New Publications,
New Music Book Publications - 20th November 2023
Welcome to our latest selection of new music publications, including a collection of observations and diaries from composer Errollyn Wallen, companions to Amy Beach and Mozart's The Magic Flute, a biography of film composer Elmer Bernstein, an exploration of Schubert's instrumental music, a guide for singers to French lyric diction, a revised edition of the Very Short Introduction to Film Music, a discussion of music and religion in the writings of Ian McEwan, a handbook on how to improve your sight-reading, and an account of ten technological innovations that transformed the music industry.
Now a leading international composer and a singer-songwriter, Errollyn Wallen is as much at home in jazz and pop as in the classical world. Part memoir, this book offers an intriguing glimpse into the mind and motivation of a composer and covers aspects of Wallen's sometimes troubled childhood, and her experiences of growing up as a Black composer in the UK. It includes a collection of observations, diaries following the progress of new works, and essays seeking to shed light on the way a composer sees and hears the world.
Available Format: Book
The Cambridge Companion to Amy Beach
E. Douglas Bomberger (editor); Cambridge University Press; Paperback
Amy Beach was a path-breaking composer and pianist who transcended the restrictions of nineteenth-century Boston to become America's most famous turn-of-the-century female composer and, later in her career, a prominent performing artist and promoter of music education. This companion outlines her remarkable talent as a child prodigy, her marriage to a prominent physician twice her age, and her subsequent international acclaim as a composer and piano virtuoso. Analytical chapters examine the range of her musical output, from popular songs and piano pieces to chamber and symphonic works of great complexity.
Available Format: Book
The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute
Jessica Waldoff (editor); Cambridge University Press; Paperback
Since its premiere in 1791, The Magic Flute has been staged continuously and remains, to this day, Mozart's most-performed opera worldwide. This comprehensive, user-friendly, up-to-date critical guide considers the opera in a variety of contexts to provide a fresh look at a work that has continued to fascinate audiences from Mozart's time to ours. Containing twenty-one essays by leading scholars, it presents original insights on music, dialogue, and spectacle, and offers a range of new perspectives on key issues, including the opera's representation of exoticism, race, and gender.
Available Format: Book
Elmer Bernstein, Film Composer: An Authorized Biography
Jon Burlingame & Peter Bernstein; Rowman & Littlefield; Hardback
Over a career spanning fifty-four years, Elmer Bernstein composed landmark scores in every genre, and his credits read like a list of the greatest films of his time: The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Escape, and Ghostbusters, to name just a few. This biography interweaves exclusive interviews, oral histories not otherwise available, archival materials, and personal experiences, to present his story of struggle, success, frustration, failure, and reinvention repeated many times over his career.
Available Format: Book
Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation
René Rusch; Indiana University Press; Paperback
How might our modern aesthetic values and historical knowledge of Schubert's life affect how we interpret his music? In six chapters, each devoted to one or two of Schubert's pieces, this book explores alternate forms of unity and coherence, offers critical assessments of biographical and intertextual influence, and addresses the gendering of the composer and his music. Comparative analyses address four areas of scholarly focus in Schubert studies: his use of chromaticism, his unique forms, the impact of events in his own life, and the influence of Beethoven.
Available Format: Book
Singers, teachers, coaches, and conductors will appreciate this book for its thorough account of the language as it is sung in opera and mélodie. Often-overlooked topics are explored, including phrasal and emphatic stress, vocalic length, singing the French r, and traditions in the setting of French poetry. Considerable attention is paid to the subject of liaison, with recommendations on how to make decisions about optional liaisons in singing. A comprehensive guide to orthography provides instruction on the pronunciation of all French spellings, including many optional secondary pronunciations, and accepted francisé pronunciation for loanwords.
Available Format: Book
Film Music: A Very Short Introduction (Revised Edition)
Kathryn Kalinak; Oxford University Press; Paperback
The rich and deeply moving sounds of film music are almost as old as cinema itself. This introduction takes readers behind the scenes to understand both the practical aspects of film music - what it is and how it is composed - and the theories that have been developed to explain why film music works. The updated second edition includes music from film industries in Africa, Asia and South Asia, and Latin America, and focuses on previously under-represented film musicians, in particular women and minority composers.
Available Format: Book
Classical music is present throughout Ian McEwan's novels, mostly as a necessary part of life's pleasures. The combination of music and the unforgettable narrative moments create a unique space for McEwan to translate his views on the world. McEwan's ability to discern sentiments that easily resonate with musicians places his contribution to the field of music and literature studies in a singular position among living writers discussing classical music in Britain. This book provokes questions for those who encounter these areas for the first time in McEwan's writings.
Available Format: Book
Do you believe that some people can sight-read and others can’t? This book dispels this and other common misconceptions about sight-reading, presenting instead the idea of sight-reading as a technique that can developed and learned by anyone. It breaks down the fascinating science behind sight-reading as well as providing practical advice and exercises that can be incorporated into both lessons and practice. The engaging activities in the book are supported by an accompanying web app enabling readers to improve key areas of sight-reading technique including rhythm, pattern recognition, and brain processing speed.
Available Format: Book
Key Changes: The Ten Times Technology Transformed the Music Industry
Howie Singer & Bill Rosenblatt; Oxford University Press; Paperback
In recent years, narratives about the music industry tend to hew to a common theme: it was humming along for decades until the Internet and Napster came along and disrupted it. This book shows that this view is incorrect: the industry was actually shaken up not once in the 1990s, but ten times over more than 100 years. These ten disruptions came with the introduction of new formats for enjoying recorded music: starting with the cylinders and discs played on early phonographs; then moving through radio, LPs, tapes, CDs, television, digital downloads, streaming, and streaming video; and then into Artificial Intelligence (AI), which enables a wide range of new capabilities with profound impacts upon the business.
Available Format: Book
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