Teaching Piano in Groups - Christopher Fisher - 2010

Teaching Piano in Groups provides a one-stop compendium of information related to all aspects of group piano teaching. Motivated by an ever-growing interest in this instructional method and its widespread mandatory inclusion in piano pedagogy curricula, Christopher Fisher highlights the proven viability and success of group piano teaching, and arms front-line group piano instructors with the necessary tools for practical implementation of a system of instruction in their own teaching.

Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age" - John Daverio - 1997

In Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age," John Daverio presents the first comprehensive study of the composer's life and works to appear in nearly a century. Long regarded as a quintessentially romantic figure, Schumann also has been portrayed as a profoundly tragic one: a composer who began his career as a genius and ended it as a mere talent. Daverio takes issue with this Schumann myth, arguing instead that the composer's entire creative life was guided by the desire to imbue music with the intellectual substance of literature. A close analysis of the interdependence among Schumann's activities as reader, diarist, critic, and musician reveals the depth of his literary sensibility. Drawing on documents only recently brought to light, the author also provides a fresh outlook on the relationship between Schumann's mental illness--which brought on an extended sanitarium stay and eventual death in 1856--and his musical creativity. Schumann's character as man and artist thus emerges in all its complexity. The book concludes with an analysis of the late works and a postlude on Schumann's influence on successors from Brahms to Berg.

Mozart: A Life - Maynard Solomon - 1996

 

In this first full-scale biography since the 1950s, esteemed biographer Maynard Solomon draws on a half-century of new information to provide an in-depth account of Mozart's family life, his passions, and his personality.

Holst: The Planets (Cambridge Music Handbooks) - Richard Greene - 1995

This book is the first comprehensive guide to Holst's orchestral suite The Planets. It considers the music in detail and places the work in its historical context, describing the circumstances of its composition and its meteoric rise to popular acclaim. Starting with Holst's particular interest in astrology, Greene reveals a profound statement of human character and Holst's own psychological journey toward the mystical state. Using parallels in the verbal and visual arts, Greene weaves here a fascinating tale of musical communication.

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (Cambridge Music Handbooks) - David Schiff - 1997

The Rhapsody in Blue (1924) established Gershwin's reputation as a serious composer and has since become one of the most popular of all American concert works. In this richly informative guide David Schiff considers the piece as musical work, historical event and cultural document. He traces the history of the Rhapsody's composition, performance and reception, placing it within the context of American popular song and jazz and the development of modernism. He also provides a full account of the different published and recorded versions of the work and explores the many stylistic sources of Gershwin's music.

A Dictionary of Musical Terms - John Stainer, William Barrett - 2009

This illustrated dictionary, written by the prolific Victorian composer Sir John Stainer (1840-1901) - best remembered today for his oratorio The Crucifixion - and W. A. Barrett, was first published by Novello in 1876. It provides definitions for 'the chief musical terms met with in scientific, theoretical, and practical treatises, and in the more common annotated programmes and newspaper criticisms', ranging from short explanations of the Italian words for tempi, through descriptions of ancient instruments to expansive articles on such topics as acoustics, copyright, hymn tunes, the larynx and temperament.

Ives: Concord Sonata: Piano Sonata No. 2 (Cambridge Music Handbooks) - Geoffrey Block - 1996

Charles Ives's massive Concord Sonata, his second sonata for piano, named after the town of Concord in Massachusetts, is central to his output and clearly reflects his aesthetic perspective. Geoffrey Block's wide-ranging 1996 account of the work thus provides an ideal introduction to this fascinating composer. As well as a discussion of the Sonata's reception history from 1920 to the time of publication, and a chapter on its compositional genesis, this handbook includes a detailed narrative of the motivic content as well as a historical and analytical survey of the work's borrowings, both certifiable and newly proposed. The programmatic element of the Sonata is explored in the context of Ives's personal vision of four literary subjects associated with the town of Concord between 1840 and 1860: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts.

Beethoven: The 'Moonlight' and other Sonatas, Op. 27 and Op. 31 (Cambridge Music Handbooks) - T.Jones - 1995

Even in Beethoven's day the 'Moonlight' Sonata was a popular favourite. This book provides an accessible introduction to the Sonatas Opp. 27 and 31 (including The 'Moonlight' and 'The Tempest'), aimed at pianists, students, and music lovers. It begins with the works' historical background - the emergence of a 'piano culture' at the end of the eighteenth century, Beethoven's aristocratic milieu in Vienna, and his oft-quoted intention to follow a new compositional path. An account of the sonatas' genesis is followed by a discussion of their reception history, including a survey of changing performing styles since the mid-nineteenth century. The concept of the Sonata quasi una Fantasia is examined in relation to the cult of artistic sensibility in early-nineteenth-century Vienna. And the study concludes with a critical introduction to each sonata.

A Handbook Of Piano Playing - Eric Hope - 1962.pdf

Music in the Galant Style - Robert Gjerdingen - 2007

Music in the Galant Style is an authoritative and readily understandable study of the core compositional style of the eighteenth century. Gjerdingen adopts a unique approach, based on a massive but little-known corpus of pedagogical workbooks used by the most influential teachers of the century, the Italian partimenti. He has brought this vital repository of compositional methods into confrontation with a set of schemata distilled from an enormous body of eighteenth-century music, much of it known only to specialists, formative of the "galant style."

Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann - Harald Krebs - 1999

This book presents a theory of metrical conflict and applies it to the music of Schumann, thereby placing the composer's distinctive metrical style in full focus. It describes the various categories of metrical conflict that characterize Schumann's work, investigates how states of conflict are introduced and then manipulated and resolved in his compositions, and studies the interaction of such metrical conflict with form, pitch structure, and text. Throughout the text, Krebs intersperses his own theoretical assertions with Schumannesque dialogues between Florestan and Eusebius, who comment on the theory at hand while also discussing and illustrating relevant aspects of "their" metrical practices.

Sourcebook for Research in Music - P.D.Crabtree, D.H.Foster, A.Scott - 2005

The Sourcebook for Research in Music, in this revised and greatly expanded second edition, is an invaluable guide to the researcher in navigating the vast proliferation of materials in music research. The editors emphasize English-language and recent sources, and also include essential materials in other languages. An opening chapter of introductory materials, including a list of common bibliographical terms with definitions, German and French bibliographical terms, and the plan of the Library of Congress and the Dewey Decimal music classification systems, is followed by seven bibliographical chapters, covering lists of sources as well as collective annotations that introduce and identify specific items. A reference tool containing varied information relating to research in music, the Sourcebook will serve as a classroom text and as a resource for individual music researchers, librarians, faculty members, students, performing and teaching musicians, and musical amateurs.

Harvard Dictionary of Music: Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged - Willi Apel - 1968

A classic and invaluable reference work for over thirty years. Soon after its initial publication, the Harvard Dictionary of Music by Willi Apel was firmly established as a standard and essential resource for everyone concerned with music.

The Life of Mozart: Including his Correspondence - E.Holmes - 2009

This 1845 biography of Mozart by the music journalist Edward Holmes was the first to be published in English. It is based on a study of the available printed materials and primary sources including letters by Mozart (which Holmes translated for this volume) and some of the autograph manuscripts.

Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music - B.Heyman - 1994

Barbara Heyman has worked diligently and intelligently to produce a book which will be the foundation of all Barber scholarship forever, to which all writers on American music will be turning constantly and for which we shall be immensely grateful. I was completely absorbed in the reading of it.

Franz Liszt and His World - C.H.Gibbs, D.Gooley - 2006

The essays brought together in Franz Liszt and His World advance our understanding of the composer with fresh perspectives and an emphasis on historical contexts. Rainer Kleinertz examines Wagner's enthusiasm for Liszt's symphonic poem Orpheus; Christopher Gibbs discusses Liszt's pathbreaking Viennese concerts of 1838; Dana Gooley assesses Liszt against the backdrop of antivirtuosity polemics; Ryan Minor investigates two cantatas written in honor of Beethoven; Anna Celenza offers new insights about Liszt's experience of Italy; Susan Youens shows how Liszt's songs engage with the modernity of Heinrich Heine's poems; James Deaville looks at how publishers sustained Liszt's popularity; and Leon Botstein explores Liszt's role in the transformation of nineteenth-century preoccupations regarding religion, the nation, and art.

Benjamin Britten: A Bio-Bibliography - S.R.Craggs - 2001

Benjamin Britten was arguably the greatest English composer of his time. His music crossed boundaries of genre and form to include opera, ballet, orchestral and chamber music, and film and incidental music. The result of twenty years of research, ^IBenjamin Britten^R provides up-to-date and comprehensive details about Britten's life and music, including works, performances, and recordings--an effort never before undertaken. Certain to be of use to any scholar of British music or 20th century composition, this reference work is an invaluable addition to the literature on this important artist.

Gavotte in B minor - Eleven Etudes in the Form of Old Dances, Op.19 - Viktor Kosenko

Viktor Stepanovych Kosenko (1896--1938) was one of the most important Ukrainian composers and pianists of the first half of the twentieth century. His Eleven Etudes in the Form of Old Dances, Op. 19, of 1927--29 offer an organic synthesis of the late-Romantic piano tradition, neo-Classical impulses in their use of Baroque dance-forms, and elements of Ukrainian folk-music. This recording of a neglected monument in the piano literature is the first step in the discovery of a composer who was once a cultural icon in his native Ukraine but is now as good as unknown outside its borders.

Analysis of form in Beethoven's sonatas - H.A.Harding - 1901

Better Than It Sounds: A Dictionary of Humourous Musical Quotations - David W. Barber - 1998

This volume features hundreds of the most humorous, outrageous, enlightening and insightful quotes. This volume brings together hundreds of the wittiest, cleverest, and sometimes most horrid remarks ever made about music. Sometimes pithy, sometimes provocative, sometimes profound - but always amusing, these quotes by, for and about famous (and not-so-famous) musicians are sure to brighten anyone's day.