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The National Party Chairmen and Committees: Factionalism at the Top
by Andrew GoldmanThis study traces the history of the national committee chairmanships of the two major political parties in the United States, emphasizing the national conventions and presidential campaigns - where national factions often reveal themselves. Candidate and ideolological factionalism, as the evidence of this volume demonstrates, has been the principal engine of convention action. Factional conflicts have had consequences not just for the political parties but for the party system itself. The institutional history of the two national committees and their chairmanships reveals a previously unrecorded aspect of United States national party development.
The Natural Mystics: Marley, Tosh, and Wailer
by Colin GrantThe definitive group biography of the Wailers--Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Livingston--chronicling their rise to fame and power. Over one dramatic decade, a trio of Trenchtown R&B crooners swapped their 1960s Brylcreem hairdos and two-tone suits for 1970s battle fatigues and dreadlocks to become the Wailers--one of the most influential groups in popular music. Colin Grant presents a lively history of this remarkable band from their upbringing in the brutal slums of Kingston to their first recordings and then international superstardom. With energetic prose and stunning, original research, Grant argues that these reggae stars offered three models for black men in the second half of the twentieth century: accommodate and succeed (Marley), fight and die (Tosh), or retreat and live (Livingston). Grant meets with Rastafarian elders, Obeah men (witch doctors), and other folk authorities as he attempts to unravel the mysteries of Jamaica's famously impenetrable culture. Much more than a top-flight music biography, The Natural Mystics offers a sophisticated understanding of Jamaican politics, heritage, race, and religion--a portrait of a seminal group during a period of exuberant cultural evolution.
The Nature of Nordic Music
by Tim HowellThe Nature of Nordic Music explores two distinctive yet complementary understandings of the term ‘nature’: the inherent features, characters and qualities of contemporary Nordic music, and how the elemental forces of nature, the phenomena of the physical world (landscape, climate, environment), inspire and condition creativity here. Within a broader debate about the meaning of ‘Nordicness’, 12 case studies challenge our assumptions about a ‘Nordic tone’ to reveal a creative energy that is diverse and cosmopolitan in outlook. Each of the three parts of the book – ‘Identities’, ‘Images’ and ‘Environments’ – accommodates an eclectic array of musical genres (classical, popular, jazz, folk, electronic). This book will appeal to anyone interested in Nordic music and culture, especially students and researchers.
The Neapolitan Creative Economy: The Growth of the Music Market and Creative Sector in Naples, 17th–19th Centuries (Palgrave Studies in Economic History)
by Rossella Del PreteThis book analyses the emergence and growth of the creative sector in Naples between the early modern and modern eras, focusing particularly on the development of music markets in the city. From the seventeenth century, Naples became one of the most culturally enriched regions in the Italian peninsula, with internationally known music schools, theatres and opera venues attracting visitors from across Europe in a burgeoning tourist market. This book sheds light on the driving economic factors and political contexts behind this key case study for the early growth of the opera and music sector in Europe. Starting with a discussion of the value of economic history to understanding cultural industries, the chapters approach this analysis through multiple lenses: the formation of human capital as the result of Naples’ institutional urban welfare system; the role of cultural consumption as it evolved from a primarily religious activity to growing popular demand; and the rolethat central city authorities played in encouraging cultural activity through private investment and public policy. The book also draws on fascinating archival research to examine the contribution of Naples’ music conservatories in the local creative economy. This book is a valuable resource to a broad range of readers, including those working in economic history, tourism history, the history of music and theatre, Italian social history and more.
The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies from Rock 'n' Roll to Synthwave
by Nate PatrinHow the creative use of pop music in film—think Saturday Night Fever or Apocalypse Now—has shaped and shifted music history since the 1960s Quick: What movie do you think of when you hear &“The Sounds of Silence&”? Better yet, what song comes to mind when you think of The Graduate? The link between film and song endures as more than a memory, Nate Patrin suggests with this wide-ranging and energetic book. It is, in fact, a sort of cultural symbiosis that has mutually influenced movies and pop music, a phenomenon Patrin tracks through the past fifty years, revealing the power of music in movies to move the needle in popular culture. Rock &’n&’ roll, reggae, R&B, jazz, techno, and hip-hop: each had its moment—or many—as music deployed in movies emerged as a form of interpretive commentary, making way for the legitimization of pop and rock music as art forms worthy of serious consideration. These commentaries run the gamut from comedic irony to cheap-thrills excitement to deeply felt drama, all of which Patrin examines in pairings such as American Graffiti and &“Do You Want to Dance?&”; Saturday Night Fever and &“Disco Inferno&”; Apocalypse Now and &“The End&”; Wayne&’s World and &“Bohemian Rhapsody&”; and Jackie Brown and &“Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time?&”. What gives power to these individual moments, and how have they shaped and shifted music history, recasting source material or even stirring wider interest in previously niche pop genres? As Patrin surveys the scene—musical and cinematic—across the decades, expanding into the deeper origins, wider connections, and echoed histories that come into play, The Needle and the Lens offers a new way of seeing, and hearing, these iconic soundtrack moments.
The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance (Music in American Life)
by Michael F. ScullyIn recent years, there has been an upsurge in interest in "roots music" and "world music," popular forms that fuse contemporary sounds with traditional vernacular styles. In the 1950s and 1960s, the music industry characterized similar sounds simply as "folk music." Focusing on such music since the 1950s, The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance analyzes the intrinsic contradictions of a commercialized folk culture. Both Rounder Records and the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance have sought to make folk music widely available, while simultaneously respecting its defining traditions and unique community atmosphere. By tracing the histories of these organizations, Michael F. Scully examines the ongoing controversy surrounding the profitability of folk music. He explores the lively debates about the difficulty of making commercially accessible music, honoring tradition, and remaining artistically relevant, all without "selling out." In the late 1950s through the 1960s, the folk music revival pervaded the mainstream music industry, with artists such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez singing historically or politically informed ballads based on musical forms from Appalachia and the South. In the twenty-first century, the revival continues, and it includes a variety of music derived from Cajun, African American, and Mexican traditions, among many others. Even though the mainstream music industry and media largely ignore the term "folk music," a strong allure based on nostalgia, the desire for community, and a sense of exclusiveness augments an enthusiastic following connected by word-of-mouth, numerous festivals, and the Internet. There are more folk festivals now than there were during the original boom of the 1960s, suggesting that music artists, agents, and record label representatives are striking a successful balance between tradition and profitability. Scully combines rich interviews of music executives and practicing folk musicians with valuable personal experience to reveal how this American subculture remains in a "never-ending revival" based on fluid definitions of folk and folk music.
The New Age of Electronic Dance Music and Club Culture (Music Business Research)
by Martin Lücke Anita JóriThis book offers a comprehensive overview of electronic dance music (EDM) and club culture. To do so, it interlinks a broad range of disciplines, revealing their (at times vastly) differing standpoints on the same subject. Scholars from such diverse fields as cultural studies, economics, linguistics, media studies, musicology, philosophy, and sociology share their perspectives. In addition, the book features articles by practitioners who have been active on the EDM scene for many years and discuss issues like gender and diversity problems in general, and the effects of gentrification on club culture in Berlin. Although the book’s main focus is on Berlin, one of the key centers of EDM and club culture, its findings can also be applied to other hotspots. Though primarily intended for researchers and students, the book will benefit all readers interested in obtaining an interdisciplinary overview of research on electronic dance music.
The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World
by Damon KrukowskiAn NPR Best Book of the Year: &“A pointedly passionate look at what&’s been lost in the digital era.&” —Los Angeles Times A longtime musician and former member of the indie band Galaxie 500 who has also taught at Harvard, Damon Krukowski has watched cultural life lurch from analog to digital. And as an artist who has weathered that transition, he has challenging, urgent questions for both creators and consumers about what we have thrown away in the process: Are our devices leaving us lost in our own headspace even as they pinpoint our location? Does the long reach of digital communication come at the sacrifice of our ability to gauge social distance? Does streaming media discourage us from listening closely? Are we hearing each other fully in this new environment? Rather than simply rejecting the digital disruption of cultural life, Krukowski uses the sound engineer&’s distinction of signal and noise to reexamine what we have lost as a technological culture, looking carefully at what was valuable in the analog realm so we can hold on to it. Taking a set of experiences from the production and consumption of music that have changed since the analog era—the disorientation of headphones, flattening of the voice, silence of media, loudness of mastering, and manipulation of time—as a basis for a broader exploration of contemporary culture, Krukowski gives us a brilliant meditation and guide to keeping our heads amid the digital flux. Think of it as plugging in without tuning out. &“This is not a book about why vinyl sounds better; it&’s way more interesting than that . . . [It] is full of things I didn&’t know, like why people yell into cellphones . . . Ultimately, it&’s about how we consume sound as a society—which is, increasingly, on an individual basis.&” —NPR &“If you&’re a devoted music fan who&’s dubious about both rosy nostalgia and futuristic utopianism, Damon Krukowski&’s The New Analog is for you.&” —The New York Times Book Review
The New Believers Hymn Book
by John Ritchie LtdThis is the revised edition (2019) of an old hymn book first produced in 1884 in Scotland. As that first edition was titled The Believers Hymnbook, this new revision is called The New Believers Hymnbook. It is a non-denominational words-only collection of 700 Christian hymns for singing or for inspirational reading. In this new edition you'll find 39 hymns by Isaac Y. Ewan, 32 hymns by William Kirkpatrick, 25 hymns by James G. Deck, 21 hymns by Fanny J. Crosby, 18 by Thomas Kelly, 17 hymns by Horatius Bonar, 16 hymns by Charles Wesley, and 13 hymns each by Isaac Watts, Mary Peters, John N. Darby. Even Anonymous contributed 31 hymns! All hymns are produced in poetry style and are arranged alphabetically by first line. There is a subject index, a first-lines index, an authors index and a metrical index. Hymn titles have no punctuation but names and pronouns referring to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are capitalized. If you keep this in mind, you should be able to search by name for a hymn you want to sing. With this collection on your paperless Braille device (including the free NLS eReader), you can lead or participate in a hymn sing. In the DAISY format, each hymn has a mark at level 1 so you can easily navigate from hymn to hymn. In a BRF file, Bookshare software will create a lengthy table of contents followed by the text of the hymnal. For other hymn collections on Bookshare see also Gospel Hymn Book; The United Methodist Hymnal, Glory to God (Presbyterian), Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELCA), and Lutheran Servicebook: Psalms and Hymns (Missouri Synod). For texts of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, see The Church Cantatas of J. S. Bach by Alec Robinson (with commentary), and Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Cantatas in German-English translations by Richard Stokes.
The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950–1999 (American Made Music Series)
by Richard J. RipaniRhythm & blues emerged from the African American community in the late 1940s to become the driving force in American popular music over the next half-century. Although sometimes called “doo-wop,” “soul,” “funk,” “urban contemporary,” or “hip-hop,” R&B is actually an umbrella category that includes all of these styles and genres. It is in fact a modern-day incarnation of a musical tradition that stretches back to nineteenth-century America, and even further to African beginnings. The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950-1999 traces the development of R&B from 1950 to 1999 by closely analyzing the top twenty-five songs of each decade. The music of artists as wide-ranging as Louis Jordan; John Lee Hooker; Ray Charles; James Brown; Earth, Wind & Fire; Michael Jackson; Public Enemy; Mariah Carey; and Usher takes center stage as the author illustrates how R&B has not only retained its traditional core style, but has also experienced a “re-Africanization” over time. By investigating musical elements of form, style, and content in R&B—and offering numerous musical examples—the book shows the connection between R&B and other forms of American popular and religious music, such as spirituals, ragtime, blues, jazz, country, gospel, and rock 'n' roll. With this evidence in hand, the author hypothesizes the existence of an even larger musical “super-genre” which he labels “The New Blue Music.”
The New Bruckner: Compositional Development and the Dynamics of Revision
by Dermot GaultThe New Bruckner provides a valuable study of Bruckner's music, focusing on the interaction of biography, textual scholarship, reception history and analysis. Dr Dermot Gault conveys a broad chronological narrative of Bruckner's compositional development, interpolating analytical commentaries on the works and critical accounts of the notoriously complex and editorial issues. Gault corrects longstanding misconceptions about the composer's revision process, and its relationship with the early editions and widely-held critical opinions. Bruckner's constantly evolving engagement with symphonic form is traced by taking each revision in due order, rather than by taking each symphony on its own, and by relating the symphonies to other mature works such as the Te Deum, the three great Masses, and the Quintet, and argues that Bruckner's music became more organic and less schematic as the result of his revisions. The book will be essential reading for those studying Bruckner's compositions, the complex history of their reception, and late Romantic music in general.
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Music
by Bill C. MaloneSouthern music has flourished as a meeting ground for the traditions of West African and European peoples in the region, leading to the evolution of various traditional folk genres, bluegrass, country, jazz, gospel, rock, blues, and southern hip-hop. This much-anticipated volume in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture celebrates an essential element of southern life and makes available for the first time a stand-alone reference to the music and music makers of the American South.With nearly double the number of entries devoted to music in the original Encyclopedia, this volume includes 30 thematic essays, covering topics such as ragtime, zydeco, folk music festivals, minstrelsy, rockabilly, white and black gospel traditions, and southern rock. And it features 174 topical and biographical entries, focusing on artists and musical outlets. From Mahalia Jackson to R.E.M., from Doc Watson to OutKast, this volume considers a diverse array of topics, drawing on the best historical and contemporary scholarship on southern music. It is a book for all southerners and for all serious music lovers, wherever they live.
The New German Cinema: Music, History, and the Matter of Style
by Caryl FlinnWhen New German cinema directors like R. W. Fassbinder, Ulrike Ottinger, and Werner Schroeter explored issues of identity--national, political, personal, and sexual--music and film style played crucial roles. Most studies of the celebrated film movement, however, have sidestepped the role of music, a curious oversight given its importance to German culture and nation formation. Caryl Flinn's study reverses this trend, identifying styles of historical remembrance in which music participates. Flinn concentrates on those styles that urge listeners to interact with difference--including that embodied in Germany's difficult history--rather than to "master" or "get past" it. Flinn breaks new ground by considering contemporary reception frameworks of the New German Cinema, a generation after its end. She discusses transnational, cultural, and historical contexts as well as the sexual, ethnic, national, and historical diversity of audiences. Through detailed case studies, she shows how music helps filmgoers engage with a range of historical subjects and experiences. Each chapter ofThe New German Cinemaexamines a particular stylistic strategy, assessing music's role in each. The study also examines queer strategies like kitsch and camp and explores the movement's charged construction of human bodies on which issues of ruination, survival, memory, and pleasure are played out.
The New Grove: Handel
by Winton DeanBiography of George Frederick Handel, including a comprehensive worklist and bibliography, in addition to the definitive view of Handel's life and works.
The New Grove: Haydn
by Jens Peter LarsenBiography of Franz Joseph Haydn, including a comprehensive worklist and bibliography, in addition to the definitive view of Haydn's life and works.
The New Guitarscape in Critical Theory, Cultural Practice and Musical Performance (Ashgate Popular And Folk Music Ser.)
by Kevin DaweIn The New Guitarscape, Kevin Dawe argues for a re-assessment of guitar studies in the light of more recent musical, social, cultural and technological developments that have taken place around the instrument. The author considers that a detailed study of the guitar in both contemporary and cross-cultural perspectives is now absolutely essential and that such a study must also include discussion of a wide range of theoretical issues, literature, musical cultures and technologies as they come to bear upon the instrument. Dawe presents a synthesis of previous work on the guitar, but also expands the terms by which the guitar might be studied. Moreover, in order to understand the properties and potential of the guitar as an agent of music, culture and society, the author draws from studies in science and technology, design theory, material culture, cognition, sensual culture, gender and sexuality, power and agency, ethnography (real and virtual) and globalization. Dawe presents the guitar as an instrument of scientific investigation and part of the technology of globalization, created and disseminated through corporate culture and cottage industry, held close to the body but taken away from the body in cyberspace, and involved in an enormous variety of cultural interactions and political exchanges in many different contexts around the world. In an effort to understand the significance and meaning of the guitar in the lives of those who may be seen to be closest to it, as well as providing a critically-informed discussion of various approaches to guitar performance, technologies and techniques, the book includes discussion of the work of a wide range of guitarists, including Robert Fripp, Kamala Shankar, Newton Faulkner, Lionel Loueke, Sharon Isbin, Steve Vai, Bob Brozman, Kaki King, Fred Frith, John 5, Jennifer Batten, Guthrie Govan, Dominic Frasca, I Wayan Balawan, Vicki Genfan and Hasan Cihatter.
The New Music Therapist's Handbook
by Suzanne B. HanserLearn essential concepts and practices for providing music therapy. The New Music Therapist's Handbook has been an essential guide for music therapists worldwide since the 1990s. You will learn state of the art, data-driven approaches to providing care in a wide variety of therapeutic contexts. These practices are based on the most up-to-date science and experiences of thousands of patients and clients. Through detailed discussions of research and practice, case studies, strategies, and clinical approaches, you will learn how music therapy is a uniquely effective approach. In this third edition, Dr. Hanser's essential handbook has been updated and expanded to reflect the latest developments in healthcare and education. It includes valuable information for both students and professionals, particularly in meeting the competencies of the Board Certification for Music Therapy and standards of practice for the American Music Therapy Association.
The New Orleans Jazz Scene, 1970-2000: A Personal Retrospective
by Thomas W. JacobsenIn 1966, journalist Charles Suhor wrote that New Orleans jazz was "ready for its new Golden Age." Thomas W. Jacobsen's The New Orleans Jazz Scene, 1970-2000 chronicles the resurgence of jazz music in the Crescent City in the years following Suhor's prophetic claim. Jacobsen, a New Orleans resident and longtime jazz aficionado, offers a wide-ranging history of the New Orleans jazz renaissance in the last three decades of the twentieth century, weaving local musical developments into the larger context of the national jazz scene.Jacobsen vividly evokes the changing face of the New Orleans jazz world at the close of the twentieth century. Drawing from an array of personal experiences and his own exhaustive research, he discusses leading musicians and bands, both traditionalists and modernists, as well as major performance venues and festivals. The city's musical infrastructure does not go overlooked, as Jacobsen delves into New Orleans's music business, its jazz media, and the evolution of jazz edu-cation at public schools and universities. With a trove of more than seventy photographs of key players and performances, The New Orleans Jazz Scene, 1970-2000 offers a vibrant and fascinating portrait of the musical genre that defines New Orleans.
The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs
by Steve Roud Julia BishopOne of the Spectator's Books of the Year 2012'Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladiesFarewell and adieu to you ladies of SpainFor we've received orders for to sail for old EnglandBut we hope in a short while to see you again'One of the great English popular art forms, the folk song can be painful, satirical, erotic, dramatic, rueful or funny. They have thrived when sung on a whim to a handful of friends in a pub; they have bewitched generations of English composers who have set them for everything from solo violin to full orchestra; they are sung in concerts, festivals, weddings, funerals and with nobody to hear but the singer.This magical new collection brings together all the classic folk songs as well as many lesser-known discoveries, complete with music and annotations on their original sources and meaning. Published in cooperation with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, it is a worthy successor to Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd's original Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.'Her keen eye did glitter like the bright stars by nightThe robe she was wearing was costly and whiteHer bare neck was shaded with her long raven hairAnd they called her pretty Susan, the pride of Kildare'In association with EFDSS, the English Folk Dance and Song Society
The New Pocket Kobbé's Opera Book
by Earl Of HarwoodThe New Pocket Kobbe's Complete Opera Book is the world's leading reference work on opera, and (in the words of Bernard Levin) 'no single-volume operatic guide can possibly compare with it'. Kobbe is the only book which summaries the libretti of the world's opera, describes their music and gives a history of their performance within a single volume. But it is a large and relatively expensive book. The new pocket edition, at a price accessible to the huge new audience for opera, has been redesigned and extended, existing entries have been rewritten, and new operas included. The total number of works covered is now over 200, including important new works like John Adams Nixon in China, Harrison Birtwistle's Gawain and Thomas Ades's Powder Her Face, and a number of half-forgotten works that are now undergoing revival. Unlike the previous edition, it is now simply arranged, alphabetically by composer. Lord Harewood's strongly individual commentaries, together with his unparalleled knowledge of and enthusiasm for opera, make the New Pocket Kobbe a book no opera-goer can afford to be without.
The New Shudder: About the Fantastic of Musical Romanticism
by Christian Kämpf"It is a new shudder, but not an old fear." Jean Paul's sentence contains an aesthetic of the fantastic in nuce. It is based not least on the philosophy of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and aims at the essence of Romanticism. In addition to works by Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Wagner, the Romantic magic opera by Spohr, Weber and Marschner are placed in the centre of interest against this background, as well as the music-aesthetic discourse accompanying them, which was led by Tieck, Hoffmann and Horn, A. B. Marx, Brendel and Pohl, are analysed. Contrary to the tradition of musicological research, which, if not taboo, at least trivialised the fantastic, Kämpf arrives at a new understanding of musical Romanticism, according to which it does not lose its affiliation with modernity and its impact on the present because of the fantastic, but only gains it.
The New Songwriter's Guide to Music Publishing - 3rd Edition
by Randy PoeProvides insider knowledge and advice that's easy to understand, so songwriters can get the best deals for their songs.
The New York Schools of Music and the Visual Arts
by Willem De Kooning John Cage Morton Feldman Edgard Varèse Jasper Johns Robert RauschenbergMusicians and artists have always shared mutual interests and exchanged theories of art and creativity. This exchange climaxed just after World War II, when a group of New York-based musicians, including John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and David Tudor, formed friendships with a group of painters. The latter group, now known collectively as either the New York School or the Abstract Expressionists, included Jackson Pollock, Willem deKooning, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Phillip Guston, and William Baziotes. The group also included a younger generation of artists-particularly Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns-that stood somewhat apart from the Abstract Expressionists. This group of painters created what is arguably the first significant American movement in the visual arts. Inspired by the artists, the New York School composers accomplished a similar feat. By the beginning of the 1960s, the New York Schools of art and music had assumed a position of leadership in the world of art. For anyone interested in the development of 20th century art, music, and culture, The New York Schools of Music and Art will make for illuminating reading.
The New York Times Essential Library: Classical Music
by Allan KozinnA dazzling appraisal of the definitive classical music performances available todayFor classical music lovers, there is nothing more beguiling and exciting than the range of technique and emotion that can capture or transform the great works in the hands of a conductor and musicians. But with hundreds of recordings released every year, discovering the jewels is a challenge, for newcomers as well as for connoisseurs.New York Times classical music critic Allan Kozinn offers the ultimate collector's guide, packed with a rich history of the composers and performers who stir our souls. From Bach's eloquent Goldberg Variations performed by master pianist Glenn Gould at the beginning and end of his career in startlingly different interpretations, to a lyrical performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade conducted by Kiril Kondrashin shortly after his defection from the Soviet Union, Kozinn places each work in the greater context of musical development and stretches the listener's understanding of each pivotal composition. These original essays on the one hundred greatest recorded classical works provide both practical guidance for building a library and deep insight into the transcendent power of music itself.
The New York Times Essential Library: Opera (The New York Times Essential Library)
by Anthony TommasiniAn insightful, provocative selection of the best opera performances, chosen by The New York Times's chief classical music critic in one hundred original essaysOpera intertwines the drama of the theater with the powerful emotionality of music. In this magical and illuminating guide to the best opera recordings, Anthony Tommasini delves into the ways story and music interweave to create the subtle but telling moments that move us. Tommasini brings to life the rich history of opera performance and the singers and conductors who, over the past century, have come to own the music. He chooses masterworks, such as Arturo Toscanini's La Boheme, captured for posterity fifty years after he conducted the opera's 1896 premiere for Puccini, and Leontyne Price's Leonora in Il Trovatore, an encapsulation of the ideal Verdi soprano. For aficionados and newcomers alike, Tommasini is the perfect guide to the passions and playfulness of the opera.