Before Chanel, Dior or Saint Laurent, there was Paul Poiret. Born in Paris in 1879, he was the most audacious couturier of the pre-war era. While his outré styles were worn by some of the most famous celebrities in Europe and America, they were in fact the most fleeting facet of his work. Mary E. Davis explores how Poiret’s genius was to place fashion at the centre of a network of style, culture and commerce. He founded groundbreaking perfume and interior design businesses, sponsored music...

INWOOD, LONG ISLAND,NY 1944 - Johnny and Rose were popular high school sweethearts when Johnny enlisted to fight in the war. Before shipping out, Johnny proposed, promising his eternal love to Rose. After the war, Johnny returns a hometown hero and the two young lovers make final preparations for their long-awaited nuptials. However, fate delivers a devastating blow when Rose is suddenly struck down on her wedding day. Now, more than fifty years later, Johnny's son - havin...

In the decades between its debut performance in Paris in 1909 and the death of impresario Sergei Diaghilev in 1929, the Ballets Russes was an unrivaled sensation not only in France but in London, New York and the other cities it toured. Attention has often been centred on the links between Diaghilev's troupe and modernist art and music, but there has been surprisingly little written concerning the Ballets’ role in tastemaking and trendsetting. Ballets Russes Style reveals for the ...

When Igor Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) premiered during the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, its avant-garde music and jarring choreography scandalized audiences. Today it is considered one of the most influential musical works of the twentieth century. In this volume, the ballet finally receives the full critical attention it deserves, as distinguished music and dance scholars discuss the meaning of the work and its far-reaching inf...

A musical composer who dabbled in the Dada movement, a Bohemian ‘gymnopédiste’ of fin-de-siècle Montmartre, and a legendary dresser known as ‘The Velvet Gentleman’ for his sartorial choices, Erik Satie was nearly unprecedented in technique, style and philosophy among European composers in the early twentieth century. Yet his legacy has largely languished in the shadows of Stravinsky, Debussy and Ravel. Mary E. Davis now brings Satie to life in this fascinating new biography that demonstrat...

The Entrepreneurial Mom is an informative and inspiring book for all women who want to start their own business but lack the knowledge and managerial experience needed to run a business and manage a family too. A great tool for women who are looking for answers, it teaches women how to find quality childcare, organize homes and offices, make sales calls and conduct negotiations, maximize family time, network with others, and manage depression, spirituality, self-esteem, and workin...

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.

Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition of An Autobiography.This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Igor Stravinsky, which is now, at last, again available to you.Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside An Autobiography:When I got into touch with some of the members of this group, its transformation into a new school had alre...

French composer Claude Debussy (1862–1918) created music that was revolutionary, with a distinctly modern sound that highlighted the intersection of art and life. Here, in this unique biography, David J. Code explores the important moments in the development of Debussy’s literary interests that shaped his music—and in the process brings to life Debussy’s sardonic personality.Claude Debussy presents an in-depth look at how Debussy’s love for poetry influenced his musical co...

Table of Contents:About: Opera List of Major Opera Composers A-Z INDEXItalian Opera: Vincenzo Bellini Ferruccio Busoni Gaetano Donizetti Giacomo Puccini Gioachino Rossini Giuseppe VerdiFrench Opera: Hector Berlioz Georges Bizet Claude Debussy Jean-Baptiste Lully Charles Gounod Jules Massenet Giacomo Meyerbeer Jacques Offenbach Maurice RavelOpera in German: George Frideric Ha...

Robert Craft was co-conductor, companion and confidant to Igor Stravinsky for the last two decades of the composers life, an intimate working relationship that is unique in musical history. Now, in his ninetieth year, Craft has produced a book of astonishing freshness, warmth and wit as he surveys through the lens of his own distinctive position Stravinskys relationships with others from family members to fellow composers to some of the greatest writers, philosophers, politicians and artists...

Apollo's Angels is a major new history of classical ballet. It begins in the courts of Europe, where ballet was an aspect of aristocratic etiquette and a political event as much as it was an art. The story takes the reader from the sixteenth century through to our own time, from Italy and France to Britain, Denmark, Russia and contemporary America. The reader learns how ballet reflected political and cultural upheavals, how dance and dancers were influenced by the Renaissance and ...