New Publications,
New Music Book Publications - 2nd November 2020
Welcome to our latest selection of new music books. Our picks this time round include books on composers such as Richard Strauss, Delius, Britten, and Fauré; tips and techniques on producing classical recordings in the Decca tradition; a biography of experimental musician Wendy Carlos; a guide to writing music for video games; two books on how pop and rock stars have increased their influence and exposure by appearing on the cinema screen; a discusson of Bolivian popular music; and an exploration of how advances in cognitive neuroscience and social psychology can improve our understanding of the ways that people function as members of a group in choral rehearsals.
Classical Music
Richard Strauss in Context
Morten Kristiansen & Joseph E. Jones (editors); Cambridge University Press; Hardback
This book offers a distinctive approach to composer studies, placing the emphasis on contextualising topics rather than on biography and artistic output. Instead of studies of Strauss's librettists that discuss the texts, for instance, it offers essays on the writers themselves: their biographical circumstances, styles, and broader positions in history. Likewise, Strauss's contributions to the concert hall are positioned within the development of the orchestra and trends in programmatic music.
Available Format: Book
Born in Yorkshire, Delius resided in the United States, Germany, and Scandinavia before settling in France, where he spent the majority of his professional career. This book examines the role of place in selected works, including On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Appalachia, and The Song of the High Hills, reading place as a creative and historically mediated category in his music.
Available Format: Book
This thematic examination of Britten's operas focuses on the way that ideology is presented on stage. Although some writers have romanticised Britten as a quiet revolutionary, this book argues, in contrast, that his operas, and some interpretations of them, have obscured a greater social and philosophical complicity that it is timely - if uncomfortable - for his early twenty-first-century audiences to address.
Available Format: Book
The Fauré Song Cycles: Poetry and Music, 1861-1921
Stephen Rumph; University of California Press; Hardback
Gabriel Fauré's melodies offer a variety of style and expression that have made them the foundation of the French art song repertoire. Far more than Debussy, Ravel, or Poulenc, he crafted his song cycles as integrated works, reordering poems freely and using narratives and key schemes to unify the individual songs. This book explores the peculiar vision behind each synthesis of music and verse, revealing the astonishing imagination and insight of Fauré's text-setting.
Available Format: Book
Building on the original Opera Anecdotes, this book continues where the original left off, bringing into view the new corps of singers that arose after the first book's publication in 1985 such as Renée Fleming, Roberto Alagna, Deborah Voigt, Jonas Kaufmann, Kathleen Battle, and Jane Eaglen. Almost all the stories are completely new, taking in many historical developments, from the rise of the conductor to the appearance of the "bari-hunk" who refuses to play any role in which he can't appear shirtless.
Available Format: Book
Classical Recording: A Practical Guide in the Decca Tradition
Caroline Haigh, John Dunkerley, and Mark Rogers; CRC Press; Paperback
Offering detailed descriptions, diagrams, and photographs of fundamental recording techniques such as the Decca tree, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the essential skills involved in successfully producing a classical recording. Written by engineers with years of experience working for Decca and Abbey Road Studios, it equips the interested amateur and the practising professional with the knowledge and confidence to tackle everything from solo piano to opera.
Available Format: Book
In recent decades, cognitive neuroscience research has increased our understanding of how the brain learns, retains, and recalls information. At the same time, social psychologists have developed insights into group dynamics, exploring what motivates individuals in a group to give their full effort. This book explores the idea that choral conductors who better understand how the brain learns, and how individuals within groups function, can lead more efficient, productive, and enjoyable rehearsals.
Available Format: Book
Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality
Viktoria Tkaczyk, Mara Mills, & Alexandra Hui (editors); Oxford University Press; Paperback
Since the early nineteenth century, auditory test tools (whether organ pipes or electronic tone generators) and the results of hearing tests have fed back into instrument calibration, human training, architecture, and the creation of new musical sounds. This book considers both the testing of hearing and testing with hearing to explore the co-creation of modern epistemic and auditory cultures, demonstrating that testing as such became an enduring and wide-ranging cultural technique in the modern period.
Available Format: Book
Popular and World Music
With her debut album Switched-On Bach, Wendy Carlos brought the sound of the Moog synthesiser to a generation of listeners, helping to effect one of the most substantial changes in popular music's sound since musicians began using amplifiers. Her story is not only one of a person who blazed new trails in electronic music but is also of someone who intersected with American popular culture, medicine, and social trends during the second half of the 20th century and well into the 21st.
Available Format: Book
The Game Music Handbook: A Practical Guide to Crafting an Unforgettable Musical Soundscape
Noah Kellman; Oxford University Press; Paperback
This book discusses key concepts and technical practices for creating top-level game scores. Readers will gain a solid understanding of many advanced techniques and topics essential to excellent game music scoring, including using music to design emotional arcs for nonlinear timelines, the relationship between music and sound design, music and immersion, discussion of the player's interaction with audio, and more.
Available Format: Book
The 1960s ushered in a time of creative freedom reflected in popular music and films on both sides of the Atlantic. At the forefront of driving that creative change were The Beatles, although few have considered the important role film played in The Beatles' career. This book focuses on the overlooked films The Beatles performed in from 1964 to 1970 in order to chart their journey from pop stars to musicians.
Available Format: Book
Rock Star/Movie Star: Power and Performance in Cinematic Rock Stardom
Landon Palmer; Oxford University Press; Paperback
From the mid-1950s, rock stars came to find cinema as a useful space to extend their creative practices. From Elvis Presley to Madonna, this book examines the casting of rock stars in films, using illuminating archival resources to demonstrate how rock stars have often proven themselves to be prominent film workers exploring the terrain of platforms old and new.
Available Format: Book
Panpipes & Ponchos: Musical Folklorization and the Rise of the Andean Conjunto Tradition in La Paz, Bolivia
Fernando Rios; Oxford University Press; Paperback
Created by urban folkloric artists, the tradition of the Andean "conjunto" (ensembles including melodious panpipes, kena flutes, strumming charangos, and poncho-clad musicians) represents a form of mass-mediated folkloric music only loosely based on indigenous practices. This study chronicles how Bolivia's folkloric music movement engaged with, on the one hand, Bolivian state projects, and on the other, transnational artistic currents, during the pivotal era spanning the 1920s to 1960s.
Available Format: Book
Elite Art Worlds: Philanthropy, Latin Americanism, and Avant-garde Music
Eduardo Herrera; Oxford University Press; Hardback
The Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM) in Buenos Aires operated for less than a decade, but by the time of its closure in 1971 it had become the epicentre of Latin American avant-garde music. This book tells the story of the programme that, by allowing the promising young composers to study with a roster of acclaimed faculty members, produced some of the most prominent figures within the art world, including Rafael Aponte Ledee, Coriun Aharonian, and Blas Emilio Atehortua.
Available Format: Book
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