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Provides new perspectives on the violin's beloved concert repertoire, its diverse roles in indigenous musical traditions on four continents, and its metaphorical presence in visual arts and literature.With a colorful history that spans 450 years, the violin has proven to be one of the world's most important and versatile instruments. Addressed to performing musicians, serious concertgoers, and collectors of recordings, The Violin offers insightful, up-to-date essays on a wide range of topics. Essays discuss beloved masterpieces from the violin's solo repertoire, with individual chapters on the Italian Baroque, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and the violin concerto in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the evolution of performance styles and interpretation as documented in recordings. The volume also illustrates the broad cultural and geographic reach of the instrument, offering readers a taste of the traditional music of Argentina, Mexico, Norway, and India, in which the violin's participation is an essential and characteristic element. Other chapters are devoted to American fiddling andto the violin and violinists as metaphors in literature and the visual arts. CONTRIBUTORS: Chris Goertzen, Eitan Ornoy, Robert Riggs, Peter Walls, Peter Wollny. Musicologist and violinist Robert Riggs (PhD,Harvard University) chairs the Department of Music at the University of Mississippi and is the author of articles on Mozart as well as the monograph Leon Kirchner: Composer, Performer, and Teacher (URP 2010).

Displays the range and diversity of Schenkerian studies today in fifteen essays covering music from Bach through Debussy and Strauss.Explorations in Schenkerian Analysis is a collection of fifteen essays dedicated to the memory of Edward Laufer, an influential advocate of Schenker's method. The chapters are presented in chronological order by composer, opening with Charles Burkhart's contribution, which is presented as a letter to Edward Laufer (written before his death), and ending with excerpts from Stephen Slottow's 2003 interview with Laufer (in an appendix). Whilethe unifying focus is Schenkerian analysis, there is considerable variety in the approaches taken by the contributors. There is also variety in the composers represented, ranging from Bach to Debussy and Strauss. The volume thusdisplays the scope and diversity of Schenkerian studies today. CONTRIBUTORS: Mark Anson-Cartwright, David Beach, Matthew Brown, Charles Burkhart, L. Poundie Burstein, Timothy L. Jackson, Roger Kamien, Leslie Kinton, SuYin Mak, Ryan McClelland, Don McLean, Boyd Pomeroy, William Rothstein, Frank Samarotto, Stephen Slottow, Lauri Suurpaa David Beach is professor emeritus and former dean of the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. SuYin Mak is associate professor of music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Presents thirteen studies that engage with the notion of formal function in a variety of waysAmong the more striking developments in contemporary North American music theory is the renewed centrality of issues of musical form (Formenlehre). Formal Functions in Perspective presents thirteen studies that engage with musical form in a variety of ways. The essays, written by established and emerging scholars from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European continent, run the chronological gamut from Haydn and Clementito Leibowitz and Adorno; they discuss Lieder, arias, and choral music as well as symphonies, concerti, and chamber works; they treat Haydn's humor and Saint-Saens's politics, while discussions of particular pieces range from Mozart's arias to Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht. Running through the essays and connecting them thematically is the central notion of formal function. CONTRIBUTORS: Brian Black, L. Poundie Burstein, Andrew Deruchie, Julian Horton, Steven Huebner, Harald Krebs, Henry Klumpenhouwer, Nathan John Martin, Francois de Medicis, Christoph Neidhofer, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, Giorgio Sanguinetti, Janet Schmalfeldt, Peter Schubert, Steven Vande Moortele Steven Vande Moortele is assistant professor of music theory at the University of Toronto. Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers is assistant professor of music at the University of Ottawa. Nathan John Martin is assistant professor of music at the University of Michigan.

Examines the decline and resurgence of Haydn's reputation in an effort to better understand the forces that shape critical reception on a broad scale.By the 1840s Joseph Haydn, who died in 1809 as the most celebrated composer of his generation, had degenerated into the bewigged "e;Papa Haydn,"e; a shallow placeholder in music history who merely invented the forms used by Beethoven.In a remarkable reversal, Haydn swiftly regained his former stature within the opening decades of the twentieth century. Reviving Haydn: New Appreciations in the Twentieth Century examines both the decline and the subsequent resurgence of Haydn's reputation in an effort to better understand the forces that shape critical reception on a broad scale. No single person or event marked the turning point for Haydn's reputation. Instead a broad resurgence reshaped opinion in Europe and the United States in short order. The Haydn revival engaged many of the music world's leading figures -- composers (Vincent d'Indy and Arnold Schoenberg), conductors (Arturo Toscanini), performers (Wanda Landowska), critics (Lawrence Gilman), and scholars (Heinrich Schenker and Donald Tovey) -- each of whom valued Haydn's music for specific reasons and used it to advance particular goals. Yet each advocated for a rehearing and rereading of the composer's works, calling for a new appreciation of Haydn's music. Bryan Proksch is Assistant Professor of Music History at Lamar University.

Examines Mendelssohn's relationship to the past, shedding light on the construction of historical legacies that, in some cases, served to assert German cultural supremacy only two decades after the composer's death.By upbringing, family connections, and education, Felix Mendelssohn was ideally positioned to contribute to the historical legacies of the German people, who in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars discovered that they were a nation with a distinct culture. The number of cultural icons of German nationalism that Mendelssohn "e;discovered,"e; promoted, or was asked to promote (by way of commissions) in his compositions is striking: Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press, Durer and Nuremberg, Luther and the Augsburg Confession as the manifesto of Protestantism, Bach and the St. Matthew Passion, Beethoven and his claims to universal brotherhood. The essays in thisvolume investigate from a variety of perspectives Mendelssohn's relationship to the music of the past, including the significance of Bach's music for the Mendelssohn family, the homages to Bach in Mendelssohn's organ compositions,the influence of Beethoven in the Reformation Symphony, and Mendelssohn's reception and use of Handel's oratorios. Together, the essays shed light on the construction of legacies that, in some cases, served to assert German cultural supremacy only two decades after the composer's death in 1847. Contributors: Celia Applegate, John Michael Cooper, Hans Davidsson, Wm. A. Little, Peter Mercer-Taylor, Siegwart Reichwald, Glenn Stanley, Russell Stinson, Benedict Taylor, Nicholas Thistlethwaite, Jurgen Thym, R. Larry Todd, Christoph Wolff Jurgen Thym is professor emeritus of musicology at the Eastman School of Music and editor of Of Poetry and Song: Approaches tothe Nineteenth-Century Lied (University of Rochester Press, 2010).

First English-language study of Anton Heiller (1923-1979), one of the twentieth-century's most influential organistsAnton Heiller is one of the twentieth century's most renowned and influential organists. Born in 1923, Heiller was trained in Vienna and rose to prominence quickly, giving his first solo recital at the age of twenty-two. Before concentrating on the organ exclusively, he was a successful conductor of the symphonic repertoire, and, from 1945 until his untimely death in 1979, he was professor of organ at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.His interpretations of Bach, which included registration and articulation, as well as a consideration of the theological underpinnings, would change the way Bach is played. Anton Heiller: Organist, Composer, Conductorprovides an assessment of Heiller's works and teaching, while also examining his complex personality, one torn between strong religious devotion and the world of artistry. The narrative also offers a unique view of the organ worldin the decades after World War II, featuring the important organs, builders, and organists across North America and Europe. Peter Planyavsky was Anton Heiller's successor as an organ professor in Vienna, and organist of St. Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna from 1969 through 2004. He is also a prolific composer, improviser, and conductor. Christa Rumsey, a former student of Heiller's, translated the book from the original German.

Presents case studies of "e;inspiration"e; in five composers -- Wagner, Mahler, Furtwangler, R. Strauss, and Berg -- examining how the supposedly extrarational world of creative inspiration intersects with the highly rational world ofmoney and politics.Lies and Epiphanies offers case studies of "e;inspiration"e; in five composers -- Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Richard Strauss, and Alban Berg. Their own tales of their epiphanies played a determining role in the reception history of their works: the finale of Mahler's Second Symphony was supposedly born of a "e;lightning bolt"e; of inspiration at the funeral of Hans von Bulow, while Alban Berg's Violin Concerto was purportedly his direct response to the tragic early death of Alma Mahler's daughter. Chris Walton looks behind these tales to explore instead the composer's dual role as author and self-commentator, laying bare the fissures and inconsistencieswithin these artists' testimonies and revealing how the putatively extrarational world of creative inspiration intersects with the highly rational world of money and politics. As Walton points out, the composer often imposes on the audience an interpretation of a work and its genesis that is as superficial as the score itself is not. This study seeks to show why. Chris Walton teaches music history at the Basel University of Music in Switzerland.He is the author of Othmar Schoeck: Life and Works (University of Rochester Press, 2009) and Richard Wagner's Zurich: The Muse of Place (Camden House, 2007).

In 1983, French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier was murdered in Paris at the age of thirty-four. Based on unrestricted access to Vivier's personal archives, this book is the first to tell his story.Claude Vivier's haunting and expressive music has captivated audiences around the world. But the French-Canadian composer is remembered also because of the dramatic circumstances of his death: he was found murdered in his Paris apartment at the age of thirty-four. Given unrestricted access to Vivier's archives and interviews with Vivier's family, teachers, friends, and colleagues, musicologist and biographer Bob Gilmore tells here the full story of Vivier's fascinating life, from his abandonment as a child in a Montreal orphanage to his posthumous acclaim as one of the leading composers of his generation. Expelled from a religious school at seventeen for "e;lack of maturity,"e; Vivier gave up his ambition to join the priesthood to study composition. Between 1976 and 1983 Vivier wrote the works on which his reputation rests, including Lonely Child, Bouchara, and the operas Kopernikus and Marco Polo. He was also an outspoken presence in the Montreal arts world and gay scene. Vivier left Quebec for Paris in 1982 to work on a new opera, the composition of which was interrupted by his murder. On his desk wasthe manuscript of his last work, uncannily entitled "e;Do You Believe in the Immortality of the Soul."e; Vivier's is a tragic but life-affirming story, intimately connected to his passionate music. Bob Gilmore was a notedmusicologist and performer who taught at Brunel University in London. He wrote or edited five previous books, including Harry Partch: A Biography.

First English-language publication of fascinating interviews with world-renowned musicians: composers (Gyorgy Ligeti), conductors (Claudio Abbado), singers (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf), instrumentalists (Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Brendel), and more.Balint Andras Varga makes available here for the first time in English nineteen extended interviews with some of the most notable figures in music from the past fifty years, as well as lively snippets from interviews Varga conducted with thirteen other equally renowned musicians. The interviewees include singers Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Cathy Berberian; pianists Alfred Brendel and Arthur Rubinstein; violinists Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin; conductors Claudio Abbado and Sir Neville Marriner; composers Gyorgy Ligeti and Karlheinz Stockhausen; and legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. Of special interest is an interview with the reclusive composer Gyorgy Kurtag, here published for the first time in any language. From Boulanger to Stockhausen concludes with a poignant memoir by Varga of his experiences growing up in a Jewish family in Hungary during World War II and the early years of Communist rule. Varga's recollections also include details about his many interviews with some of these remarkable musicians, and about his employment at the Hungarian state radio station and then in the music-publishing industry, which brought him to, among other places, Vienna, where he now lives. Interviewees: Claudio Abbado, Georges Auric, Cathy Berberian, Nadia Boulanger, Ernest Bour, Alfred Brendel, Aaron Copland, Sir Neville Cardus, Antal Dorati, Adam Fischer, Ivan Fischer, Geza Frid, Sir William Glock, Sylvia Goldstein, Alois Haba, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Gyorgy Kurtag, Walter Legge, Gyorgy Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Sir Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, Eugene Ormandy,Vladlemuter, Arthur Rubinstein, Gyorgy Sandor, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Isaac Stern, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Wolfgang Stresemann, Walter Susskind, Hans Swarowsky, Joseph Szigeti, Tibor Varga. Balint Andras Varga has spent morethan forty years working for and with composers. His previous books include Gyorgy Kurtag: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages and Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers, both published by the University of Rochester Press.

A translation of the only book that focuses solely on the pianistic aspect of Busoni's wide-ranging career.Ferruccio Busoni is most widely known today as the composer of such works as the Second Violin Sonata, the incidental music for Gozzi's Turandot, and the most monumental piano concerto in the repertory (some eighty minuteslong, with male chorus in the finale). But Busoni was also renowned in his day as an author and pedagogue and, most especially, as a pianist. Busoni's recordings of pieces by Chopin and Liszt -- and of his own arrangements of keyboard works by Bach and Beethoven -- are much prized and studied today by connoisseurs of piano playing. Yet even his most important biographers have cast only a cursory glance at the pianistic aspect of Busoni's fascinating career. Grigory Kogan's book Busoni as Pianist (published in Russian in 1964, and here translated for the first time) was and remains the first and only study to concentrate exclusively on Busoni's contributions to the worldof the piano. Busoni as Pianist summarizes reviews of Busoni's playing and his own writings on the subject. It also closely analyzes the surviving piano roles and recordings, and examines Busoni's editions, arrangements, and pedagogical output. As such, it will be of interest to pianists, teachers and students of the piano, historians, and all who love piano music and the art of piano playing. Grigory Kogan (1901-1979) was a leading Soviet pianist and music critic. A conservatory professor at the age of twenty-one, Kogan created the first-ever course in Russia dealing with the history and theory of pianism. Through his brilliant lectures, his concert performances, and his many books, articles, and reviews, Kogan influenced an entire generation of Soviet pianists. Svetlana Belsky is a teacher and performer, and is coordinator of Piano Studies at the University of Chicago.

Masterful essays honoring the great pianist and critic Charles Rosen, on masterpieces from Bach and Beethoven to Chopin, Verdi, and Stockhausen.Charles Rosen, the pianist and man of letters, is perhaps the single most influential writer on music of the past half-century. While Rosen's vast range as a writer and performer is encyclopedic, it has focused particularly on theliving "e;canonical"e; repertory extending from Bach to Boulez. Inspired in its liveliness and variety of critical approaches by Charles Rosen's challenging work, Variations on the Canon offers original essays by some of the world's most eminent musical scholars. Contributors address such issues as style and compositional technique, genre, influence and modeling, and reception history; develop insights afforded by close examination of compositional sketches; and consider what language and metaphors might most meaningfully convey insights into music. However diverse the modes of inquiry, each essay sheds new light on the works of those composers posterity has deemed central to the modern Western musical tradition. Contributors: Pierre Boulez, Scott Burnham, Elliott Carter, Robert Curry, Walter Frisch, David Gable, Philip Gossett, Jeffrey Kallberg, Joseph Kerman, Richard Kramer, William Kinderman, Lewis Lockwood, Sir Charles Mackerras, Robert L. Marshall, Robert P. Morgan, Charles Rosen, Julian Rushton, David Schulenberg, Laszlo Somfai, Leo Treitler, James Webster, and Robert Winter. Robert Curry is principalof the Conservatorium High School and honorary senior lecturer in the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney; David Gable is Assistant Professor of Music at Clark-Atlanta University; Robert L. Marshall is Louis, Frances, and Jeffrey Sachar Professor Emeritus of Music at Brandeis University.

The first full-length study of a remarkable composer, writer, painter, and expert on astrology, based on Rudhyar's personal archives.Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985) was a unique figure in twentieth-century American culture: a composer, thinker, painter, poet, novelist, and expert on astrology. His thought and work transcended disciplinary boundaries, integrating perspectives that were, and often still are, generally pursued in isolation from each other. Rudhyar's musical compositions -- such as the remarkable Three Paeans for piano -- were often described at the time as ultramodernand deeply philosophical. Noted music critic Nicolas Slonimsky described Rudhyar's music as "e;searching and challenging . . . the explanation of a puzzle of human existence."e; Rudhyar's sometimes startling paintings and his brilliantly articulate prose writings on a variety of subjects reached outward to pre-Renaissance and non-Western traditions. Novelist Henry Miller praised Rudhyar's ability "e;to show the relation between the parts, and finally to relate the parts to the whole. . . . He is so many things precisely because his sight is always focused on the central core, on the source from which all flows."e; Dane Rudhyar: His Music, Thought, and Art is the first full-length study of this remarkable polymath and citizen of the world and universe. The book is enriched with numerous color illustrations of Rudhyar's paintings and with examples drawn from his music and writings. DenizErtan has taught at the Universities of Manchester and Nottingham.

A practical but scholarly guide to Japanese instruments by one of the country's leading composers.The unique sounds of the biwa, shamisen, and other traditional instruments from Japan are heard more and more often in works for the concert hall and opera house. Composing for Japanese Instruments is a practical orchestration and instrumentation manual with contextual and relevant historical information for composers who wish to learn how to compose for traditional Japanese instruments. Widely regarded as the authoritative text on the subject in Japan and China, it contains hundreds of musical examples, diagrams, photographs, and fingering charts. Many of the musical examples can be heard on a companion website. The book also contains valuable appendices, one of works author Minoru Miki composed using Japanese traditional instruments, and one of works by other composers -- including Toru Takemitsu and Henry Cowell -- using these instruments. Minoru Miki was a composer of international renown, recognized in Japan as a pioneer in writing for Japanese traditional instruments. Marty Regan is associate professor of music at Texas A&M University. Philip Flavin is associate professor at the Osaka University of Economicsand Law and adjunct senior research associate of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

The first English-language book on Czerny, and the broadest survey of his activity in any language.Within the history of European music, Carl Czerny (1791-1857) is simultaneously all too familiar and virtually invisible. During his lifetime, he was a highly successful composer of popular piano music, and his pedagogical works remain fundamental to the training of pianists. But Czerny's reputation in these areas has obscured the remarkable breadth of his activity, and especially his work as a composer of serious music, which recent performances and recordings have shown to hold real musical interest. Beyond "e;The Art of Finger Dexterity"e; explores Czerny's multifaceted career and its legacy and provides the first broad assessment of his work as a composer. Prominent North American and European musicians and scholars explore topics including Czerny's life and its context; his autobiographical writings and efforts to promote his teacher, Beethoven; his activity as a pedagogue, both as teacher of Liszt and as the authority held up to innumerable amateur women pianists; his role in shaping performance traditions of classical music; the development of his image during and after his lifetime; and his work in genres including the Mass, the symphony, the string quartet, and the piano fantasy. This is the first English-language book on Czerny, and the broadest survey of his activity in any language. Contributors: George Barth, Otto Biba, Attilio Bottegal, Deanna C. Davis, James Deaville, Ingrid Fuchs, David Gramit, Alice M. Hanson, Anton Kuerti, Marie Sumner Lott, James Parakilas, Michael Saffle, Franz A. J. Szabo, Douglas Townsend, and John Wiebe. DavidGramit [University of Alberta] is the author of Cultivating Music: The Aspirations, Interests, and Limits of German Musical Culture, 1770-1848.

Explores the influence of anthropological theories, travel literature, psychology, and other intellectual trends on the perception of non-Western music and elucidates the roots of today's field of ethnomusicology.Bennett Zon's Representing Non-Western Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain is the first book to situate non-Western music within the intellectual culture of nineteenth-century Britain. It covers many crucial issues -- race,orientalism, otherness, evolution -- and explores the influence of important anthropological theories on the perception of non-Western music. The book also considers a wide range of other writings of the period, from psychology and travel literature to musicology and theories of musical transcription, and it reflects on the historically problematic term "e;ethnomusicology."e; Representing Non-Western Music discusses such theories as noble simplicity, monogenism and polygenism, the comparative method, degenerationism, and developmentalism. Zon looks at the effect of evolutionism on the musical press, general music histories, and histories of national music. He also treats the work of Charles Samuel Myers, the first Britain to record non-Western music in the field, and explores how A. H. Fox Strangways used contemporary translation theory as an analogy for transcription in The Music of Hindostan (1914) to show that individuality can be retained by embracing foreign elements rather than adapting them to Western musical style. Bennett Zon is Reader in Music and Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study, DurhamUniversity UK and author of Music and Metaphor in Nineteenth-Century British Musicology (Ashgate, 2000).

Interdisciplinary perspectives on the life and work of the esteemed "e;ultra-modern"e; American composer and pioneering folk music activist, Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953).Ruth Crawford Seeger's Worlds offers new perspectives on the life and pioneering musical activities of American composer and folk music activist Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953). Ruth Crawford developed a unique modernist style with such now-esteemed works as her String Quartet 1931. In 1933, after marrying Charles Seeger, she turned to the work of teaching music to children and of transcribing, arranging, and publishing folk songs. Thiscollection of studies by musicologists, music theorists, folklorists, historians, music educators, and women's studies scholars reveals how innovation and tradition have intertwined in surprising ways to shape the cultural landscape of twentieth-century America. Contributors: Lyn Ellen Burkett, Melissa J. De Graaf, Taylor A. Greer, Lydia Hamessley, Bess Lomax Hawes, Jerrold Hirsch, Roberta Lamb, Carol J. Oja, Nancy Yunhwa Rao, Joseph N. Straus,Judith Tick. Ray Allen (Brooklyn College) is author of Singing in the Spirit: African-American Sacred Quartets in New York City. Ellie M. Hisama (Columbia University) is author of Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon.

Revealing unpublished interviews with John Cage and some of his closest colleagues, including Virgil Thomson, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pauline Oliveros, Merce Cunningham, and David Tudor.John Cage was one of America's most renowned composers from the 1940s until his death in 1992. But he was also a much-admired writer and artist, and a uniquely attractive personality able to present his ideas engagingly wherever he went. As an interview subject he was a consummate professional. The main source of CageTalk: Dialogues with and about John Cage is a panoply of vivid and compulsively readable interviews given to Peter Dickinson in the late 1980s for a BBC Radio 3 documentary. The original BBC program lasted an hour, but the full discussions with Cage and many of the main figures connected with him were not published until the first edition of this book.CageTalk also includes earlier BBC interviews with Cage, including ones by the renowned literary critic Frank Kermode and art critic David Sylvester. And Dickinson, the editor of this volume, contributes little-known source material about Cage's Musicircus and Roaratorio as well as a substantial introduction exploring the multiple roles that Cage's varied and challenging output played during much of the twentieth century and continuesto play in the early twenty-first. Apart from the long interview with Cage himself, there are discussions with Bonnie Bird, Earle Brown, Merce Cunningham, Minna Lederman, Otto Luening, Jackson Mac Low, Peadar Mercier, Pauline Oliveros, John Rockwell, Kurt Schwertsik, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Virgil Thomson, David Tudor, La Monte Young, and Paul Zukovsky. Most of the interviews were given to Peter Dickinson but there are others involving Rebecca Boyle,Anthony Cheevers, Michael Oliver, and Roger Smalley. Peter Dickinson, British composer and pianist, is Emeritus Professor, University of Keele and University of London, and has written or edited several books about twentieth-century music, including Copland Connotations [Boydell Press, 2002] and The Music of Lennox Berkeley [Boydell Press, 2003].

A biography of Winnaretta Singer-Polignac, heiress to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, who befriended and subsidized some of the most important musical and literary artists of the 20th Century, including Stravinsky, Proust, Ravel, Cocteau, and Colette.The American-born Winnaretta Singer (1865-1943) was a millionaire at the age of eighteen, due to her inheriting a substantial part of the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Her 1893 marriage to Prince Edmond de Polignac, an amateur composer, brought her into contact with the most elite strata of French society. After Edmond's death in 1901, she used her fortune to benefit the arts, science, and letters. Her most significant contribution was in the musical domain: in addition to subsidizing individual artists (Boulanger, Haskil, Rubinstein, Horowitz) and organizations (the Ballets Russes, l'Opera de Paris, l'Orchestre Symphonique de Paris), she made a lifelong project of commissioning new musical works from composers, many of them unknown and struggling, to be performed in her Paris salon. The list of works created as a result is long and extraordinary: Stravinsky's Renard, Satie's Socrate, Falla'sEl Retablo de Maese Pedro, and Poulenc's Two-Piano and Organ Concertos are among the best-known titles. In addition, her salon was a gathering place for luminaries of French culture such as Proust, Cocteau, Monet, Diaghilev, and Colette. Many of Proust's memorable evocations of salon culture were born during his attendance at concerts in the Polignac music room. Sylvia Kahan brings to life this eccentric and extravagant lover of the arts, whose influence on the 20th Century world of music and literature remains incalculable.

The first English translation of the correspondence between two composers and friends.Desire-Emile Inghelbrecht was a conductor and composer. His friendship with Claude Debussy began in 1911 (although they had met previously), and he soon became one of the Master's closest friends. This book is the first publication, in the original French and in English translation, of the correspondence between these two musicians. Beginning rather formally in 1912, with the salutation "e;Mon cher Inghelbrecht,"e; the correspondence soon became much moreintimate, with Debussy addressing Inghelbrecht as "e;Mon cher ami"e; or "e;Cher Inghel."e; Although Debussy had a reputation for being cold and distant and for avoiding strangers, this was just his way of maintaining his privacy. This aloofness enabled him to express in private the warmth he felt toward those few close friends whose intimacy he needed and cherished. Inghelbrecht was in the forefront of this group. Their friendship was based not only on a mutual respect for each other's talents as artists and musicians, but also on the sharing of intimate secrets and warm feelings. Inghelbrecht's wife would later write that her husband retained the mark Debussy left on him. "e;For him, he was a beacon, a guide. And he had the deep joy of being able, up until his last days, to bring to life with passion, with all his talent-the works of a man who had been for a few years his friend."e; Margaret G. Cobb, the"e;doyenne of Debussy scholars,"e; brings to life these two talented men. She enriches Richard Miller's idiomatic translation of the letters with copious notes and wonderful illustrations to illuminate a great musical friendship. Margaret G. Cobb is also the author of The Poetic Debussy, available from the University of Rochester Press. In 2002 she was awarded the title of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government'sMinistere de la Culture et de la Communication.

The first English work dealing in detail with the life and musical influences of the Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975).Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975) was one of the most important Italian composers of the twentieth century. As well as writing several operas, he composed a large number of works in which the human voice, whether in solo or in chorus, plays an important role. Dallapiccola also set texts by writers as diverse as James Joyce, Salvatore Quasimodo, Antonio Machado, Goethe, and Heine. This book is the first in English to deal with Dallapiccola as a whole, from thefirst, hesitant vocal compositions of his student years up to the works of his last decade, in which Italian lyricism is combined with great formal rigor. The author suggests that Dallapiccola should be understood not only as aninfluential figure in the post-war developments of Italian music, but also as one who renewed and revitalized the older traditions of Italian music. Raymond Fearn is Professor of Music at Keele University.

This long-awaited study explores the creation of NBC-TV's landmark 1952-53 WWII documentary series, with particular attention to its evocative Rodgers-Bennett score.

The first study to explore the crucial influence of Kurt Weill on operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein.

The first feminist analysis of some of the most performed works in the American-opera canon, emphasizing the voices and perspectives of the sopranos who brought these operas to life.

A curated collection of Enlightenment operas, paintings, and literary works that were all marked by the "Telemacomania" scandal, a furious cultural frenzy with dangerous political stakes.

This 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).