Leonard Bernstein was arguably the most highly esteemed, influential, and charismatic American classical music personality of the twentieth century. Conductor, composer, pianist, writer, educator, and human rights activist, Bernstein truly led a life of Byronic intensity--passionate, risk-taking, and convention-breaking. In November 1989, just a year before his death, Bernstein invited writer Jonathan Cott to his country home in Fairfield, Connecticut for what turned out to be his last maj...

The conception, creation, recording, and significance of the Beatles’ “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”John Lennon wrote “Strawberry Fields Forever” in Almería, Spain, in fall 1966, and in November, in response to that song, Paul McCartney wrote “Penny Lane” at his home in London. A culmination of what was one of the most life-altering and chaotic years in the Beatles’ career, these two songs composed the 1967 double A-side 45 rpm record that has often b...

A wide-ranging collection of interviews and profiles from twenty years of Jonathan Cott’s remarkable writings“All I really need to do is simply ask a question,” Jonathan Cott occasionally reminds himself. “And then listen.” It sounds simple, but in fact few have taken the art of asking questions to such heights—and depths—as Jonathan Cott, whom Jan Morris called “an incomparable interviewer,” one whose skill, according to the great interviewer and oral historian St...

All 51 Hercule Poirot short stories presented in chonological order in a single volume – plus a bonus story not seen for more than 70 years.‘My name is Hercule Poirot and I am probably the greatest detective in the world.’The dapper, moustache-twirling little Belgian with the egg-shaped head, curious mannerisms and inordinate respect for his own ‘little grey cells’ has solved some of the most puzzling crimes of the century. Appearing in Agatha Christie’s very first novel in...

In Listen to This, the award-winning music critic and author of The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross looks forward and backward in musical culture: capturing essential figures in classical music history, as well as giving an alternative view of recent pop music.From his own first encounter with classical music to vibrant sketches of Schubert, Verdi and Brahms; from in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Björk and Radiohead to the lives of a high school’s music students, Ross s...

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.

As featured in the Telegraph and on Radio 4's Today programme.'A magnificent treasury . . . a fascinating tour de force.' Observer'Year of Wonder is an absolute treat - the most enlightening way to be guided through the year.' Eddie RedmayneClassical music for everyone - an inspirational piece of music for every day of the year, celebrating composers from the medieval era to the pr...

You can hear it in the hottest clubs in New York, the hippest rooms in New Orleans, Chicago, and San Francisco, and in top concert halls around the world. It's a joyous sound that echoes the past. It's Old World meets New World. It's secular and sacred. It's traditional and experimental. It's played by classical violinist Itzhak Perlman (his all-klezmer album in his all-time best-seller!), the hypno-pop band Yo La Tengo, and avant-gardist John Zorn. It made the late great Benny Goodman's c...

Listen. What do you hear?We are surrounded by sounds all the time, but we tend not to hear them; our brains are very good at editing what our ears pick up. If we stop for a moment to listen, there they are: the ticking clock, traffic noise, fragments of conversation, a passing plane. These are examples of what the American composer John Cage called “illegal harmony”.In response to the noisiest century in history, modern composers have consistently flown in ...

The award-winning author of Wondrous Strange, the critically acclaimed biography of Glenn Gould, explores the bizarre, untold life of another brilliant and eccentric musician.The composer Arnold Schoenberg called him an “utterly extraordinary” pianist of “incredible originality and conviction,” yet today he is all but forgotten. Born in Budapest in 1903, Ervin Nyiregyházi (nyeer-edge-hah-zee) was a remarkable prodigy: at eight he performed at Buckingham Palace, and when he...

"Gottlieb captures both the divine and human, offering an elegant, sharp, and sophisticated take on the choreographer's life." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)Written by the gifted author, editor, and dance critic Robert Gottlieb, George Balanchine describes the life and art of the celebrated, revolutionary ballet choreographer and founder of The New York City Ballet.The foremost contemporary choreographer in the history of ballet, Georg...

' Sometimes I liken the creative act to that of being a good gardener. The musical material itself, the harmonies, rhythms, the timbres and tempi, are seeds you have planted. Composing, bringing forth the final formal arrangement of these elements, is often a business of watching them grow, knowing when to nourish and water them and when to prune and weed.'A book unlike anything ever written by a composer, part memoir and part description of the creative process, Halle...