New Publications,
New Music Book Publications - 11th October 2022
Welcome to our latest selection of new music books. Our picks this time round include two biographies of Ralph Vaughan Williams for his anniversary year; an exploration of the impact that Beethoven's music had on politics in Russia; a paperback edition of a biography of Maria Callas; a survey of music in the Romantic age; a collection of puzzles and brainteasers from Classic FM; an introduction to Western music in the twentieth century; a history of Welsh music; 100 inspiring ideas for primary music activities; a look at the phenomenon of the execution ballad in Europe from 1500; various books offering tips for viola and horn players; an account of the modern brass ensemble in twentieth-century Britain; and the inside story of one of the world's most famous recording venues, Abbey Road.
Classical Composers & Performers
Drawing upon both recent scholarship and newly-accessible scores and correspondence, this book interweaves an exploration of Vaughan Williams's life - including new insights about his early career, military service in the Great War, and relationships with the women he loved and married - with chapters surveying his enormous body of music, spanning hymn tunes to operas, keyboard etudes to solo concerti, wind band music for amateurs to perhaps the finest symphonic cycle of the twentieth century.
Available Format: Book
From 1918 onwards, Adrian Boult became one of Vaughan Williams's most important interpreters, giving the world premieres of the Pastoral, Fourth and Sixth Symphonies. As this book shows, Boult's scores include numerous annotations derived from conversations and correspondence with Vaughan Williams. The evidence of these scores is considered alongside extensive correspondence between the pair, Boult's private diaries, and other relevant documents including contemporary press reports.
Available Format: Book
With the establishment of the Russian Musical Society and its affiliated branches throughout the empire, Beethoven's music reached substantially larger audiences at a time of increasing political instability. This book explores the interface between music and politics in Russia by examining the reception of Beethoven's works from the late eighteenth century to the present, showing how his music served as a call to action for citizens and weaponised state propaganda in the great political struggles that shaped modern Russian history.
Available Format: Book
Despite a career that remains unmatched by any prima donna, much of Maria Callas's life was overshadowed by her fiery relationship with Aristotle Onassis, who broke her heart when he left her for Jacqueline Kennedy, and her legendary tantrums both on and off the stage. However, little is known about the woman behind the diva. This book, now available in a paperback edition, draws on previously-unseen documents to reveal the raw, tragic story of a true icon.
Available Format: Book
Music History & Genres
Everyone loves Romantic music: the sweet melody of a Schubert song, the heroine dying for love in an Italian opera, the swooning orchestration of a Tchaikovsky symphony. But as this book points out, there is infinitely more to Romantic music than meets the eye. With a narrative beginning in the eighteenth century with CPE Bach, Haydn, and the Sturm und Drang movement, the book offers an entertaining account of this whole phase in music history, told with passion but also with the precision and clarity of detail for which the author is widely admired.
Available Format: Book
Celebrating thirty years of broadcasting, Classic FM returns with a new collection of puzzles to unwind with. Blending together basic trivia, complex wordplay and a range of visual teasers, it will engross all music lovers and provide hours of meditative music-themed puzzling. With 150 challenges over three difficulty levels to choose from, it will entertain and delight you from the first bar until the very last note.
Available Format: Book
Twentieth-Century Music in the West: An Introduction
Tom Perchard, Stephen Graham, Tim Rutherford-Johnson, & Holly Rogers; Cambridge University Press; Paperback
This is the first introductory survey of Western twentieth-century music to address popular music, art music and jazz on equal terms. Each of the book's sections explores a musical or cultural topic as it developed over many years, and as it appeared across a diversity of musical practices. In this way, the text introduces both key musical repertoire and critical-musicological approaches to that work.
Available Format: Book
A History of Welsh Music
Trevor Herbert, Martin V. Clarke, & Helen Barlow (editors); Cambridge University Press; Hardback
From early medieval bards to the bands of the 'Cool Cymru' era, this book looks at Welsh musical practices and traditions, and the idea of Wales as a 'musical nation' has been formed and embedded in popular consciousness in Wales and beyond. Beginning with early medieval descriptions of musical life in Wales, it provides both an overarching study of Welsh music history and also a detailed consideration of the ideas, beliefs, practices and institutions that shaped it.
Available Format: Book
Inventors in the age of the Enlightenment created life-like androids capable of playing music on real instruments. This book examines the link between such simulated life and music, which began in scientific literature and extended into a series of famous works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Weaving together cultural and musical practices, it presents case studies ranging from Classical symphonies to modernist projections of waltzing spectres by Mahler and Ravel to a novel linking Bach's Goldberg Variations to the genetic code.
Available Format: Book
How to teach Primary Music: 100 inspiring ideas
David Wheway, Hilary Miles, & Jonathan Barnes; Collins Music; Paperback
This book presents 100 creative ideas to support anyone teaching music in primary schools. The ideas are inclusive and easy to implement, tackling everything from singing, creating tunes and using music technology through to classroom management, working with music hubs and putting on a performance. This practical collection goes across the spectrum, with ideas that teachers can take on board easily.
Available Format: Book
The Reel World: Scoring for Pictures, Television, and Video Games (Third Edition)
Jeff Rona; Rowman & Littlefield; Paperback
This fully-updated guide takes you inside the world of creating music for film, television, and video games, addressing a wide range of topics including musical aesthetics, cutting-edge technology and techniques, and current business aspects of the industry. The book is packed with insider's tips alongside interviews with some of the most influential film, TV, and video game composers, music editors, agents, contractors and studio executives.
Available Format: Book
Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900
Una McIlvenna; Oxford University Press; Hardback
Across Europe, from the dawn of print until the early twentieth century, the news of crime and criminals' public executions was printed in song form on cheap broadsides and pamphlets to be sold in streets and marketplaces by ballad-singers. This book looks at how and why song was employed across Europe for centuries as a vehicle for broadcasting such news, exploring how this performative medium could frame and mediate the message of punishment and repentance.
Available Format: Book
Instruments & Ensembles
This guide to playing the viola with the greatest freedom, dexterity, and ease includes right- and left- hand exercises to build a sound technique, sections on how to practise, how to hold the viola and bow, how to think about good posture, how to create a good sound, how to play with the least amount of tension, how to deal with anxiety, and thoughts on wellness and practice techniques. Alongside these are photographs and a companion website of video demonstrations of the exercises played by the author.
Available Format: Book
Woodwind Instruments: a practical guide for technicians and repairers
Daniel Bangham; Crowood Press; Hardback
Covering clarinets, flutes, saxophones, oboes, and bassoons, this thorough book is aimed at both the interested musician and those embarking on instrument repair as a career. Organised into six parts, it guides the reader from initial diagnostic techniques all the way through to specialist repair instruction, and is packed with over 700 colour illustrations, step-by-step guidance, and general advice.
Available Format: Book
A Singing Approach to Horn Playing: Pitch, Rhythm, and Harmony Training for Horn
Natalie Douglass Grana; Oxford University Press; Paperback
This book develops the fundamental sense of pitch that is essential to play the horn, beginning with simple songs to sing on solfège, buzz on the mouthpiece, and play on the horn, followed by inner hearing, transposition, and polyphonic exercises. Through a wide-ranging synthesis of theory, practical advice, and exercises, it puts forth a crucial guide for a new generation of horn players seeking to improve and perfect their sense of pitch.
Available Format: Book
Whereas the British brass band originated in the nineteenth century and rapidly developed into a nationwide working-class movement, the perceived modern brass ensemble has a less clear foundation and identity. Following World War II, the brass quintet and other orchestral groupings emerged in the United States and Europe, with musical customs established by professional players playing orchestral instruments. This book offers a comprehensive account by an author and performer who was involved in many of the key developments of the modern brass ensemble.
Available Format: Book
London Chamber Orchestra: 101 Years of Transformation
Jessica Duchen; London Chamber Orchestra; Hardback
Agile, flexible and never afraid of controversial innovations, the LCO has surfed the waves of history. This book traces their development from the beginning under its founding conductor, the entrepreneurial Anthony Bernard from London's East End, up to its current Artistic Director, Christopher Warren-Green, who ensures the LCO continues to delight its devoted audiences at home and abroad with an eclectic and diverse programme of music.
Available Format: Book
Rock & Pop
Abbey Road: The Inside Story of the World's Most Famous Recording Studio
David Hepworth; Bantam Press; Hardback
Many people will recognise the famous zebra crossing. But what draws in these thousands of fans here, year after year? What is it that really happens behind the doors of the most celebrated recording studio in the world? It may have begun life as an affluent suburban house, but it soon became a creative hub renowned as a place where great music, ground-breaking sounds and unforgettable tunes were forged - nothing less than a witness to, and a key participant in, the history of popular music itself.
Available Format: Book
While encompassing the origins of The Beatles as a group and the emergence of John, Paul, and George as composers, the central focus of this book is on tunes John, Paul and George wrote for other artistes rather than for The Beatles themselves. As such the stories featured here are not about 'covers' of songs The Beatles had already released. It is about songs The Beatles did not release commercially or even record at all during the active lifetime of the group. Such 'giveaways' were unique and each song and its singer are discussed in detail and side stories and background explored.
Available Format: Book
Across seven decades, Bob Dylan has been the first singer of American song. This book tells his story through seven of his most transformative songs, illuminating Dylan's continuing presence and relevance through his empathy, as well as his imaginative identification with other people. This is not only a deeply-felt telling of the life and times of Bob Dylan but a rich history of American folk songs and the new life they were given as Dylan sat down to write his own.
Available Format: Book
Launched in 1987 and published bi-annually - this book has now reached its seventeenth edition, remaining the world's most comprehensive guide to prices of UK releases from 1950 to the current day. Compiled by expert staff, it spans every musical genre from Rock, Pop, Soul, Punk, Blues, Jazz, Disco, Acid House, Techno, Hip-Hop, Reggae, Dance, Rock ‘n' Roll, Metal, Progressive, Psych, Indie, Country, Folk, Exotica, Soundtracks and M.O.R. Whether you are a seasoned collector, record dealer, or new to the world of vinyl this book is an essential purchase.
Available Format: Book
James Longstaffe - Head of Retail
