New Publications,
New Music Book Publications - 8th January 2024
Welcome to our latest selection of new music publications, including handbooks on music by Berlioz and Schumann, a guide to the songs of Sibelius, a volume of essays on French composer Olivier Messiaen, a history of the horn, a new look at the practices and theory of tonality, a method for teaching the saxophone, an exploration of musical models of democracy, a discussion of the role of music with critical narratives of citizenship, and an evaluation of the relationship between jazz and wider aspects of American culture.
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (New Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Julian Rushton; Cambridge University Press; Paperback
Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is a key work in the understanding of romanticism, programme music, and the development of the orchestra post-Beethoven. This handbook situates the symphony within its time, and considers the literary and musical influences that shaped its conception, providing a close analysis of the symphony, its formal properties, and melodic and textural elements (including harmony and counterpoint).
Available Format: Book
Schumann: Piano Concerto: (New Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Julian Horton; Cambridge University Press; Paperback
Offering a concise introduction to one of the most important and influential piano concertos in the history of Western music, this handbook combines an account of the work's genesis, Schumann's earlier, unsuccessful attempts to compose in the genre, and the evolving conception of the piano concerto evident in his critical writing with a detailed yet accessible analysis of each movement.
Available Format: Book
The Songs of Jean Sibelius: Poetry, Music, Performance
Gustav Djupsjöbacka; Boydell & Brewer; Hardback
A landmark in Sibelius scholarship, this is the first book that presents all of Sibelius's solo art songs in their musical and aesthetic context. Indispensable for scholars and performers alike, it is organised around the poets Sibelius set to music and the literary themes associated with them, thus providing invaluable information for the scholar, student and performer.
Available Format: Book
Exploring the many dimensions of Messiaen's life, thought and music, this book provides fresh perspectives on the contexts within which the composer worked, the intellectual currents that influenced him, and the influence he himself exerted on twentieth-century music. It enables a holistic understanding of the composer, including his engagement with theology through music, the performance and reception of his work, the ways in which his aesthetics and conceptual universe have been understood by his students, and how his legacy continues to evolve.
Available Format: Book
From its origins in animal horn instruments in classical antiquity to the emergence of the modern horn in the seventeenth century, the horn appears wherever and whenever humans have made music. Its haunting, timeless presence endures in jazz and film music as well as orchestral settings. This addition to the Yale Musical Instrument Series traces the origins of the modern horn in all its variety, from its emergence in Turin and its development of political and diplomatic functions across European courts, to the revolutionary invention of valves.
Available Format: Book
This book proposes a reformulation of the basic tenets of Western music theory, revealing simple structures underlying a wide range of practices from the Renaissance to contemporary pop. Each of its chapters re-examines a concept such as voice leading, repetition, non-harmonic tones, the origins and grammar of tonal harmony, modulation, and melody. With almost 700 musical examples from the Middle Ages to the present day, it weaves philosophy, mathematics, statistics, and computational analysis into a twenty-first century theory of music.
Available Format: Book
Playing & Teaching the Saxophone: A Modern Approach
Allison D. Adams & Brian R. Horner; Oxford University Press; Paperback
This book provides a method for teaching the saxophone that is specific enough to use as a textbook in a collegiate saxophone class, simple enough for a band director to use in guiding their saxophone sections, clear enough for adult beginners to teach themselves, and deep enough for professionals to use as a resource in teaching private lessons at any level.
Available Format: Book
Music's role in animating democracy - whether through protests and demonstrations, as a vehicle for political identity, or as a means of overcoming social divides - is well understood. Yet musicians have also been drawn to the potential of embodying democracy itself through musical processes and relationships. This book uses modern democratic theory to explore the musical modelling of democracy as manifested in modern and experimental music of the global North.
Available Format: Book
Critical citizenship practices and the language of populism have never been more sharply opposed. Today's efforts to anchor citizenship narratives in national belonging now confront a variety of flexible citizenships. This book argues that music has for a long time been entangled with debates about citizenship, challenging the conventional understanding in terms of nationalism and national identity through the examination of case studies from across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Available Format: Book
Almost immediately after jazz became popular in the United States in the early twentieth century, American writers responded to what this exciting art form signified for listeners. This book takes an expansive view of the relationship between this uniquely American music and other aspects of American life, including books, films, language, and politics. Observing how jazz has become a cultural institution, it traces jazz as an aesthetic influence, a political force, and a representational focus in American culture.
Available Format: Book
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