New Publications,
New Music Book Publications - 19th June 2023
Welcome to our latest selection of new music publications, including an off-print from the acclaimed guide to musical notation, Behind Bars, a chronicle of representations of gay culture on Broadway, an investigation into the ways in which music and musicians engage with death, a collection of recently-discovered photographs taken by Paul McCartney, a biography of legendary folk musician Woody Guthrie, a reconsideration of the music of Bach and its relation to modernity, the history of the Erard Grecian harp in Regency England, a study of recordings from the 1950s by the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, and an interdisciplinary perspective on music teaching and learning in schools.
This is the first section from the best-selling volume Behind Bars, presenting the basic principles, ground rules and conventions of notation in a definitive but concise guide. Behind Bars is widely regarded as the indispensable reference book for composers, arrangers, teachers and students of composition, editors and music engravers, offering a study that is not only practical but also compellingly readable.
Available Format: Book
From the genteel female impersonators of the 1910s to the raucous drag queens of La Cage Aux Folles, from the men of The Normal Heart to the women of Fun Home, and from Eva Le Gallienne and Tallulah Bankhead to Tennessee Williams and Nathan Lane, this book deftly chronicles the plays and people that played their part in bringing gay culture to Broadway. Beginning in the early twentieth century, when gay characters were virtually banned from productions, to the success of The Boys In the Band proving gay theatre simply too popular to abolish, this is an essential chronological review of the long journey to bring gay culture onto the American stage.
Available Format: Book
Music and Death: Funeral Music, Memory and Re-Evaluating Life
Wolfgang Marx (editor); Boydell & Brewer; Hardback
Music gives specific meanings to our lives, but also to how we experience death; it forms a central part of death rituals, consoles survivors, and celebrates the deceased. This book investigates different musical engagements with death, including rituals and intercessions on behalf of the departed, musicians' reactions to death, ways of engaging with grief, and the public's reaction to the death of musicians. The genres covered include requiems, operas and ballets, art songs, songs by Leonard Cohen and the B-52s, and instrumental music.
Available Format: Book
In 2020, an extraordinary trove of nearly a thousand photographs taken by Paul McCartney on a 35mm camera was re-discovered in his archive. They intimately record the months towards the end of 1963 and beginning of 1964 when Beatlemania erupted in the UK. This book presents 275 of McCartney's photographs from the six cities of these intense, legendary months - Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C. and Miami - plus many never-before-seen portraits of John, George and Ringo.
Available Format: Book
The classic biography of the influential American folk singer who inspired a generation of songwriters, including Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. Few artists have captured the American experience of their time as wholly as folk legend Woody Guthrie. Singer, songwriter and political activist, he drew a lifetime of inspiration from his roots on the Oklahoma frontier in the years before the Great Depression. This definitive biography creates an unforgettable portrait of a man as gifted, restless and complicated as the American landscape he came from.
Available Format: Book
This book offers a new look at Bach that considers problems of inattentiveness to historical considerations in academic writing about Bach's relation to the present, putting forward interpretive reassessments of key individual works and examining problems in modern comprehension of the partly archaic German texts that Bach set to music. It ultimately argues that, while we are free to make use of Bach and his music in whatever ways we find fitting, we ought also to guard against miscasting Bach in our own ideological image and proclaiming the authenticity of that image, and hence its prestige value, in support of our own agendas.
Available Format: Book
During the early nineteenth century, the harp was transformed into a sophisticated instrument that became as popular as the piano. A major figure in this process was Sébastien Erard: with the introduction in 1811 of the so-called 'Grecian' model, the first commercially built double-action harp, the Erard firm managed to establish the harp not only as a state-of-the-art instrument, but also as a symbol of luxury, wealth and status. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the development, production and consumption of the Erard Grecian harp in Regency England.
Available Format: Book
The Gerry Mulligan 1950s Quartets (Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz)
Alyn Shipton; Oxford University Press; Paperback
The Gerry Mulligan Quartet, founded in Los Angeles in 1952, was widely acclaimed as the first small ensemble in jazz that did not include a chordal instrument such as a piano or guitar. Using original scores and detailed transcriptions of Mulligan's work, this book offers an intimate look at Mulligan's musical development from the initial quartet with Chet Baker to its successors with Bob Brookmeyer, Jon Eardley, and Art Farmer.
Available Format: Book
Delving into the public and private personas of performers from Jenny Lind to Sarah Bernhardt, Nina Simone to Rihanna, this book looks at what it means to be a "diva" and how this has been subverted and embraced over time. Illustrated with dynamic performance pictures and sumptuous stage costumes, it offers a look at the glamour, celebrity, fashion, and feminism inherent in being designated a "diva."
Available Format: Book
Seeking Connections: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Music Teaching and Learning
Janet Revell Barrett; Oxford University Press; Paperback
Music connects the lives of students, teachers, and school communities in many ways. Music is also integrally related to other art forms, history, culture, and other subjects commonly taught in schools. This book invites teachers to create educational experiences that engage students in exploring an expansive relationship with music, providing thoughtful principles, models, and instructional strategies to deepen students' understandings of musical works and inspire interdisciplinary inquiry throughout elementary and secondary music programmes.
Available Format: Book
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