Music

If everybody were to play first violin, we could not have an orchestra. Therefore respect each musician in his own place.

There is no end to learning.

Originally published in1850, Advice to Young Musicians: Musical Rules for Home and in Life offered composer Robert Schumann's (1810-56) combination of practical advice and poetic words of wisdom for young people beginning their musical education. Presented in aphorisms and short paragraphs, the book's insights remain as valuable today as when it was written. Recognizing the continued resonance of Schumann's words, world-renowned cellist Steven Isserlis, himself a writer of children's books and many articles for young musicians, set out to rescue the work from history. Here, in this beautiful gift edition, he revisits Schumann's work and contributes his own contemporary counsel for musicians and music lovers.

For this edition, Isserlis retranslated Schumann's text and arranged it into four thematic sections: "On being a musician," "Playing," "Practicing," and "Composing." Each page is decoratively designed, and accompanying Schumann's original quotation are Isserlis's thoughtful and often humorous glosses. The book concludes with Isserlis's own reflections on his life as a musician and performer: "My Own Bits of Advice (For What They're Worth)." The result is a unique and thought-provoking book that will be treasured by aspiring musicians of any age.

"SETTLING SCORES: A Life in the Margins of American Music" details one life lived in the margins of America's musical consciousness. From a working-class background in gritty North Philadelphia to the sanctity of European concert stages, from imagined dangers lurking along the waterfronts in mysterious Asian cities to the real dangers lurking in the narrow minds of those who uphold the status quo in American music, this book reveals the life of one who embraced change, and, in the process, gained political leverage and intellectual freedom. It is the story of Joseph Franklin and a legion of collaborators, and it is a snapshot view of a slice of America's musical landscape in the final quarter of the 20th century, including a history of Relâche and The Relâche Ensemble. Born in Philadelphia, Joseph Franklin is a graduate of the Philadelphia Musical Academy and Temple University's Graduate School of Music. He has composed works for mixed instrumental/vocal ensembles, film, video, theater and dance. In 1977 he co-founded The Relâche Ensemble, which evolved into Relâche, Inc. a presenting and producing organization in support of the Relâche Ensemble. He served as founding executive and artistic director of Relâche until 1998. Independently, and as Director of Relâche, he has been a producer of concerts, festivals, recordings, radio programs, residency programs, international tours and other related music events, including the NEW MUSIC AMERICA 1987 Festival, NEW MUSIC AT ANNENBERG at The University of Pennsylvania and MUSIC IN MOTION, a nationwide audience development project. He formerly served as Artistic Director for Helena Presents--The Myrna Loy Center, a performing arts and film center located in Helena, Montana. He has published criticism and book reviews in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia City Paper. While living in Louisiana he developed and taught courses in arts administration and an overview of 20th century music at the University of New Orleans while serving as an independent consultant to arts organizations. He currently serves as executive director for Chamber Music Albuquerque, a presenting organization dedicated to presenting world-class chamber music ensembles in concert.

This groundbreaking anthology brings together for the first time the works of women poet-composers, or trouvères, in northern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Refuting the long-held notion that there are no extant Old French lyrics by women from this period, the editors of the volume present songs attributed to eight named female trouvères along with a varied selection of anonymous compositions in the feminine voice that may have been composed by women. The book includes the Old French texts of seventy-five compositions, extant music for eighteen monophonic songs and nineteen polyphonic motets, English translations, and a substantial introduction.

The unfolding influence of music and sound on the fundamental structure of the biomedical sciences, from ancient times to the present.

Beginning in ancient Greece, Peter Pesic writes, music and sound significantly affected the development of the biomedical sciences. Physicians used rhythmical ratios to interpret the pulse, which inspired later efforts to record the pulse in musical notation. After 1700, biology and medicine took a "sonic turn," viewing the body as a musical instrument, the rhythms and vibrations of which could guide therapeutic insight. In Sounding Bodies, Pesic traces the unfolding influence of music and sound on the fundamental structure of the biomedical sciences.

Pesic explains that music and sound provided the life sciences important tools for hearing, understanding, and influencing the rhythms of life. As medicine sought to go beyond the visible manifestations of illness, sound offered ways to access the hidden interiority of body and mind. Sonic interventions addressed the search for a new typology of mental illness, and practitioners used musical instruments to induce hypnotic states meant to cure both psychic and physical ailments. The study of bat echolocation led to the manifold clinical applications of ultrasound; such sonic devices as telephones and tuning forks were used to explore the functioning of the nerves.

Sounding Bodies follows Pesic's Music and the Making of Modern Science and Polyphonic Minds to complete a trilogy on the influence of music on the sciences. Enhanced digital editions of Sounding Bodies offer playable music and sound examples.

A new look at one of the most important composers of the twentith century

Stravinsky and His World brings together an international roster of scholars to explore fresh perspectives on the life and music of Igor Stravinsky. Situating Stravinsky in new intellectual and musical contexts, the essays in this volume shed valuable light on one of the most important composers of the twentieth century.

Contributors examine Stravinsky's interaction with Spanish and Latin American modernism, rethink the stylistic label "neoclassicism" with a section on the ideological conflict over his lesser-known opera buffa Mavra, and reassess his connections to his homeland, paying special attention to Stravinsky's visit to the Soviet Union in 1962. The essays also explore Stravinsky's musical and religious differences with Arthur Lourié, delve into Stravinsky's collaboration with Pyotr Suvchinsky and Roland-Manuel in the genesis of his groundbreaking Poetics of Music, and look at how the movement within stasis evident in the scores of Stravinsky's Orpheus and Oedipus Rex reflected the composer's fierce belief in fate. Rare documents--including Spanish and Mexican interviews, Russian letters, articles by Arthur Lourié, and rarely seen French and Russian texts--supplement the volume, bringing to life Stravinsky's rich intellectual milieu and intense personal relationships.

The contributors are Tatiana Baranova, Leon Botstein, Jonathan Cross, Valérie Dufour, Gretchen Horlacher, Tamara Levitz, Klára Móricz, Leonora Saavedra, and Svetlana Savenko.

Bender offers the first cultural history of modern
African music. He describes the whole range of African
musical genres--from the Senegambian/Manding style
through Congolese soukous, Cameroonian makossa, West
African Highlife, and the music of struggle and
liberation of South Africa--and locates each in its
social, political, and historical context. Sweet
Mother contains information available in no other
single source, including an extensive discography and
bibliography.

One of the last great composers in the Austro-Germanic tradition, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) created nine symphonies (the now-legendary Symphony No. 10 was left unfinished) that explored far-reaching, innovative, and visionary approaches to melody, tonal organization, and formal structure. Outstanding among these is the work that obsessed Mahler for seven years -- the imposing Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), scored for soprano solo, alto, solo, full chorus, and a vastly expanded orchestra.
Plagued by incessant visions of his own death, Mahler composed a tone poem Totenfeirer (Funeral Rite) that was to become the foundation and first movement of Symphony No. 2, posing the great question, To what purpose have you lived? Mahler described the middle movements as post-funeral memories, nostalgic daydreams, and a harsh awakening to the meaningless realities of real life, answered finally by the angelic folk poem Primal Light, the terror of the Last Judgment, and the salvation of resurrections: With wings that I wont ... I shall mount to the light ... I shall die, so as to live! -- an intimation of immortality through the monument of his works.
This profound work is presented here in full score with original instrumentation, bar-numbered movements, and with ample margins at the bottom of each score page for notes and analysis. Ideal for study in the classroom, at home, or in the concert hall, this affordable, high-quality, conveniently sized volume will be the edition of choice for music students and music lovers alike.

A new critical foreword by Walter Frisch, H. Harold Gumm/Harry and Albert von Tilzer Professor of Music at Columbia University, expands this centennial edition. Frisch puts Schoenberg's masterpiece into historical and ideological context, delineating the connections between music, theory, art, science, and architecture in turn-of-the century Austro-German culture.

"It may be in fact that I have taken on a task that is too much for me: there is no precedent, so I am obliged to invent new forms." -- Claude Debussy.
Unquestionably one of the most influential of modern composers, Claude Debussy (1862-1918) overturned traditional concepts of form, harmony, and coloring in creating a body of music characterized by innovation, individuality of style, and perfection of workmanship.
Among his most popular, most performed, most recorded works are the three compositions reprinted in this volume: the revolutionary Prélude à l'aprés-midi d'une faune, which, in a sense, "awakened" modern music; the exquisite Nocturnes, shimmering models of delicate impressionism; and La Mer, complex, suggestive, a masterpiece of orchestral texture.
This Dover volume presents the complete scores of all three works -- reproduced from early French editions -- in one convenient source. Musicians and music lovers will appreciate this inexpensive edition of a trio of orchestral favorites: pieces that mark not only key points in the composer's personal progress but also in the progress of modern music as well.

Greil Marcus has been one of the most distinctive voices in American music criticism for over forty years. His books, including Mystery Train and The Shape of Things to Come, traverse soundscapes of folk and blues, rock and punk, attuning readers to the surprising, often hidden affinities between the music and broader streams of American politics and culture.

Drawn from Marcus's 2013 Massey Lectures at Harvard, his new work delves into three episodes in the history of American commonplace song: Bascom Lamar Lunsford's 1928 "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground," Geeshie Wiley's 1930 "Last Kind Words Blues," and Bob Dylan's 1964 "Ballad of Hollis Brown." How each of these songs manages to convey the uncanny sense that it was written by no one illuminates different aspects of the commonplace song tradition. Some songs truly did come together over time without an identifiable author. Others draw melodies and motifs from obscure sources but, in the hands of a particular artist, take a final, indelible shape. And, as in the case of Dylan's "Hollis Brown," there are songs that were written by a single author but that communicate as anonymous productions, as if they were folk songs passed down over many generations.

In three songs that seem to be written by no one, Marcus shows, we discover not only three different ways of talking about the United States but three different nations within its formal boundaries.

The Western world was in the throes of peace, love and flower power as Nigeria descended into Civil War in 1967. The rock scene that developed during the following three years of bloodshed and destruction would come to heal the country, help propogate the world-wide ideal of the Modern Nigerian, and propel Fela Kuti to stardom after the conflict ended in 1970. Wake Up You! tells the story of this time, pays homage to these now-forgotten musicians and their struggle, and brings to light the funk and psychedelic fury they created as they wrested free of the ravages of the late 1960s and created thrilling, original Nigerian rock music throughout the 1970s. This is the first of two volumes full of never-seen photos and detailed liner notes by Nigerian musicologist and researcher Uchenna Ikonne (Who Is William Onyeabor?). Includes a cd with all tracks fully licensed from the bands themselves.

An outstanding anthology in which notable musicians, artists, scientists, thinkers, poets, and more--from Gustavo Dudamel and Carrie Mae Weems to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Paul Muldoon--explore the influence of music on their lives and work

Contributors include: Laurie Anderson ● Jamie Barton ● Daphne A. Brooks ● Edgar Choueiri ● Jeff Dolven ● Gustavo Dudamel ● Edward Dusinberre ● Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim ● Frank Gehry ● James Ginsburg ● Ruth Bader Ginsburg ● Jane Hirshfield ● Pico Iyer ● Alexander Kluge ● Nathaniel Mackey ● Maureen N. McLane ● Alicia Hall Moran ● Jason Moran ● Paul Muldoon ● Elaine Pagels ● Robert Pinsky ● Richard Powers ● Brian Seibert ● Arnold Steinhardt ● Susan Stewart ● Abigail Washburn ● Carrie Mae Weems ● Susan Wheeler ● C. K. Williams ● Wu Fei

What happens when extraordinary creative spirits--musicians, poets, critics, and scholars, as well as an architect, a visual artist, a filmmaker, a scientist, and a legendary Supreme Court justice--are asked to reflect on their favorite music? The result is Ways of Hearing, a diverse collection that explores the ways music shapes us and our shared culture. These acts of musical witness bear fruit through personal essays, conversations and interviews, improvisatory meditations, poetry, and visual art. They sound the depths of a remarkable range of musical genres, including opera, jazz, bluegrass, and concert music both classical and contemporary.

This expansive volume spans styles and subjects, including Pico Iyer's meditations on Handel, Arnold Steinhardt's thoughts on Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, and Laurie Anderson and Edgar Choueiri's manifesto for spatial music. Richard Powers discusses the one thing about music he's never told anyone, Daphne Brooks draws sonic connections between Toni Morrison and Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg reveals what she thinks is the sexiest duet in opera. Poems interspersed throughout further expand how we can imagine and respond to music. Ways of Hearing is a book for our times that celebrates the infinite ways music enhances our lives.

In his iconic musical travelogue Heavy Metal Islam, Mark LeVine first brought the views and experiences of a still-young generation to the world. In We'll Play till We Die, he joins with this generation's leading voices to write a definitive history of the era, closing with a cowritten epilogue that explores the meanings and futures of youth music from North Africa to Southeast Asia.

We'll Play till We Die dives into the revolutionary music cultures of the Middle East and larger Muslim world before, during, and beyond the waves of resistance that shook the region from Morocco to Pakistan. This sequel to Mark LeVine's celebrated Heavy Metal Islam shows how some of the world's most extreme music not only helped inspire and define region-wide protests, but also exemplifies the beauty and diversity of youth cultures throughout the Muslim world.

Two years after Heavy Metal Islam was published in 2008, uprisings and revolutions spread like wildfire. The young people organizing and protesting on the streets--in dozens of cities from Casablanca to Karachi--included the very musicians and fans LeVine spotlighted in that book. We'll Play till We Die revisits the groundbreaking stories he originally explored, sharing what has happened to these musicians, their music, their politics, and their societies since then. The book covers a stunning array of developments, not just in metal and hip hop scenes, but with emo in Baghdad, mahraganat in Egypt, techno in Beirut, and more. LeVine also reveals how artists have used global platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud to achieve unprecedented circulation of their music outside corporate or government control. The first collective ethnography and biography of the post-2010 generation, We'll Play till We Die explains and amplifies the radical possibilities of music as a revolutionary force for change.