cooperman Introduction: “The Secret of This Tie That Binds”: The Interdisciplinary Discourse of Grateful Dead Studies Nicholas G. Meriwether PART 1: STUDYING THE DEAD 1. The Education of a Deadhead: A Letter from a Novelist Matthew Armstrong 2. The Grateful Dead in the Academy Dennis McNally 3. Thinking About the Dead: Amateur Anthropology, the Human Comedy, and Making Good Ancestors John Perry Barlow 4. “The Thousand Stories Have Come ’Round To One”: Studying the Grateful Dead Phenomenon Nicholas G. Meriwether 5. Mapping the Deadhead Social Science Trip Natalie Dollar PART 2: MUSIC AND LYRICS, MEDIUM AND MESSAGE 6. How the Grateful Dead Learned to Jam Michael Kaler 7. “Terrapin Station,” Postmodernism, and the Infinite Jon Ney 8. A Super-Metacantric Analysis of “Playing in the Band” Robert H. Trudeau 9. “And Closed My Eyes To See”: Buddhist Resonances in the Lyrics of the Grateful Dead Ryan Slesinger 10. The Dead Play Egypt, Thirty Years Later: Myth, Memory, and Marketing Nicholas Meriwether PART 3: THE DEADHEAD EXPERIENCE 11. Crowned Anarchy: Songs, Segues, and the Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion Joseph Holt 12. The Grateful Dead Religious Experience David Bryan 13. Shakedown Street: A Benjaminian Approach to the Grateful Dead James Revell Carr 14. What Are Deadheads? An Informal Survey Alex Kolker 15. Terrapin Station Demographics and “Deadication”: The Furthur Festival ’98 Data Rebecca G. Adams 16. Autobiographical Memories of Grateful Dead Concerts: Two Descriptive Approaches Mark E. Mattson PART 4: SOCIETY AND HISTORY, CONTEXTS AND CURRENTS 17. “And I Done Some Time”: Bobby Petersen and the Grateful Dead Christian Crumlish 18. Nomadic Musical Audiences: A Historical Precedent for the Grateful Dead Jacob A. Cohen 19. Deconstructing Deadheads Mark Tursi 20. The Psychedelic Experience, Contemporary Music, and the Grateful Dead: A 1969 Study Revisited Stanley Krippner 21. “Bound to Cover Just a Little More Ground”: A Heideggerian Reflection on the Grateful Dead Stanley Spector 22. Jerry Garcia and Leadership Styles in the Grateful Dead Phenomenon Barry Barnes ENCORE 22. Cold Roses: A Skeleton Key to the Grateful Dead in the Music of Ryan Adams Matthew C. Armstrong 23. Tapes and Memories: A Letter From a Latter-Day Fan Jacob A. Cohen 24. “One Last Wish” Jon Ney Index About the Contributors About the Editor
£84.00
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Warren Zevon
Book SynopsisGeorge Plasketes provides a comprehensive chronicle of Warren Zevonâs 40-year, 20-record career and his enduring cultural significance. Throughout, Plasketes explores the musical, cinematic, and literary influences that shaped Zevonâs distinctive style and songwriting themes. Trade ReviewWarren Zevon (1947–2003) was one of the most innovative songwriters in recent popular music history, and Plasketes captures the full range of Zevon’s skills in the first full-length biography of the artist. Plasketes provides a comprehensive analysis of Zevon’s entire body of work—from his self-titled debut in 1976 to The Wind, recorded and released during his last year alive—that serves as an almost definitive look at his 'legacy of tortured brilliance,' which still attracts new admirers today. Especially fascinating is Plasketes’s look at how Zevon’s debut 'endures as one of the most delightfully dark visions of Southern California culture, demystifying the Hollywood scene, its desperation and decadence.' Also good are his in-depth looks at some works that critics overlooked at the time of their release, such as 'Transverse City' ('Zevon’s most ambitious record') and 'Life’ll Kill Ya' ('a gem, a modest masterpiece'). Plasketes admits his reliance on 'I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon'—the exhaustive posthumous oral history compiled in 2007 by Zevon’s ex-wife, Crystal—but he adds plenty of original work to fully illuminate the art behind the wild stories from Zevon’s alcohol and drug binges. * Publishers Weekly *By taking Zevon’s music chronologically, pulling each record apart down to its smallest constitutive parts, Plasketes crafts a highly readable account of Zevon’s life that is also chock full of information. Even the tangential factoids, such as a lengthy aside about how the rise of MTV led to the reinforcement of the music industry, feel relevant and closely tied to Zevon’s under-the-radar career.... What Plasketes has achieved with Desperado of Los Angeles is a book that on the whole resides somewhere between the fandom/objectivity continuum, the tenuousness of that construction notwithstanding. Zevon has been long overdue for a scholar’s examination, and Plasketes proves himself more than up to the task. This volume is both a helpful bedrock for future studies of Zevon’s music and an interesting case study in what it means to do academic music writing. Fans of Zevon’s music will quickly gobble up Plasketes’ carefully assembled critical history, and curious newcomers to Zevon’s oeuvre would do well in using this book as a guide. But Plasketes’ research has value beyond the reaches of Zevon’s musical output; anyone interested in the business of writing about music critically would learn a great deal from the strengths and weaknesses of analysis in this book. Undoubtedly, Zevon would be proud that his work has inspired conversations like these. * Popmatters *[Warren Zevon: Desperado of Los Angeles is] one of the most interesting and in-depth books I've ever read about a musician.... Plasketes does an admirable job in exposing this truth in astounding detail while making it a very enjoyable read, giving us a much larger understanding and empathy for one of the most underrated but important musical artists of our time. * The Corner News *Warren Zevon: Desperado of Los Angeles is a full-on academic analysis of Zevon’s discography by a straight-up uber fan of his who happens to be an uber intelligent writer too. Plasketes’ unique perspective makes for a wonderful book, a serious study happily colored by the writer’s genuine love for Zevon and his work. One wonders why there are not more books like this when it comes to Zevon’s canon, which offers much to take apart and delve into. * Red Paint Hill Publishing & Poetry Journal *Table of ContentsChapter 1: Join Me in L.A. Chapter2: The Asylum IconocLAst Chapter 3: Knee Deep in Gore with Glee Chapter 4: Rock Bottom: The Crack Up and Resurrection Chapter 5: Swear to God I’ll Change Chapter 6: Looking for the Next Best Thing Chapter 7: Intruder in the Dirt Chapter 8: That Amazing Grace Sort of Passed You By Chapter 9: Die Another Day: A Desperado Deteriorata Posthumous Script: “Eat My Dust”
£999.99
Random House USA Inc Motown
Book Synopsis
£16.20
Ohio State University Press Replaying Marc Anthony
Book Synopsis
£35.72
Wayne State University Press Music in the World of Islam
£24.95
Boydell & Brewer Ltd The Performance of the Basso Continuo in Italian Baroque Music
Book SynopsisDemonstrates how the basso continuo line has an independent musical funxtion in ensemble music of the Italian Baroque period.Covers the Italian Baroque period (1600-1730). Borgir rejects the notion that the basso continuo line is doubled by bass instruments and shows how these have an independent musical function in ensemble music. He untangles their confusing terminology and also explores the unexpected uses of the large lutes. Italian continuo practice included elaborate training in improvisation described in detail here for the first time. Tharald Borgir is Professor Emeritus in the Music Department at Oregon State University. His principal performance activities have been on the harpsichord and the fortepiano.Trade Review. . . a major reconsideration of the sound of 17th-century Italian music . * CHOICE *
£31.54
Boydell & Brewer Ltd The Essential Bach Choir
Book SynopsisDiscussion of original performance conventions of Bach's sacred works - cantatas, Passions, masses - by practising musician and director of Taverner choir.What type of choir did Bach have in mind as he created his cantatas, Passions and Masses? How many singers were at his disposal in Leipzig, and in what ways did he deploy them in his own music? Seeking to understand the verymedium of Bach's incomparable choral output, Andrew Parrott investigates a wide range of sources: Bach's own writings, and the scores and parts he used in performance, but also a variety of theoretical, pictorial and archival documents, together with the musical testimony of the composer's forerunners and contemporaries. Many of the findings shed a surprising, even disturbing, light on conventions we have long taken for granted. A whole world away from, say, the typical oratorio choir of Handel's London with which we are reasonably familiar, the essential Bach choir was in fact an expert vocal quartet (or quintet), whose members were also responsible for all solos and duets. (In a mere handful of Bach's works, this solo team was selectively supported by a second rank of singers - also one per part - whose contribution was all but optional). Parrott shows that this use of aone-per-part choir was mainstream practice in the Lutheran Germany of Bach's time: Bach chose to use single voices not because a larger group was unavailable, but because they were the natural vehicle of elaborate concerted music. As one of several valuable appendices, this book includes the text of Joshua Rifkin's explosive 1981 lecture, never before published, which first set out this line of thinking and launched a controversy that is long overduefor resolution. ANDREW PARROTT has made a close study of historical performing practices in the music of six centuries, and for over twenty-five years he has been putting research into practice with his own professional ensembles, the Taverner Consort, Taverner Players and Taverner Choir.Trade ReviewThis utterly fascinating and ultimately convincing book can only do his cause good in the best of all possible years. -- Simon Hughes * INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW *As restated here (...with additional material and with admirable clarity), the arguments are utterly convincing... The book is a pleasure to read, fluently written and clearly set out with many illustrations and musical examples. * EARLY MUSIC REVIEW *A brilliant piece of research...a superb book - and it is going to lead us all to think more carefully about how we approach the performance of Bach. -- DAVID HILL * WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL *I was gripped by this book; it is compulsive reading. If you profess the faith of Bach you simply cannot afford to be without it. * CLASSICAL MUSIC *Highly recommended for anyone interested in Bach's vocal works. -- Yo Tomita * MUSICAL TIMES *Utterly fascinating and ultimately convincing. * GRAMOPHONE *A work of careful and judicious scholarship. * OXFORD TIMES *What Parrott has delivered is a document which will itself no doubt be a subject of study in years to come. -- Andrew Manze * TLS *Table of ContentsBach as cantor and "Director Musices" in Leipzig; repertoire; concertists and ripienists; copies and copy-sharing; Bach's use of ripienists; the "Entwurff"; additional resources; instrument/singer ratios; balance. Appendices: Bach's written undertakings to the Leipzig Town Council (1723); Bach's audition reports (1729); the "Entwurff" (1730), text and translation; some contemporary accounts of concerted music-making; sources of Bach's vocal ensemble music; Bach's chorus (1981), Joshua Rifkin; 20th-century commentaries on Bach's choir.
£22.49
Boydell Press The Study of Medieval Chant Paths and Bridges East and West. In Honor of Kenneth Levy
Book SynopsisComparative studies of medieval chant traditions in western Europe, Byzantium and the Slavic nations illuminate music, literacy and culture.Gregorian chant was the dominant liturgical music of the medieval period, from the time it was adopted by Charlemagne's court in the eighth century; but for centuries afterwards it competed with other musical traditions, local repertories from the great centres of Rome, Milan, Ravenna, Benevento, Toledo, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Kievan Rus, and comparative study of these chant traditions can tell us much about music, liturgy, literacy and culture a thousand years ago. This is the first book-length work to look at the issues in a global, comprehensive way, in the manner of the work of Kenneth Levy, the leading exponent of comparative chant studies. It covers the four most fruitful approaches for investigators: the creation and transmission of chant texts, based on the psalms and other sources, and their assemblage into liturgical books; the analysis and comparison of musical modes and scales; the usesof neumatic notation for writing down melodies, and the differences wrought by developmental changes and notational reforms over the centuries; and the use of case studies, in which the many variations in a specific text or melodyare traced over time and geographical distance. The book is therefore of profound importance for historians of medieval music or religion - Western, Byzantine, or Slavonic - and for anyone interested in issues of orality and writing in the transmission of culture.PETER JEFFERY is Professor of Music History, Princeton University. Contributors: JAMES W. McKINNON, MARGOT FASSLER, MICHEL HUGLO, NICOLAS SCHIDLOVSKY, KEITH FALCONER, PETER JEFFERY, DAVID G.HUGHES, SYSSE GUDRUN ENGBERG, CHARLES M. ATKINSON, MILOS VELIMIROVIC, JORGEN RAASTED+, RUTH STEINER, DIMITRIJE STEFANOVIC, ALEJANDRO PLANCHART.Table of ContentsLiturgical Psalmody in the Sermons of St Augustine: An Introduction - James W McKinnon The First Marian Feast in Constantinople and Jerusalem: Chant Texts, Readings, and Homiletic Literature - Margot Fassler The Cantatorium, From Charlemagne to the Fourteenth Century - Michel Huglo A New Folio for MS Chilandari 307, with Some Observations on the Contents of the Slavic Lenten Sticherarion and Pentekostarion - Nicolas Schidlovsky The Modes Before the Modes: Antiphon and Differentia in Western Chant - Keith Falconer The Earliest Oktoechoi: The Influence of Jerusalem and Palestine in the Beginnings of Modal Ordering - Peter Jeffery Guido's 'Tritus': An Aspect of Chant Style - David G Hughes Early Ekphonetic Notation in the Manuscript Scheide 2 at Princeton University - The Other Modus: On the Theory and Practice of Intervals in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries - Charles M Atkinson Russian Musical Azbuki: A Turning Point in the History of Slavic Chant - Milos Velimirovic Kontakion Melodies in Oral and Written Tradition - Jorgen Raasted On the Verses of the Offertory Elegerunt - Ruth Steiner The Trisagion in Some Byzantine and Slavonic Stichera - Dimitrije Stefanovic Proses in the Manuscripts of Roman Chant, and their Alleluias - Alejandro Planchart
£131.67
North Point Press The Essential Canon of Classical Music
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£42.49
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers The Hits Just Keep on Coming The History of Top
Book SynopsisTHE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING () AND CD
£999.99
Toccata Press Whom the Gods Love
Book SynopsisThe first study of the life and music of the composer George Butterworth [1885-1916], including some of his own writings on music.The career of the composer George Butterworth was cruelly cut short by a sniper's bullet at the Somme. His name is kept alive by the popularity of his orchestral tone-poems, such as The Banks of Green Willow and A Shropshire Lad, and his songs. In this book, the first full-length study of Butterworth, Michael Barlow traces his brief life: from preparatory school through Eton and Oxford, a teaching post at Radley, study at the Royal College ofMusic, a period as a music critic for The Times - and his enlisting in August 1914 which, two years later, led to his heroic death at the Somme. All of Butterworth's surviving compositions are discussed, and important chapters examine his Housman settings and his friendship with Vaughan Williams. Butterworth was also prominent in the folksong revival, and chronicled here for the first time are his extensive activities as a folksong and dance collector. The book also includes some of Butterworth's own writings on music.
£16.99
North Shore Publishing(CA) The Beatles At Shea Stadium The Story Behind Their Greatest Concert
£14.54
Frogchart Press Field Guide to the Irish Music Session
£7.62
498 Productions, LLC The Beatles Finally Let It Be
Book Synopsis
£26.99
Ellipse Editions Swinging in Paradise The Story of Jazz in Montreal
£23.08
Cambridge University Press Haydn Studies 2
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Cambridge University Press Anton Webern at the Dawn of Modernism
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Legare Street Press The Recent Revolution in Organ Building
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Legare Street Press The Music of the Bible
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Legare Street Press History of the Science and Art of Music
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Legare Street Press The Recent Revolution in Organ Building
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Legare Street Press A History of German Versification
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LEGARE STREET PR Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians
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LEGARE STREET PR Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians
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LEGARE STREET PR The History of the Violin
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Legare Street Press Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik. Dritte umgearbeitete Ausgabe.
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LEGARE STREET PR Guide Through the Music of R. Wagners The Ring of the Nibelung Der Ring des Nibelungen
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Legare Street Press Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik. Dritte umgearbeitete Ausgabe.
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LEGARE STREET PR Guide Through the Music of R. Wagners The Ring of the Nibelung Der Ring des Nibelungen
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LEGARE STREET PR The Violin
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LEGARE STREET PR The Rise Development of Military Music
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LEGARE STREET PR Memoirs of the Royal Artillery Band
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LEGARE STREET PR Louis van Beethovens Studies in Thoroughbass Counterpoint and the art of Scientific Composition
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LEGARE STREET PR Jazz Its Evolution and Essence
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LEGARE STREET PR The Sonata its Form and Meaning as Exemplified in the Piano Sonatas by Mozart
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LEGARE STREET PR Jazz Its Evolution and Essence
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LEGARE STREET PR The Sonata its Form and Meaning as Exemplified in the Piano Sonatas by Mozart
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