Biografier

This book is full of essays which Arnold Schoenberg wrote on style and idea. He talks about the relationship to the text, new and outmoded music, composition in twelve tones, entertaining through composing, the relationship of heart and mind in music, evaluation of music, and other essays. Arnold Schoenberg (13 September 1874 ΓÇô 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. He used the spelling Sch├╢nberg until after his move to the United States in 1934 (Steinberg 1995, 463), "in deference to American practice" (Foss 1951, 401), though one writer claims he made the change a year earlier (Ross 2007, 45). Schoenberg was known early in his career for successfully extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic traditions of both Brahms and Wagner, and later and more notably for his pioneering innovations in atonality. During the rise of the Nazi party in Austria, his music was labeled, alongside swing and jazz, as degenerate art. In the 1920s, he developed the twelve-tone technique, a widely influential compositional method of manipulating an ordered series of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale. He also coined the term developing variation, and was the first modern composer to embrace ways of developing motifs without resorting to the dominance of a centralized melodic idea. Schoenberg''s approach, both in terms of harmony and development, is among the major landmarks of 20th century musical thought; at least three generations of composers in the European and American traditions have consciously extended his thinking and, in some cases, passionately reacted against it. Schoenberg was also a painter, an important music theorist, and an influential teacher of composition; his students included Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Hanns Eisler, and later John Cage, Lou Harrison, Earl Kim, Wayne Barlow, and many other prominent musicians. Many of Schoenberg''s practices, including the formalization of compositional method, and his habit of openly inviting audiences to think analytically, are echoed in avant-garde musical thought throughout the 20th century. His often polemical views of music history and aesthetics were crucial to many of the 20th century''s significant musicologists and critics, including Theodor Adorno, Charles Rosen, and Carl Dahlhaus. Schoenberg''s archival legacy is collected at the Arnold Sch├╢nberg Center in Vienna.

WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE THE STARS?'Look at a satellite image of the Earth. Where it was once as dark as night, it is now lit up like a Christmas tree. If you zoom in on a city, you'll see floodlights, neon lights, car lights, and streetlamps. If you zoom in even further, to your own bedroom, you might see lamps and TV, tablet, and phone screens.Humans have always struggled with the dark, but isn't it light enough now? What is all this artificial light doing to us and everything else that lives? What is it doing to our sleep patterns and rhythms and bodies?AN ODE TO DARKNESS explores our intimate relationship with the dark: why we are scared of it, why we need it and why the ever-encroaching light is damaging our well-being. Under the dark polar night of northern Norway, journalist Sigri Sandberg meditates on the cultural, historical, psychological and scientific meaning of darkness, all the while testing the limits of her own fear.

A fascinating insight into the golden-age of 1970s and 80s rock and roll told through the eyes of music legend Bernie Marsden and, most notably, his role in establishing one of the world's most famous rock bands of all time - Whitesnake.

Seventeenth-century sketches of Africa as it appeared to marauding European traders. Nineteenth-century slave auction notices. Twentieth-century sheet music for work songs and freedom chants. Photographs of war heroes, regal in uniform. Antebellum reward posters for capturing runaway slaves. An 1856 article titled "A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child.”In 1974, Middleton A. Harris and Toni Morrison led a team of gifted, passionate collectors in compiling these images and nearly 500 others into one sensational narrative of the black experience in America: The Black Book.Now in a deluxe 35th anniversary hardcover edition, The Black Book remains a breathtaking testament to the legendary wisdom, strength, and perseverance of black men and women intent on freedom. Prominent collectors Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith, as well as Middleton Harris and Toni Morrison (then a Random House editor, now a two-time Pulitzer Prize—winning Nobel laureate) spent months studying, laughing at, and crying over these materials-from transcripts of fugitive slaves' trials and proclamations by Frederick Douglass and other celebrated abolitionists to chilling images of cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth century to vibrant posters from "Black Hollywood” films from the 1930s and 1940s.A labor of love and a vital link to the richness and diversity of African American history and culture, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Beautifully and faithfully presented, and featuring a new Foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.

No other pop group in recent history has faced fame with such intelligence, humour and shrewdness as the Pet Shop Boys. it is an unusually intimate portrait of two maverick British musicians always reluctant to compromise. 'There was a time when the Pet Shop Boys seemed to exist entirely on radio, television and in magazines.

The Pet Shop Boys are one of the most successful and unusual bands of the last five decades. They are the pop duo that proves pop music can be modern, ecstatic and playful as well as serious and intelligent, winning them legions of devoted fans throughout the world. In 1989, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe invited journalist Chris Heath and photographer Lawrence Watson to shadow them around Hong Kong, Japan and the UK as they embarked on their first-ever tour. This book is the result: an immersive portrait giving access into the duo‿s inner sanctum, showing them in brilliantly observed detail as they work, relax, gossip, argue and occasionally try to make sense of what they do. ‿As clear a picture as could be wished for of the seething mass of elegant contradictions that is the Pet Shop Boys‿ on-the-road experience.‿ Independent on Sunday‿This superbly reported book transcends tired rock journalism cliché. It‿s about what it means to be a pop star, what it means to be a Pet Shop Boy‿ how to love pop, hold it to a higher standard and subvert its expectations.‿ Laura Snapes

This biography covers the scientific and human aspects of Marie's life, detailing her tumultuous personal history at a time of social upheaval, and her struggle to gain recognition in an era when female scientists were almost unknown.

The final book from Professor Stephen Hawking, the bestselling author of A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME and arguably the most famous scientist of our age, BRIEF ANSWERS TO THE BIG QUESTIONS is a profound, accessible and timely reflection on the biggest questions in science.

An equal parts haunting and hilarious deep-dive review of history's most notorious and cold-blooded serial killers, from the creators of the award-winning Last Podcast on the Left.

An elegant collection of legendary designer Coco Chanel's maxims on style, women and life, presented in a fashionable gift format.

A remarkable memoir from New Order's Stephen Morris, who tells his story for the first time.

Re-issue of Malcolm's revelatory biography of the tumultous union of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, and the critical battle that dogs their legacies.

First published in 1946, Viktor Frankl's memoir Man's Search for Meaning remains one of the most influential books of the last century, selling over ten million copies worldwide and having been embraced by successive generations of readers captivated by its author's philosophical journey in the wake of the Holocaust. This long-overdue reappraisal examines Frankl's life and intellectual evolution anew, from his early immersion in Freudian and Adlerian theory to his development of the "e;third Viennese school"e; amid the National Socialist domination of professional psychotherapy. It teases out the fascinating contradictions and ambiguities surrounding his years in Nazi Europe, including the experimental medical procedures he oversaw in occupied Austria and a stopover at the Auschwitz concentration camp far briefer than has commonly been assumed. Throughout, author Timothy Pytell gives a penetrating but fair-minded account of a man whose paradoxical embodiment of asceticism, celebrity, tradition, and self-reinvention drew together the complex strands of twentieth-century intellectual life.

A Sunday Times top ten bestseller. A journey in images and words into the creative world of musician, storyteller and cultural icon Nick Cave

The definitive biography of author Ian Fleming and the perfect read for anyone enjoying the Sky Atlantic biopic starring Dominic Cooper.

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author, speaker and activist Glennon Doyle.*****For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her discontent. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high but soon she realised they had come to her from within.

Jerry Seinfeld picks out his best comedy writing over the last five decades

Documenting the history of this family brand and representing a summary of Miuccia Prada's key collections and pieces, including the launch of the Miu Miu line, this book showcases the brand's emphasis on understated elegance and luxury, technologically advanced fabrics and originality of design.

The Little Book of Gucci tells the story of this historic yet flourishing house, and the visionary looks that have cemented its place in fashion history.

From the author of the critically acclaimed Keynes Hayek, the next great duel in the history of economics.

This book examines and assesses all of John Lennon's solo work.