The story of London's favourite "village hall", written to celebrate its upgrading and refurbishment. With unprecedented access to the archives, it tells of the great pageant of events that have taken place here. Home of the world famous Proms, opera house, sports arena, meeting hall, ballroom - it was also the only place the Beatles and Rolling Stones shared the same bill.
Published to celebrate the completion of the Royal Albert Hall's eight-year, #70 million development programme, this book tells the story of one of Britain's most treasured buildings. It is a record of the pageant of British culture since Victorian times.
Drawing on the same standards of accuracy as the acclaimed DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, DK Top 10 London uses exciting colorful photography and excellent cartography to provide a reliable and useful travel. Dozens of Top 10 lists provide vital information on each destination, as well as insider tips, from avoiding the crowds to finding out the freebies, The DK Top 10 Guides take the work out of planning any trip.
Bob Dylan and John Lennon are two of the most iconic names in popular music. Dylan is arguably the twentieth century's most important singer-songwriter. Lennon was founder and leader of the Beatles who remain, by some margin, the most covered songwriters in history. While Dylan erased the boundaries between pop and poetry, Lennon and his band transformed the genre's creative potential. The parallels between the two men are striking but underexplored. This book addresses that lack. Jon Stewart discusses Dylan's and Lennon's relationship; their politics; their understanding of history; and their deeply held spiritual beliefs. In revealing how each artist challenged the restrictive social norms of their day, the author shows how his subjects asked profound moral questions about what it means to be human and how we should live. His book is a potent meditation and exploration of two emblematic figures whose brilliance changed Western music for a generation.
Victoria Newhouse, noted author and architectural historian, addresses the aesthetics and acoustics in concert halls and opera houses of the past, present, and future in this stunning companion to the highly regarded Towards a New Museum. Site and Sound explores the daunting, perennial question: Does the music serve the space, or the other way around? Heavily illustrated throughout—with historic images, spectular color photographs, detailed drawings—this volume is an informed and enjoyable presentation of a building type that is at the heart of cities small and large. Newhouse starts with a survey of venues from ancient Greek and Roman times and progresses to contemporary works around the world. She singles out Lincoln Center in particular for its long history and its transitions and remodelings over the years. Two major chapters cover the present: one focuses on recent work in the West, including the National Opera House of Norway in Oslo by Snøhetta (2008), the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal, by Rem Koolhaas (2005), and many more; the second examines the boom in concert halls in China. A final chapter looks at projects that are currently planned and the future of an architecture for music.
This definitive biography depicts one Victorian woman’s struggle to stay afloat in a rising tide of prurient scandalmongering and snobbery. Could it be that this woman’s character and circumstances informed Oscar Wilde’s social comedies? She was the daughter of a leading Conservative Oxford don, vilified as an arrogant fortune-hunter. Her liaison dangereuse with a Duke resulted in ostracism by Queen Victoria’s cronies, as well as protracted, widely publicised legal disputes with his family. One battle put her in Holloway Gaol for six weeks. Her supporters, over time, included Disraeli, the Khedival family of Egypt, the de Lesseps, and Sir Albert Kaye Rollit (a promoter of women’s suffrage, later her third husband). Her life and that of her family drew in British and European colonialism, and even Reilly, the “Ace of Spies”. Various previously untapped letters, diaries and journals allow the reader to navigate through the sensationalist fog of the primarily Liberal press of her time. The book will appeal to anyone interested in Victorian and journalism history, and gender and celebrity studies.
This book examines intersections of poetry and performance during the British Poetry Revival. Its investigations are centered on four specific performance events: The First International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965; Denise Riley’s first public reading at the Cambridge Poetry Festival in 1977; Eric Mottram’s Pollock Record; and Allen Fisher’s Blood Bone Brain. Drawing upon a range of archival resources, recordings, and interviews, Juha Virtanen offers engaging and detailed “archaeological” accounts and analyses of these largely unexamined events as well as the potential dialogues between them. The appendices of the book also feature previously unpublished interviews with both Fisher and Riley. This book is essential reading for poetry and performance enthusiasts, particularly those interested in innovative British Poetry.
