What is Lisztomania, and how was it cured? Who was Drog, and what was his prophecy regarding Electronic Music? What preparation do you need before throwing an artistic tantrum? Which orchestral musicians are also qualified to run a hospital?The plausible answers to these and many other tantalising questions can be found in this wickedly funny – and occasionally just wicked - book.The many commonly-used descriptions of some of the best known identities and institutions of mu...

The perfect music gift from one of the most trusted names in continuing education. Learn how to better appreciate music in this guide that will unlock the knowledge you need to understand “the most abstract and sublime of all the arts.”Whether you're listening in a concert hall or on your iPod, concert music has the power to move you. The right knowledge can deepen the ability of this music to edify, enlighten, and stir the soul. In How to Listen to Great Music...

Skyhorse Publishing is proud to revive Playing Piano for Pleasure. With the wonderful writing one would expect from a longtime New Yorker reporter, Piano aficionado Charles Cooke, offers concrete routines for improving your piano performance. A pleasant and constant cheerleader, Cooke asks readers to practice every day, suggesting that they work through just that section time and again until it is perfect. In addition to his own thoughts, Cooke includes material from his ...

If you enjoy great music but want to know more about how it came to be the way it is - without investing time in a graduate degree - here are the background stories of over 200 great compositions. If you're only just coming to experiment with great music, here are guideposts to help you understand and enjoy what you encounter. The stories and sounds behind the scenes: welcome to Classical Music Insights.

Charles Rosen is one of the world's most talented pianists -- and one of music's most astute commentators. Known as a performer of Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Elliott Carter, he has also written highly acclaimed criticism for sophisticated students and professionals.In Piano Notes, he writes for a broader audience about an old friend -- the piano itself. Drawing upon a lifetime of wisdom and the accumulated lore of many great performers of the past, Rosen shows why th...

Have you ever been carried away by a piece of classical music? In this funny, evocative, personal eBook, previously published as ‘Music for the People: The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Classical Music’, Gareth takes us on a journey of musical discovery that explains and entertains in equal measure.Have you ever been carried away by a piece of classical music? The sad song of a single violin might make us cry, but the idea of finding out more about classical music can often be intimida...

In "Haydn," J. Cuthbert Hadden offers a comprehensive exploration of the life and works of the eminent composer Joseph Haydn, placing him in the broader context of the Classical era. Hadden employs a scholarly yet engaging prose style that deftly intertwines biographical details with a critical analysis of Haydn's music, illuminating the innovative contributions of this pivotal figure in Western music. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources and historical documents, the narrative not only ...

The story of a revolution in music and technology, told through a century of recordings of the music of Johann Sebastian BachIn Reinventing Bach, his remarkable second book, Paul Elie tells the electrifying story of how musicians of genius have made Bach's music new in our time, at once restoring Bach as a universally revered composer and revolutionizing the ways that music figures into our lives.As a musician in eighteenth-century Germany, Bach was ...

In this compulsively readable, fascinating, and provocative guide to classical music, Norman Lebrecht, one of the world’s most widely read cultural commentators tells the story of the rise of the classical recording industry from Caruso’s first notes to the heyday of Bernstein, Glenn Gould, Callas, and von Karajan.Lebrecht compellingly demonstrates that classical recording has reached its end point–but this is not simply an expos? of decline and fall. It is, for the first time, the...

How are conductors' silent gestures magicked into sound by a group of more than a hundred brilliant but belligerent musicians? The mute choreography of great conductors has fascinated and frustrated musicians and music-lovers for centuries. Orchestras can be inspired to the heights of musical and expressive possibility by their maestros, or flabbergasted that someone who doesn't even make a sound should be elevated to demigod-like status by the public.This is the first book to go in...

Two-and-a-half centuries after his death, the complex life of composer Johann Sebastian Bach continues to fascinate.Bach's colorful life was anchored in his belief that "music has been ordered by God's Spirit"?so much so that he began each composition by scrawling Jesu, juva (Jesus, help me) at the top of a blank page and concluded each with S.D.G. (short for Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory). Through the eyes of noted music and culture writer Rick Marsc...

Ian Bostridge is one of the outstanding singers of our time, celebrated for the quality of his voice but also for the exceptional intelligence he brings to bear on the interpretation of the repertoire of the past and present alike. Yet his early career was that of a professional historian, and A Singer's Notebook takes a look at the multifaceted world of classical music through the eyes of someone whose career as a singer has followed a unique trajectory. Consisting of short essay...