The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years - from ‘The Remains of the Day' to ‘White Teeth'. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.

    A child prodigy as a pianist and a virtuoso conductor of symphonics and operas, Barenhoim has known and worked with many of the most distinguished and exciting musicians of the 20th century, including Rubinstein, Furtwangler, Zubin Meta, Pierre Boulez, Fisher-Diskau, Pablo Casals, and not least his wife, Jacqueline du Pre. Recent years have included his work at the annual Wagner festival Bayreuth; in Berlin at the rebirth of the State Opera House; taking over from George Solti's 22-year regin in Chicago; his summer festival in Weimar, Germany, where young Arabs and Israelis can play music together; and his worldwide travels. Barenboim has revised and updated his memoir, giving us trenchant thoughts on Israel today, the problems facing young musicians, and the changing world of music at the beginning of the 21st century.-One of the world's greatest musicians, Barenboim has a dedicated following who will be interested in reading about his life in his own words.-Barenboim was married to celebrated cellist Jacqueline du Pre, the subject of the controversial film Hilary and Jackie.-His championship of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians is highly controversial, as is his insistence on playing Wagner in Israel.

    An exhilarating exploration of the musical language, forms, and styles of the Romantic period, it captures the spirit that enlivened a generation of composers and musicians, and in doing so it conveys the very sense of Romantic music. In readings uniquely informed by his performing experience, Rosen offers consistently acute and thoroughly engaging analyses of works by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Bellini, Liszt, and Berlioz, and he presents a new view of Chopin as a master of polyphony and large-scale form. He adeptly integrates his observations on the music with reflections on the art, literature, drama, and philosophy of the time, and thus shows us the major figures of Romantic music within their intellectual and cultural context.Rosen covers a remarkably broad range of music history and considers the importance to nineteenth-century music of other cultural developments: the art of landscape, a changed approach to the sacred, the literary fragment as a Romantic art form. He sheds new light on the musical sensibilities of each composer, studies the important genres from nocturnes and songs to symphonies and operas, explains musical principles such as the relation between a musical idea and its realization in sound and the interplay between music and text, and traces the origins of musical ideas prevalent in the Romantic period. Rich with striking descriptions and telling analogies, Rosen's overview of Romantic music is an accomplishment without parallel in the literature, a consummate performance by a master pianist and music historian.

    This volume provides her readers and fans with additional insights into her life and work. The first section provides a biographical chapter and literary heritage. The second and third sections analyze the Tales of Tortall and the Magic Circle Sagas as a whole, providing details into the characters and settings of each. The final section of the book, Perspectives, includes both a section on literary techniques along with an interview of Tamora Pierce herself. Appendices include a section on Power Female Heroes, and Fantasy Adventures.Novels include: *The Song of the Lioness Quartet *The Immortals Quartet *The Protector of the Small Quartet *The Trickster Duology *The Magic Circle Quartet *The Circle Opens Quartet *The Will of the Empress

    Each book contains a history of the opera, a synopsis of the story, a complete libretto in its original language as well as in English, dozens of photos, and a world-class Angel/EMI recording of the entire opera on two CDs. It's a must-have for die-hard opera lovers as well as those in need of an introduction to the timeless art form.

    The company had been a fixture on the national opera scene--as the populist antithesis of the grand Metropolitan Opera, a nurturing home for young American talent, and a place where new, lively ideas shook up a venerable art form. But NYCO's demise represented more than the loss of a cherished organization: it was a harbinger of massive upheaval in the performing arts--and a warning about how cultural institutions would need to change in order to survive.Drawing on extensive research and reporting, Heidi Waleson, one of the foremost American opera critics, recounts the history of this scrappy company and reveals how, from the beginning, it precariously balanced an ambitious artistic program on fragile financial supports. Waleson also looks forward and considers some better-managed, more visionary opera companies that have taken City Opera's lessons to heart.Above all, Mad Scenes and Exit Arias is a story of money, ego, changes in institutional identity, competing forces of populism and elitism, and the ongoing debate about the role of the arts in society. It serves as a detailed case study not only for an American arts organization, but also for the sustainability and management of nonprofit organizations across the country.

    In this remarkable book, Warren Zanes explores his own love affair with the record.

    "I want to tell the people who are interested in me," says Pavarotti in his preface, "about all of the fun and excitement I have had. I have tried to explain how I feel about the things that are important to me and to pass on whatever wisdom I have gained as an artist and as a human being." Black-and-white photographs.

    This study of the blues by one of America's premier essayists and novelists will change old attitudes about a tradition that continues to feed the very heart of popular music—a blues that dances, shakes, shimmies, and exchanges bad news for stomping, rollicking, pulse-quickening good times.

    The western world was turned upside down by the rock ‘n' roll revolution and here's the real lowdown on the rock stars who made it happen — and what it did to their lives.

    Sly Stone began recording "There's a Riot Goin' On" in late 1970 as afollow-up to the commercially successful "Stand!" In this brisk,inventive book, Miles Marshall Lewis chronicle Sly's descent into a hazeof drug addiction and delirium as he rejects the successful formula -"Dance to the Medley, dance to the shmedley" - and creates one of themost powerful and haunting albums to inspire the hiphop movement.

    The concert and the live album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, propelled him to worldwide superstardom. He reached new audiences, ignited tremendous growth in the country music industry, and connected with fans in a way no other artist has before or since.Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is a riveting account of that day, what led to it, and what came after. Scrupulously researched, rich with the author's unprecedented access to Folsom Prison's and Columbia Records' archives, illustrated with more than 100 photos, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison shows how Johnny Cash forever became a champion of the downtrodden, as well as one of the more enduring forces in American music.

    For his classes he developed a manner of presentation in which 'every technical matter is discussed in a very fundamental way, so that at the same time it is both simple and thorough'.This book can be used for analysis as well as for composition. On the one hand, it has the practical objective of introducing students to the process of composing in a systematic way, from the smallest to the largest forms; on the other hand, the author analyses in thorough detail and with numerous illustrations those particular sections in the works of the masters which relate to the compositional problem under discussion.

    When he was seventeen years old, his demons led him to a Massachusetts mental institution where he confronted them the only way he knew how, by writing his first songs. Thirty years later, Taylor's songs are among the most popular in the annals of music, but the demons are still with him. But unlike many of his contemporaries who faced a similar struggle, Taylor managed to emerge as an inspirational figure. Fire and Rain traces this remarkable path, including his troubled marriage to pop star Carly Simon and the premature alcoholism-related death of his brother: Taylor's ten-month stay in the exclusive private psychiatric institution where he finished high school; His self-imposed exile to England where he submitted some of his music to the Beatles' Apple Records, which signed him to his first record contract in 1968. Paul McCartney mentored Taylor's early career; The story behind his second album, Sweet Baby James, which contained the song "Fire and Rain" about the hopelessness of mental illness and suicide; As Taylor's fame increased, so did his problems with heroin, alcohol, and mental illness. In the seventies, the singer nearly fell over the edge many times.

    It developed concurrently everywhere, and every region had it's own identity. But it was in San Francisco and L.A. where the most radical behavior in stateside punk rock style and attitude was exhibited. It was anti-hippie, anti-disco, anti-parent and anti-"nice". And it was shockingly new. These photos are ground zero of punk rock style—delirious innovation and a snarling takeover of youth culture still resonating more than 20 years hence.