The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, and numerous other groups put Britain at the center of the modern musical map. Please Please Me offers an insider's view of the British pop-music recording industry during the seminal period of 1956 to 1968, based on personal recollections, contemporary accounts, and all relevant data that situate this scene in the economic, political, and social context of postwar Britain. Author Gordon Thompson weaves issues of class, age, professional status, gender, and ethnicity into his narrative, beginning with the rise of British beat groups and the emergence of teenagers as consumers in postwar Britain, and moving into the competition between performers and the recording industry for control over the music. He interviews musicians, songwriters, music directors, and producers and engineers who worked with the best-known performers of the era. Drawing his interpretation of the processes at work during this musical revolution into a wider context, Thompson unravels the musical change and innovation of the time with an eye on understanding what traces individuals leave in the musical and recording process.
The hurdy-gurdy, or vielle, has been part of European musical life since the eleventh century. In eighteenth-century France, improvements in its sound and appearance led to its use in chamber ensembles. This new and expanded edition of The Hurdy-Gurdy in Eighteenth-Century France offers the definitive introduction to the classic stringed instrument. Robert A. Green discusses the techniques of playing the hurdy-gurdy and the interpretation of its music, based on existing methods and on his own experience as a performer. The list of extant music includes new pieces discovered within the last decade and provides new historical context for the instrument and its role in eighteenth-century French culture.
This book/CD package guides readers and listeners on a journey through Franz Schubert's Winterreise song cycle, in which the composer set the poetry of Wilhelm Muller to music. The complete text of the 24 poems is presented in both German and English, with 116 b&w photographs of winter scenes on the facing pages. An introductory essay by Susan Youens (musicology, U. of Notre Dame) offers a critical examination of the song cycle. The music CD features a new recording of Winterreise, performed by baritone Paul Rowe and pianist Martha Fischer. Oversize: 10.25x10.25". Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Vietnam veteran Tommy Starbuck teaches high school English in a small town in southern Ohio. But his comfortable middle-class reality comes to a screeching halt when his wife abruptly leaves him for an old boyfriend. Starbuck becomes obsessed with reclaiming some semblance of a normal life, but fate-or some mischievous god-has other plans for him. A series of bizarre events causes him to question his sanity, the world's sanity. As he descends further into a surreal Season of Madness, he blasts an air-raid siren with a rifle on the date of his wedding anniversary. Myron Laszlo, an unkempt, long-haired giant, thrusts himself into Starbuck's life, viewing a bullet-riddled siren as radical and antiestablishment: "Your act of seeming violence was in reality an act of love," he tells Starbuck who becomes his Hurdy Gurdy Man. Almost as suddenly as he came into Starbuck's life, Laszlo departs, leaving a display of destruction in his wake. Saddened at the loss of his friend, Starbuck reprioritizes his life and begins working on a novel. After realizing that normalcy can have many interpretations, he decides to meet the seeming madness of Life head-on.
In this essential collection of Andrei Platonov's plays, the noted Platonov translator Robert Chandler edits and introduces The Hurdy-Gurdy (translated by Susan Larsen), Fourteen Little Red Huts (translated by Chandler), and Grandmother's Little Hut (translated by Jesse Irwin). Written in 1930 and 1933, respectively, The Hurdy-Gurdy and Fourteen Little Red Huts constitute an impassioned and penetrating response to Stalin's assault on the Soviet peasantry. They reflect the political urgency of Bertolt Brecht and anticipate the tragic farce of Samuel Beckett but play out through dialogue and characterization that is unmistakably Russian. This volume also includes Grandmother's Little Hut, an unfinished play that represents Platonov's later, gentler work.
This is the first in Denes Agay’s famous piano tuition series of piano for children, this book teaches the basics, step-by-step, through a progression of melodic pieces and songs. Denes Agay intends to introduce easy piano technique and music theory in an accessible and imaginative way, inspiring students to learn and practice. With colourful, attractive illustrations, simple diagrams and over 70 fun and engaging pieces to learn, there has never been a better way to get your child enthused about the piano.