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Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved
by Russell MartinReaders will follow the strange, yet true, journey made by a lock of Ludwig van Beethovens hair from the time it was clipped from the composers head on his deathbed in Germany in 1827 to a World War II refugee safe house in Denmark in 1943 to its eventual sale at auction in 1994. From this lock of hair, scientists were able to discover the cause of Beethovens death, a question that had long puzzled scientists and musicologists.
Beethoven's Heroic Symphony (Once Upon a Masterpiece #4)
by Anna Harwell CelenzaDiscover the little-known story of Beethoven's beloved masterwork. As the best pianist in Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven had everything: talent, money, fame. But he also had a terrible secret. He was slowly going deaf. Though his hearing deserted him, the maestro never lost his music. Seeking inspiration for his compositions, Beethoven hit upon Napoleon Bonaparte, then considered a liberator and a folk hero. Soon after Beethoven completed the work, Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France; betrayed and enraged, Beethoven tore his copy of the score to pieces. But his friend Ferdinand rescued a copy, and in time, Beethoven renamed it Eroica: the Heroic Symphony, dedicated to hero in each and every one of us.
Beethoven's Letters
by Ludwig Van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), the protagonist of freedom for music, disentangled music from the control of the ruling class. In publishing his music and writing for the rising classes, Beethoven claimed freedom and expressed the emotions of the new rulers, the artists. The Eroica, Fidelio, and the piano works express the emotions of the new rulers -- the intense love, the need for companionship of people, the forces that conspired to defeat the artist, and the strength and superiority of the artist in overcoming the weaknesses. The letters of Beethoven are the principal nonmusical expression of his personality in its relationship with the world of his time.In what he called the "dry letters of the alphabet," Beethoven depicted his fears, his loves, and his friendly relations: his fears of deafness and of corrupted texts by pirating printers; his loves, Bettina Brentano and Giulietta Guicciardi; and his friendly relations with Baron Zmeskall, Frau Nannette Streicher, and the music publishers Steiner and Company. He praises the poetry of Goethe and Schiller but condemns Goethe for his obeisance toward royalty. He solicits help during his perpetual trouble with his health and with his servants. He castigates publishers, sets prices for his works, and calculates letters of dedication. He expresses his love for his nephew, Carl, but documents the trouble that Carl was causing him by taking up his precious time. And although Beethoven liked to decorate the letters with musical openings and closings and an occasional song to the receiver, he increasingly signed his letters, "In haste."The 457 letters collected here are the most important of the letters of the spirit that was to shape and move a century. Explanatory notes comment upon works, on persons mentioned, and on the puns of which Beethoven was fond. The letters chronicle his business, his needs, his humor and bitterness, and his philosophy. They will give many insights into Beethoven's methods, his influences, his moods, and the conditions under which the master worked.
Beethoven's Piano Playing: With an Essay on the Execution of the Trill
by Anton Kuerti Franz KullakOriginally written as an introduction to a critical edition of Beethoven's piano concertos, this informative performance guide is the work of an accomplished pianist, composer, and conductor. Franz Kullak presents more than 100 annotated and analyzed musical examples along with biographical information about the composer and general rules for the performance of the concertos. In addition, a separate essay offers pointers on the proper execution of the trill. Suitable for intermediate- and advanced-level pianists, this volume is newly edited and supplemented with additional examples by celebrated concert pianist and composer Anton Kuerti, who provides an informative Introduction with musical examples.
Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion
by Charles RosenBeethoven’s piano sonatas form one of the most important collections of works in the whole history of music. Spanning several decades of his life as a composer, the sonatas soon came to be seen as the first body of substantial serious works for piano suited to performance in large concert halls seating hundreds of people.In this comprehensive and authoritative guide, Charles Rosen places the works in context and provides an understanding of the formal principles involved in interpreting and performing this unique repertoire, covering such aspects as sonata form, phrasing, and tempo, as well as the use of pedal and trills. In the second part of his book, he looks at the sonatas individually, from the earliest works of the 1790s through the sonatas of Beethoven’s youthful popularity of the early 1800s, the subsequent years of mastery, the years of stress (1812†“1817), and the last three sonatas of the 1820s.Composed as much for private music-making as public recital, Beethoven’s sonatas have long formed a bridge between the worlds of the salon and the concert hall. For today’s audience, Rosen has written a guide that brings out the gravity, passion, and humor of these works and will enrich the appreciation of a wide range of readers, whether listeners, amateur musicians, or professional pianists.The book includes a CD of Rosen performing extracts from several of the sonatas, illustrating points made in the text.
Beethoven's Skull: Dark, Strange, and Fascinating Tales from the World of Classical Music and Beyond
by Tim RaybornBeethoven's Skull is an unusual and often humorous survey of the many strange happenings in the history of Western classical music. Proving that good music and shocking tabloid-style stories make excellent bedfellows, it presents tales of revenge, murder, curious accidents, and strange fates that span more than two thousand years. Highlights include: A cursed song that kills those who hear it A composer who lovingly cradles the head of Beethoven's corpse when his remains are exhumed half a century after his death A fifteenth-century German poet who sings of the real-life Dracula A dream of the devil that inspires a virtuoso violin pieceUnlike many music books that begin their histories with the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, Beethoven's Skull takes the reader back to the world of ancient Greece and Rome, progressing through the Middle Ages and all the way into the twentieth century. It also looks at myths and legends, superstitions, and musical mysteries, detailing the ways that musicians and their peers have been rather horrible to one another over the centuries.
Beethoven's Symphonies: Nine Approaches to Art and Ideas
by Martin Geck Stewart SpencerIn the years spanning from 1800 to 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven completed nine symphonies, now considered among the greatest masterpieces of Western music. Yet despite the fact that this time period, located in the wake of the Enlightenment and at the peak of romanticism, was one of rich intellectual exploration and social change, the influence of such threads of thought on Beethoven’s work has until now remained hidden beneath the surface of the notes. Beethoven’s Symphonies presents a fresh look at the great composer’s approach and the ideas that moved him, offering a lively account of the major themes unifying his radically diverse output. Martin Geck opens the book with an enthralling series of cultural, political, and musical motifs that run throughout the symphonies. A leading theme is Beethoven’s intense intellectual and emotional engagement with the figure of Napoleon, an engagement that survived even Beethoven’s disappointment with Napoleon’s decision to be crowned emperor in 1804. Geck also delves into the unique ways in which Beethoven approached beginnings and finales in his symphonies, as well as his innovative use of particular instruments. He then turns to the individual symphonies, tracing elements—a pitch, a chord, a musical theme—that offer a new way of thinking about each work and will make even the most devoted fans of Beethoven admire the symphonies anew. Offering refreshingly inventive readings of the work of one of history’s greatest composers, this book shapes a fascinating picture of the symphonies as a cohesive oeuvre and of Beethoven as a master symphonist.
Beethoven's Symphonies: An Artistic Vision
by Lewis LockwoodAn exploration of the unswerving artistic vision underlying Beethoven’s symphonies, from one of the world’s leading scholars of the composer’s works. More than any other composer, Beethoven left to posterity a vast body of material that documents the early stages of almost everything he wrote. From this trove of sketchbooks, Lewis Lockwood draws us into the composer’s mind, unveiling a creative process of astonishing scope and originality. For musicians and nonmusicians alike, Beethoven’s symphonies stand at the summit of artistic achievement, loved today as they were two hundred years ago for their emotional cogency, variety, and unprecedented individuality. Beethoven labored to complete nine of them over his lifetime—a quarter of Mozart’s output and a tenth of Haydn’s—yet no musical works are more iconic, more indelibly stamped on the memory of anyone who has heard them. They are the products of an imagination that drove the composer to build out of the highest musical traditions of the past something startlingly new. Lockwood brings to bear a long career of studying the surviving sources that yield insight into Beethoven’s creative work, including concept sketches for symphonies that were never finished. From these, Lockwood offers fascinating revelations into the historical and biographical circumstances in which the symphonies were composed. In this compelling story of Beethoven’s singular ambition, Lockwood introduces readers to the symphonies as individual artworks, broadly tracing their genesis against the backdrop of political upheavals, concert life, and their relationship to his major works in other genres. From the first symphonies, written during his emerging deafness, to the monumental Ninth, Lockwood brings to life Beethoven’s lifelong passion to compose works of unsurpassed beauty.
Beethoven's Symphonies: A Guided Tour
by John Bell YoungThe latest release in this value rich book/CD series brings us the great German composer who bridged the classical and romantic eras. In Beethoven's Symphonies: A Guided Tour, readers are treated to a detailed nuts-and-bolts description in easy-to-understand English of each of the famous nine Beethoven symphonies. This book is perfect for anyone who wants to read, listen, and learn more about Beethoven (1770-1827), and discover how this musical genius changed the face of orchestral music forever.
Beethoven's Symphonies Arranged for the Chamber: Sociability, Reception, and Canon Formation
by Nancy NovemberEarly nineteenth-century composers, publishers and writers evolved influential ideals of Beethoven's symphonies as untouchable masterpieces. Meanwhile, many and various arrangements of symphonies, principally for amateur performers, supported diverse and 'hands-on' cultivation of the same works. Now mostly forgotten, these arrangements served a vital function in nineteenth-century musical life, extending works' meanings and reach, especially to women in the home. This book places domestic music-making back into the history of the classical symphony. It investigates a largely untapped wealth of early nineteenth-century arrangements of symphonies by Beethoven - for piano, string quartet, mixed quintet and other ensembles. The study focuses on three key agents in the nineteenth-century culture of musical arrangement: arrangers, publishers and performers. It investigates significant functions of those musical arrangements in the era: sociability, reception and canon formation. The volume also explores how conceptions of Beethoven's symphonies, and their arrangement, changed across the era with changing conception of musical works.
Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets
by Nancy NovemberBeethoven's middle-period quartets, Opp. 59, 74 and 95, are pieces that engage deeply with the aesthetic ideas of their time. In the first full contextual study of these works, Nancy November celebrates their uniqueness, exploring their reception history and early performance. In detailed analyses, she explores ways in which the quartets have both reflected and shaped the very idea of chamber music and offers a new historical understanding of the works' physical, visual, social and ideological aspects. In the process, November provides a fresh critique of three key paradigms in current Beethoven studies: the focus on his late period; the emphasis on 'heroic' style in discussions of the middle period; and the idea of string quartets as 'pure', 'autonomous' artworks, cut off from social moorings. Importantly, this study shows that the quartets encompass a new lyric and theatrical impetus, which is an essential part of their unique, explorative character.
Before and After Corroboree: The Music Of John Antill
by David SymonsJohn Antill (1904-1986) was one of the foremost composers of Australia's post-colonial period. Although a relatively prolific and much esteemed composer in Australia, Antill's wider reputation is sustained chiefly by his famous ballet Corroboree - a work which was perceived to bring an authentic Australian musical style before both a national and international audience for the first time. Through Sir Eugene Goossens' championship, the work was heard by enthusiastic audiences in Australia, Britain, Europe and the USA, and was, for many years, the best-known work of any Australian-born and resident composer. Indeed it has remained, for both Australian and overseas audiences, an Australian musical icon. David Symons traces Antill's development as a composer from his early, pre-Corroboree works, which display a late Romantic to post-impressionist style, through an analysis of the virile, dissonant, primitivist idiom of his magnum opus, to an examination of his later output of theatrical, orchestral and vocal/choral works. The book provides comprehensive and valuable insight into Antill's musical output, at the same time focussing on more detailed analyses of his major works which have reached public performances and/or recordings. In this way the book not only presents a developmental picture of Antill's works, but also demonstrates why they have made him one of Australia's most prominent musical creators of the post-colonial period.
Before The Chop
by Henry RollinsI have been living in Los Angeles for over thirty years. Since 1981, when I first arrived to now, the LA Weekly has had an ubiquitous presence in the city.Years ago, in the back of the Weekly, there was a gossip column that had a revolving cast of contributors who sent in their reportage to fill the page. For some reason, these people would use me as a figure of fun and made sport of me quite often. Even up to a few years ago, I would get an e-mail from someone asking me if I had read about what was said about me in the LA Weekly.And then, in August of 2010, Shelley Leopold and Gustavo Turner, two very good people at the LA Weekly, asked if I would like to be a contributor with an occasional feature or editorial. Since it was them asking, I said sure.I started out posting a dispatch on the LA Weekly site later that month. My primary goal was to get out the play list for my Saturday night radio show on KCRW FM. In November of 2010, Gustavo asked me if I wanted to interview Nick Cave about his Grinderman II album and turn it in as a feature. I said yes. I believe that was my first time being in the print version.Early the following year, Gustavo said he really liked one of the things I had posted and wanted to put it in the print version to see what the response was. He did and people seemed to like it. He asked me to contribute on a weekly basis. I have been doing that since February of 2011.Anger is my motivation for writing the column. To Ms. Molyneaux and the like, I'm some jackoff named Shecky. Believe me, I got it and I never forget. When I read something like the example I provided, I cannot explain to you how much it inspires me. Turned on doesn't even begin to cover it. It reminds me that I have eaten more kinds of shit than they will ever have to and I am still here. This is why I overachieve. I live to bury people like this.I have no idea how long this job will last. I keep sending pieces in and they keep printing them. So far, it's been a good thing.Due to space limits, the editor must trim the piece and often sees fit to change the title I sent in to something I would never say. I don't mind any of this. I know the editors have a job to do, and ultimately, my version will end up right here . . . original form and title intact: Before the Chop.My allegiance is to you. It always has been. It's the only reason I do all this in the first place. -- Henry
Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane
by Carole Weatherford Sean QuallsYoung John Coltrane was all ears. And there was a lot to hear growing up in the South in the 1930s: preachers praying, music on the radio, the bustling of the household. These vivid noises shaped John's own sound as a musician. Carole Boston Weatherford and Sean Qualls have composed an amazingly rich hymn to the childhood of jazz legend John Coltrane. Before John Was a Jazz Giantis a 2009 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book and a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year. Lexile Measure: AD1090L
Before the Chinrest
by Stanley RitchieDrawing on the principles of Francesco Geminiani and four decades of experience as a baroque and classical violinist, Stanley Ritchie offers a valuable resource for anyone wishing to learn about 17th-18th-and early 19th-century violin technique and style. While much of the work focuses on the technical aspects of playing the pre-chinrest violin, these approaches are also applicable to the viola, and in many ways to the modern violin. Before the Chinrest includes illustrated sections on right- and left-hand technique, aspects of interpretation during the Baroque, Classical, and early-Romantic eras, and a section on developing proper intonation.
Before the Chop II
by Henry RollinsHow do you sell a book like this? It's like offering someone gum that has been previously chewed. Almost all of the material in Before The Chop II has been published in the LA Weekly. You can probably go online and find it at the best possible price. How dare the "writer" go slouching towards the trough with the audacity to re-cycle mere "content" and slap a price on it? It's a damn outrage is what it is! The hubris is bristling, the nest feathering obvious and repellent, the self-delusion total. Self-absorbed much? Running for Congress, perhaps?So again, how in the hell does anyone with a scintilla of integrity foist this carbon based catastrophe on citizens without "Hey, you dumb consumer bastard, feel the full weight of my sneering contempt, reserved just for you!" so blatantly implied? Sometimes, I hate my job.Well, maybe we could say that these are the pieces the way they were intended to be read? That all put together, they make a handy and potentially enjoyable resource for those who don't have time to read them as they stagger and fall into existence every week? Yes! Let's go with that. These are the versions before they were sent to finishing school to be refined and taught to keep their eyes and ears open and their mouths shut. This is the raw and "real" stuff, which also describes the artwork of a three year old.It could be put across that it's all about keeping the "artist" from falling into the depths of starvation and insanity. "I met Henry Rollins a few years ago. I was walking back to my car in the Rite Aid parking lot off of Fairfax. I saw a man urinating on my driver's side door. It was Henry. He smiled, waved with his free hand and said, 'TV party tonight!' then limped away." This is what we're trying to avoid.Sad how things sometimes end up, huh? That some buds never fully bloom? Ah, nature, while often cruel, always the straightest line to the truth. Well, even the mightiest redwood will one day fall. Okay, that's not a good example but nonetheless, on with the show. Get out your handkerchiefs, here it is, Before The Chop II!Can I stop now? The stench is making my eyes burn . . .
Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley
by Christopher John FarleyBob Marley was a reggae superstar, a musical prophet who brought the sound of the Third World to the entire globe. Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley goes beyond the myth of Marley to bring you the private side of a man few people ever really knew. Drawing from original interviews with the people closest to Marleyincluding his widow, Rita, his mother, Cedella, his bandmate and childhood friend, Bunny Wailer, his producer Chris Blackwell, and many others—Legend paints an entirely fresh picture of one of the most enduring musical artists of our times. This is a portrait of an artist as a young man, from his birth in the tiny town of Nine Miles in the hills of Jamaica, to the making of his debut international record, "Catch a Fire." We see Marley on the tough streets of Trench Town before he found stardom, struggling to find his way in music, in love and in life, and we take the wild ride with him to worldwide acceptance and adoration. From the acclaimed journalist, Christopher John Farely, the author of the bestselling AALIYAH and the reporter who broke the story on Dave Chappelle's retreat to South Africa, Legend is bursting with fresh insights into Marley and Jamaica, and is the definitive story of Marley's early days.
Before There Was Mozart: The Story of Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George
by James E. Ransome Lesa Cline-RansomeThe musical superstar of 18th-century France was Joseph Boulogne--a black man. This inspiring story tells how Joseph, the only child of a black slave and her white master, becomes "the most accomplished man in Europe." After traveling from his native West Indies to study music in Paris, young Joseph is taunted about his skin color. Despite his classmates' cruel words, he continues to devote himself to his violin, eventually becoming conductor of a whole orchestra. Joseph begins composing his own operas, which everyone acknowledges to be magnifique. But will he ever reach his dream of performing for the king and queen of France? This lushly illustrated book by Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome introduces us to a talented musician and an overlooked figure in black history.
Before We Was We: Madness by Madness
by Mike Barson Mark Bedford Chris Foreman Graham McPherson Cathal Smyth Lee Thompson Dan WoodgateNew Foreword by Irvine Welsh.In Before We Was We Madness tell us how they became them. A story of seven originals, whose collective graft, energy and talent took them from the sweaty depths of the Hope and Anchor's basement to the Top of the Pops studio.In their own words they each look back on shared adventures. Playing music together, riding freight trains, spraying graffiti and stealing records. Walking in one another's footsteps by day and rising up through the city's exploding pub music scene by night. Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.
Before You Judge Me: The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson's Last Days
by David Ritz Tavis SmileyA powerful chronicle of the sixteen weeks leading up to King of Pop Michael Jackson's deathMichael Jackson's final months were like the rest of his short and legendary life: filled with deep lows and soaring highs, a constant hunt for privacy, and the pressure and fame that made him socially fragile and almost--ultimately--unable to live. With the insight and compassion that he brought to his bestselling telling of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final year, Tavis Smiley provides a glimpse into the superstar's life in this emotional, honest, yet celebratory book. Readers will witness Jackson's campaign to recharge his career--hiring and firing managers and advisors, turning to and away from family members, fighting depression and drug dependency--while his one goal remained: to mount the most spectacular series of shows the world had ever seen. BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME is a humanizing look at Jackson's last days.
Beg, Steal or Borrow: The Official Baby Shambles Story
by Spencer HonniballCharting the wayward tale of the UK's most notorious group and written with full co-operation of the band this is the ultimate rock and roll story and is destined to become a classic of the genre. From rehab in a Thai monastery to riots at the Astoria, the tabloid exposé of Kate Moss to countless brushes with the law, the book is often funny, sometimes tragic, but always totally compelling. Currently riding high with a critically acclaimed album Sequel to the Prequel under their belt, a successful arena tour of Europe and the UK completed and a host of big festival dates lined up for the summer, Babyshambles are enjoying their most successful year to date.
Beg, Steal or Borrow: The Official Baby Shambles Story
by Spencer HonniballCharting the wayward tale of the UK's most notorious group and written with full co-operation of the band this is the ultimate rock and roll story and is destined to become a classic of the genre. From rehab in a Thai monastery to riots at the Astoria, the tabloid exposé of Kate Moss to countless brushes with the law, the book is often funny, sometimes tragic, but always totally compelling. Currently riding high with a critically acclaimed album Sequel to the Prequel under their belt, a successful arena tour of Europe and the UK completed and a host of big festival dates lined up for the summer, Babyshambles are enjoying their most successful year to date.
Beggars Banquet and the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Revolution: ‘They Call My Name Disturbance' (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series)
by Russell ReisingThe Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet is one of the seminal albums in rock history. Arguably it not only marks the advent of the ‘mature’ sound of the Rolling Stones but lays out a new blueprint for an approach to blues-based rock music that would endure for several decades. From its title to the dark themes that pervade some of its songs, Beggars Banquet reflected and helped define a moment marked by violence, decay, and upheaval. It marked a move away from the artistic sonic flourishes of psychedelic rock towards an embrace of foundational streams of American music – blues, country – that had always underpinned the music of the Stones but assumed new primacy in their music after 1968. This move coincided with, and anticipated, the ‘roots’ moves that many leading popular music artists made as the 1960s turned toward a new decade; but unlike many of their peers whose music grew more ‘soft’ and subdued as they embraced traditional styles, the music and attitude of the Stones only grew harder and more menacing, and their status as representatives of the dark underside of the 60s rock counterculture assumed new solidity. For the Rolling Stones, the 1960s ended and the 1970s began with the release of this album in 1968.
Begin Again: A Biography of John Cage
by Kenneth SilvermanJohn Cage was a man of extraordinary and seemingly limitless talents: musician, inventor, composer, poet. He became a central figure of the avant-garde early in his life and remained at that pinnacle until his death in 1992 at the age of eighty. Now award-winning biographer Kenneth Silverman gives us the first comprehensive life of this remarkable artist. We follow Cage from his Los Angeles childhood--his father was a successful inventor--through his stay in Paris from 1930 to 1931, where immersion in the burgeoning new musical and artistic movements triggered an explosion of creativity in him and, after his return to the States, into his studies with the seminal modern composer Arnold Schoenberg. We see Cage's early experiments with sound and percussion instruments, and watch as he develops his signature work with prepared piano, radio static, random noise, and silence. We learn of his many friendships over the years with other composers, artists, philosophers, and writers; of his early marriage and several lovers, both female and male and of his long relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham, with whom he would collaborate on radically unusual dances that continue to influence the worlds of both music and dance. Drawing on interviews with Cage's contemporaries and friends and on the enormous archive of his letters and writings, and including photographs, facsimiles of musical scores, and Web links to illustrative sections of his compositions, Silverman gives us a biography of major significance: a revelatory portrait of one of the most important cultural figures of the twentieth century. The book contains 11 URLs which take you to the publisher's website where you can hear excellent recordings of excerpts from several of Cage's compositions.
The Beginner’s Guide to Opera Stage Management: Gathering the Tools You Need to Work in Opera
by Danielle RannoThe Beginner’s Guide to Opera Stage Management is the first book to cover theatrical stage management practices specifically for opera productions, providing an invaluable step-by-step guide. Beginning with a brief history of opera and detailing its difference from musical theatre, the book covers stage management best practices through prep, rehearsals, tech, performance, and wrap up. From the moment a manager accepts a contract, right through to archiving paperwork, this essential toolkit covers each step of a stage manager’s journey. Working with a score, reading music, working with singers, conductors, and musicians, basic duties of a stage manager versus an assistant stage manager, and other tasks specific to opera are also included in this comprehensive guide. This book is full of tips and tricks, as well as the good, bad, and ugly stories from opera stage managers, sharing both their experiences and mistakes. This is the perfect how-to book for the professional or emerging stage manager looking to work in opera, or to expand their existing stage management skillset.