Search results for ""Author Nigel Simeone""

The first detailed study of the working relationship and productive friendship between Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and Adrian Boult (1889-1983). From 1918 onwards, Boult became one of Vaughan Williams's most important interpreters, giving the world premieres of the Pastoral, Fourth and Sixth Symphonies, performing almost all his major works (not only at home but with some of the world's greatest orchestras), and working in close collaboration with the composer on major projects including the first complete recording of Vaughan Williams's symphonies. Boult continued to be the most devoted advocate of Vaughan Williams's music to the end of his long career. As this book shows, Boult's scores include numerous annotations derived from conversations and correspondence with Vaughan Williams and these provide important evidence of the composer's wishes including adjustments to orchestration, comments on interpretation, dynamics, phrasing and revisions to Vaughan Williams's notoriously unreliable metronome marks. The evidence of these scores is considered alongside the extensive correspondence between Vaughan Williams and Boult, Boult's private diaries and other relevant documents including contemporary press reports. The book includes three substantial supplements: a detailed description of Boult's marked scores, a comprehensive list of Boult's Vaughan Williams performances and a discography including surviving recordings of unpublished broadcasts. It will be indispensable reading for scholars and students of Vaughan Williams and historical conducting, Vaughan Williams enthusiasts and those interested in the history of recorded music.

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Leos Janácek (1854-1928) occupied a pre-eminent position in Moravian (and wider Czech) culture, not only as a composer but also as a folksong collector, journalist, educator and nationalist. One of the greatest and most original composers of the early twentieth century, Leos Janácek (1854-1928) occupied a pre-eminent position in Moravian culture, not only as a composer but also as a folksong collector, journalist, educator and nationalist. His friends and associates included artists, writers, ethnographers and politicians, as well as conductors, singers and instrumentalists. Janácek's many pupils included the conductor Bretislav Bakala and thecomposer Pavel Haas. He had important associations with publishers in Vienna and Prague and with the earliest years of Czech Radio. Janácek was strongly attached to particular places - Hukvaldy, Brno, Luhacovice - and had professional links with Prague, Berlin, London and beyond. The Janácek Compendium includes nearly 300 entries on every aspect of Janácek's life and works, with detailed notes on all his significant compositions - above all the operas - providing the latest information to emerge about some of his most famous pieces. An extensive bibliography supports the entries, which are cross-referenced to enable wider exploration of particular topics. NIGELSIMEONE is a widely respected writer and lecturer on music, with a lifelong interest in Czech music. His books include Janacek's Works (Oxford University Press, 1997, co-authored with John Tyrrell and Alena Nemcová), TheLeonard Bernstein Letters (Yale University Press, 2013), and Charles Mackerras (Boydell Press, 2015, co-edited with John Tyrrell). He is a regular broadcaster on BBC radio.

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For fans of Bradley Cooper's Maestro, an extraordinary selection of revealing letters to and from one of the titans of 20th-century music “Leonard Bernstein’s letters blow all biographies out of the water. . . . Full of fresh information and the authentic voice of a constant seeker.”—The Economist “The book . . . is fascinating, enlightening and a veritable page-turner that will keep you up nights, ruin your sleep and wreak all sorts of havoc for 600 pages.”—Steve Suskin, Playbill Leonard Bernstein was a charismatic and versatile musician—a brilliant conductor who attained international super-star status, and a gifted composer of Broadway musicals (West Side Story), symphonies (Age of Anxiety), choral works (Chichester Psalms), film scores (On the Waterfront), and much more. Bernstein was also an enthusiastic letter writer, and this book is the first to present a wide-ranging selection of his correspondence. The letters have been selected for the insights they offer into the passions of his life—musical and personal—and the extravagant scope of his musical and extra-musical activities. Bernstein’s letters tell much about this complex man, his collaborators, his mentors, and others close to him. His galaxy of correspondents encompassed, among others, Aaron Copland,Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, Thornton Wilder, Boris Pasternak, Bette Davis, Adolph Green, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and family members, including his wife, Felicia, and his sister Shirley. The letters, many of which have never been published before, demonstrate the breadth of Bernstein’s musical interests, his constant struggle to find the time to compose, his turbulent and complex sexuality, his political activities, and his endless capacity for hard work. Beyond all this, these writings provide a glimpse of the man behind the legends: his humanity, warmth, volatility, intellectual brilliance, wonderful eye for descriptive detail, and humor.

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The French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908–92) is a musician about whom most remains to be discovered. More than a decade after his death our knowledge of Messiaen is largely conditioned by what he said about himself in lectures and interviews, in his work as a teacher, and in the monumental seven-volume treatise that encompassed the whole of his composing world. But Messiaen’s public documents conceal as much as they reveal, seldom explaining why a work was written or what complexities went into its making. The composer was similarly reticent about his private life.This is the first book to explore the world that Messiaen was at pains to keep hidden. Based upon unprecedented access to Messiaen’s private archive granted to the authors by the composer’s widow, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone trace the origins of many of Messiaen’s greatest works and place them in the context of his life, from his years at the Paris Conservatoire and his passionate first marriage to Claire Delbos through the immense achievements of his final decades.

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What makes Oiseaux exotiques so important is that it is arguably the first of Messiaen's major works to create a successful synthesis between his music and his passion for ornithology. The earliest composition to use birdsong to a significant extent was the Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (1940-41). A newspaper interview a few years later (France-Soir, 1948) demonstrates Messiaen's growing desire to move away from the stylization that had characterized the Quatuor towards a much greater realism, based on a close observation of birds in their natural habitat. At the same time, Messiaen continued to regard birdsong as music - and divinely inspired music at that - a belief that led for a time to an obsession with truth-to-nature. Against this background, Oiseaux exotiques proves to be a landmark, the work in which Messiaen the musician began to regain the upper hand over Messiaen the ornithologist. The introductory chapter (Chapter 1) outlines the background to Oiseaux exotiques, discussing Messiaen's relations with the 1950s avant garde - in particular with his former pupil Pierre Boulez - and his involvement with the concerts of the Domaine musical, for which Oiseaux exotiques was composed. In Chapter 2, access to Messiaen's sketches enables the authors to analyse his compositional methods in unprecedented detail; a generous number of music examples refer to birdsong recordings actually used by Messiaen (which can be heard on the accompanying CD), and trace step-by-step the evolution of musical ideas from first notation to finished score. Chapter 3 provides a commentary on the music, investigating issues of continuity and texture, and revealing the processes underlying the score's dazzling profusion. In two further chapters Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone recount the reception history of Oiseaux exotiques, and compare recorded interpretations, taking as their point of departure the historic premiere, included in full on the CD. Finally, the Conclusion considers

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Comprising a brief biography and chapters written by those who worked with him, such as Janet Baker and Alfred Brendel, this is a celebration of an exceptional, creative life. By the time of his death in 2010 at the age of 84, Sir Charles Mackerras had achieved widespread recognition, recorded extensively and developed into a conductor of major international significance. In addition to areas in which he already had forged a distinctive profile (Janácek, Mozart, Handel, Sullivan) he revisited - and rethought - much of the standard repertoire. The last thirty years were particularly momentous in the coming to fruition of so manycherished projects: not only the Janácek operas but the Gilbert and Sullivan series, the Mozart operas, the two Beethoven cycles, other projects with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Schumann and Brahms at Edinburgh; the outstanding late Mozart) and at the Royal Opera House and the Met. Unspoilt by fame, and undeterred by personal tragedies and increasing physical frailty, he remained productive and inventive: for him music-making, whether with world-classsingers and orchestras or with students, was a kind of joyous oxygen that kept him going right to the end. A detailed account of his life is complemented by contributions from performers and scholars who worked closely with Mackerras, as well as interviews with his family. The book is richly illustrated with photographs and documents, and includes a comprehensive discography along with listings of many of his concert and opera performances. While SirCharles's whole life is considered, emphasis is given to his final quarter century, a period in which so many important projects were realized. This book celebrates and epitomizes an exceptional life. NIGEL SIMEONE is awriter and teacher. He has published extensively on Messiaen and Janácek and recently edited The Leonard Bernstein Letters. JOHN TYRRELL is Honorary Professor of Music at Cardiff University. He has published bookson Janácek and Czech opera and, with Sir Charles Mackerras, edited two Janácek operas. CONTRIBUTORS: Janet Baker, Alfred Brendel, Ales Brezina, Alex Briger, Rosenna East, Anne Evans, Nicholas Hytner, Simon Keenlyside, David Lloyd-Jones, David Mackie, Chi-chi Nwanoku, Antonio Pappano, Nigel Simeone, John Stein, Heinz Stolba, Patrick Summers, John Tyrrell, Malcolm Walker, David Whelton, Jirí Zahrádka.

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