Showing results for "Music" in Europe

A four-thousand-year history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions. “A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched labor of cultural provocation.” ―Los Angeles Times Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who...

Beginning on the night in November 1963 when his mum took him to see the Beatles live at Manchester’s ABC Cinema, Mike Pickering takes the listener through sixty years of clubs, clothes, gigs, record labels, football matches and politics. Pickering has lived through decades of rapid change in popular music. As an influential DJ he introduced house music into the legendary Haçienda. He signed Happy Mondays and James to Factory Records before working with Kasabian, Gossip and Calvin Harris at Sony.

Duncan Hamilton is already a multiple award-winning sports writer, but it is hard to imagine he will write a better book than this superb, elegiac portrait of the sociable, feted, but ultimately unknowable man who virtually invented modern sports writing.... Neville Cardus described how one majestic stroke-maker 'made music' and 'spread beauty' with his bat. Between two world wars, he became the laureate of cricket by doing the same with words. In The Great Romantic, award-winning author Duncan Hamilton demonstrates how Cardus changed sports journalism for ever.

Marty Cullen’s song and story-filled odyssey around Ulster Ireland’s northernmost province has a rich history of music and storytelling. From the towering mountains of the borderlands, to the barren hills of Donegal; tales of things human and mythical are told through poetry, recitation and...

A great pianist and composer, Francesco Lotoro has been involved for over thirty years in an epochal undertaking: building an archive of the music that survived the concentration camps. Scores sewn into coat linings, instruments hidden in suitcases, sheet music stashed among dirty laundry...

Thunderclap Newman stunned the music world in the summer of 1969 with the success of their wonderfully odd debut single "Something In The Air", which ousted none other than the Beatles from the top of the charts. They followed up with an LP described by Nik Cohn as "one of the finest, most truly bizarre albums of the era" before disintegrating just a few months after its release. This is the story of one of the most unlikely combos in popular music history, and of the four disparate characters who formed its core.

Brought to you by Penguin. Every Valley is a glittering narrative history of intertwined lives that tells the story behind one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, Handel's Messiah. London - Dublin, 1741-42. An actress mired in scandal plans her escape from an abusive husband. A...

The perfect introduction to the Master. Over a century after his death, Richard Wagner’s music dramas stand at the centre of the culture of classical music. He was a walking contradiction: aggressive, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, heroic, visionary and poisonously anti-Semitic. His ten...

Author and singer John Potter tells the European story of song. The form has captivated audiences and excited performers for centuries, from the music of the troubadours and the Christian liturgy through classical composers such as Bach and Schumann up to Britten, Berio, and the rise of popular music. Choosing twelve key works, Potter offers a personal tour through this vital tradition, from John Dowland's "Flow My Tears" to George Gershwin's "Summertime." Throughout, he reveals who wrote and sang these joyful masterpieces—and what they mean to singers and audiences today.

Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW), or “German New Wave,” was made extraordinarily popular in the 1970s and 1980s by the likes of Nena's "99 Luftballons" and Trio's "Da Da Da"—and then left as quickly as it came. Conventional wisdom among artists dictates that it’s better to burn out than fade away, but this doesn’t tell the full story of NDW—the reason for its rapid rise and fall, the historical context that necessitated the genre, and where the energy of the NDW movement went after its end.

In his time, the Austrian American composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was an international icon. His twelve-tone system was considered the future of music itself. Today, however, leading orchestras rarely play his works, and his name is met with apathy, if not antipathy. With this interpretative account, the acclaimed biographer of Toscanini finally restores Schoenberg to his rightful place in the canon, revealing him as one of the twentieth century's most influential composers and teachers.

The Sunday Times bestseller THE STORY OF BRITAIN during the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Find out how Britain changed in this entrancing, lively portrait of Britain’s Elizabethan Age by bestselling writer and broadcaster Andrew Marr Britain changed fundamentally during the Queen’s long...

'Hungry Beat is the story of an all-too-brief era where the short-circuiting of that industry seemed viable. But hell, the times were luminous as was the music these artists made. The songs and many of the players remain, and here they tell their story and lick their wounds' Ian Rankin The...

The long-awaited portrait of a literary master from one of our generation's greatest biographers. Anthony Powell: the literary genius who gave us A Dance to the Music of Time, an undisputed classic of English literature. Spanning 12 spectacular volumes and written over 25 years, his comic masterpiece teems with idiosyncratic characters, capturing 20th-century Britain through war and peace. Drawing on Powell's letters and journals, and the memories of those who knew him, Hilary Spurling explores his life.

 England's Dreaming is the ultimate book on punk, its progenitors, the Sex Pistols, and the moment they defined for music fans in England and the United States. Savage brings to life the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid implosion of the Pistols through layers of rich detail and exclusive interviews. This fully revised and updated edition of the book covers the legacy of punk 25 years later and provides an account of the Pistols' 1996 reunion as well as a completely new introduction.  

An exploration into the question of greatness from the Chief Classical Music Critic of the New York Times When he began to listen to the great works of classical music as a child, Anthony Tommasini had many questions. Why did a particular piece move him? How did the music work? Over time, he...

The Victorians invented mass entertainment. As the 19th century's growing industrialized class acquired the funds and the free time to pursue leisure activities, their every whim was satisfied by entrepreneurs building new venues for popular amusement. Contrary to their reputation as dour, buttoned-up prudes, the Victorians reveled in these newly created "palaces of pleasure".   

Arthur Briggs's life was Homeric in scope. Born on the the tiny island of Grenada, he set sail for Harlem during the Renaissance, then to Europe in the aftermath of World War I, where he was among the first pioneers to introduce jazz music to the world. During the legendary Jazz Age in Paris, Briggs's trumpet provided the soundtrack while Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and the rest of the Lost Generation got drunk. By the 1930s, Briggs was considered "the Louis Armstrong of Paris," and was the peer of the greatest names of his time, from Josephine Baker to Django Reinhardt.

Former prime minister John Major takes a remarkable journey into his own unconventional family past to tell the richly colourful story of the British music hall Music hall was one of the glories of Victorian England. Sentimental, vulgar, class-conscious, but always patriotic and on the side of...

A Guardian Guide Cultural Book of the Year 2023 An Irish Times Music Book of the Year 2023 'A deep, engrossing history' The Observer 'A fascinating deep dive' Jeremy Deller From the illicit reggae blues dances and acid-rock free festivals of the 1970s, through the ecstasy-fuelled Second Summer...