New Publications,
New Music Book Publications - 30th May 2022
Welcome to our latest selection of new music books. Our picks this time round include a guide to Mahler's Second Symphony; a biography of Malcolm Arnold; a look at the life and works of the late Stephen Sondheim; a discussion of the development of the symphony throughout history; a collection of mind-expanding musical ideas from broadcaster Tom Service; a memoir from pianist Jeremy Denk; a consideration of songs in early modern England; a handbook on Shakespeare and music; an examination of film music; the relationship between cinema and the music of Franz Liszt; an exploration of the ways that timbre shapes musical meaning; and a musical inventory from Jarvis Cocker.
Inside Mahler's Second Symphony: A Listener's Guide
Lawrence F. Bernstein; Oxford University Press; Paperback
This guide examines Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony from several perspectives: his struggle to create what he called the "New Symphony"; his innovative approaches to traditional musical form; how he addressed the daunting challenges of writing music on a monumental scale; and how he dealt with the ineluctable force of Beethoven's symphonic precedent, especially that of the Ninth Symphony. Beyond this, the book includes 185 audio examples, arranged to flow from one to another to simulate how the symphony might be presented in a classroom discussion.
Available Format: Book
Many myths were flourishing when Anthony Meredith's first Arnold biography came out almost twenty years ago. Accordingly, he misrepresented several key issues, just as previous biographers had done. Three years ago, however, Arnold's daughter, Katherine, encouraged him to write a new book with the true story of her father's last thirty years. It offers arresting new facts about his life, fresh insights into his music and much food for thought about the care of the mentally ill.
Available Format: Book
This book offers a wide-ranging historical investigation of the landmark works and extraordinary career of Stephen Sondheim, which has spanned much of the history of American musical theatre. With chapters focused on individual musicals, and others that explore a specific topic as manifested throughout his entire working life, it includes interviews with performers and directors, using close study of live and recorded productions to bring together Sondheim's past with the present.
Available Format: Book
This accessible guide considers the development of the symphony from a number of different perspectives: analytical, historical, and critical. Exploring important milestones, touchpoints, events, key works, and the composers that surround the genre, it also includes a composer timeline, detailed case studies and comprehensive music examples. This handy and informative book is ideal for GCSE, A-Level, and undergraduate music students, as well as anyone wanting to study and learn more about the genre.
Available Format: Book
The Listening Service: 101 Journeys through the Musical Universe
Tom Service; Faber & Faber; Hardback
Based on his critically-acclaimed BBC Radio 3 programme, in which he takes an idea on a mind-expanding walk through the musical landscape, Tom Service celebrates the multi-dimensional power of music. With 101 short, thematically-grouped chapters, the book will open ears and imaginations to find answers to the questions we all have about why and how music - from Toots and the Maytals and J S Bach, Gustav Mahler and Miley Cyrus, to Anna Meredith and Mozart - works its magic over us.
Available Format: Book
In this memoir, based on his popular New Yorker article, Jeremy Denk traces a journey from insufferable six-year-old piano prodigy in New Jersey to finding his way as one of the world's greatest living pianists and a frequent performer at Carnegie Hall. Denk dives into pieces and composers that have shaped him - Bach, Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms, among others - and gives lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. He tries to repay the debt of all his amazing teachers, and to remind us that we need to keep asking questions about music's purpose.
Available Format: Book
The Matter of Song in Early Modern England: Texts in and of the Air
Katherine R. Larson; Oxford University Press; Paperback
Given the variety and richness of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English 'songscape', it might seem unsurprising to suggest that early modern song needs to be considered as sung. When a reader encounters a song in a sonnet sequence, a romance, and even a masque or a play, however, the tendency is to engage with it as poem rather than as musical performance. This book considers the implications of reading song not simply as lyric text but as an embodied and gendered musical practice.
Available Format: Book
This comprehensive and accessible introduction to the essential elements of choreography in practice, theory, and contexts is an invaluable guide for any undergraduate students on Dance Studies or Dance BfA courses across the UK, US and Europe. It gives a much more current and contemporary take on the discipline than most books in this area, and is aimed at a younger, student audience.
Available Format: Book
The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music
Christopher Wilson & Mervyn Cooke (editors); Oxford University Press; Hardback
This handbook showcases the latest research into the many uses of music in relation to Shakespeare's plays and poems, extending from the Bard's own time to the present day, and embracing music for theatre, opera, ballet, musicals, the concert hall, and film in addition to Shakespeare's ongoing afterlives in folk, jazz, and popular music. Some chapters investigate the evidence for performative practices in the Early Modern and later eras, while others offer detailed accounts of representative case studies, situating these firmly in their cultural contexts, or reflecting on the political and sociological ramifications of the music.
Available Format: Book
The Sound of Cinema: Hollywood Film Music from the Silents to the Present
Sean Wilson; McFarland & Co; Paperback
While some film scores crash through theatre speakers to claim their place in memory, others are more unassuming. Either way, a film's score is integral to successful world-building. This book lifts the curtain on the art form, examining the birth of the Hollywood film score and its turbulent evolution throughout the decades. Beginning with vaudeville and silent cinema, it explores early pioneers like Max Steiner and Bernard Herrmann, and continues through to the careers of current soundtrack titans such as John Williams and Hans Zimmer.
Available Format: Book
The relationship between Romanticism and film remains one of the most neglected topics in film theory, with analysis often focusing on the proto-cinematic significance of Richard Wagner's music-dramas. Looking beyond Wagner, this book addresses Franz Liszt's role in the historical discourses of film and film music, discussing various filmic representations of Liszt and his compositions including rarely-explored films such as Song Without End (1960) and Lisztomania (1975).
Available Format: Book
Nothing but Noise: Timbre and Musical Meaning at the Edge
Zachary Wallmark; Oxford University Press; Hardback
This book explores how timbre shapes musical affect and meaning, advancing a model of interpretation that takes into account the bodily, sensorimotor dynamics of sound production and perception. Studies of timbre semantics are presented through cultural-historical case studies that frustrate the acoustic and perceptual boundary between musical sound and noise, with chapters on racial and gender politics in the reception of free jazz saxophone "screaming" in the late 1960s; an analysis of contested timbral ideals in the performance practices of the Japanese shakuhachi flute; and an historical examination of the overlooked role of "brutal" timbres in the moral panic over heavy metal in the eighties and nineties.
Available Format: Book
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