Showing titles in History & Criticism

In the 1930s, composers and musicians began to flee Hitler's Germany to make new lives across the globe. The process of exile was complex: although some of their works were celebrated, these composers had lost their familiar cultures and were forced to navigate xenophobia as well as entirely different creative terrain. Others, far less fortunate, were in a kind of internal exile-composing under a ruthless dictatorship or in concentration camps and ghettos.

Cello is a group biography that weaves together four narratives of cellists who suffered various forms of persecution, injury, and misfortune. Interwoven with their remarkable and often moving stories are a series of interludes that offer a foil to the group biographies. These examine the themes explored in the narratives from different perspectives, drawing together essay-like musings, historical research, personal experience, and the author’s many interviews and encounters with contemporary cellists.

Of all the musical developments of rock in the 1960s, one in particular fundamentally changed the music's structure and listening experience: the incorporation of extended improvisation into live performances. While many bands—including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Velvet Underground—stretched out their songs with improvisations, no band was more identified with the practice than the Grateful Dead. In Get Shown the Light Michael Kaler examines how the Dead's dedication to improvisation stemmed from their belief that playing in this manner enabled them to touch upon transcendence.

Die 80er-Jahre! Was für ein wunderbares musikalisches Jahrzehnt. Die beiden Hosts Falk und Ryll präsentieren im aktuellen Album 13 außergewöhnliche Lieblingssongs der 80er mit den Geschichten ihrer Gäste. Mit "Kayleigh" von Marillion hat Regine Brühl eine wahre Hymne aus den Achtziger-Jahren als ihren Lieblingssong ausgewählt. Dirk Neuß erzählt, was ihn fasziniert an den Tubes und "Don't want to wait anymore". Warum "Hallelujah" von Leonard Cohen für Patricia Küll Veränderung bedeutet hat, das erzählt sie Falk&Ryll.

Brought to you by Penguin. From the author of Abbey Road comes the story of how enduring rock icons like Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen and many more have remained in the ever changing music game. When Paul McCartney closed Live Aid in July 1985 we thought he was rock's Grand Old Man. He was...

Drawing on eighty-six interviews with key architects of this jazz renaissance and those who came before them—from Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia and Moses Boyd to Gilles Peterson, Courtney Pine and Cleveland Watkiss — Unapologetic Expression captures the radical spirit of a vital British musical movement.

Millions of people know the name of the iconic country music artist, George Jones, but few people know that behind the man and his golden voice was a strong, feisty woman who not only saved his life from cocaine addiction, alcoholism, and other abusive and self-destructive behaviors, but also was instrumental in saving his soul. For the first time, in Playin' Possum, Nancy Jones reveals the true “insider” perspectives and little known poignant and as well as humorous stories about the country music icon.

After twenty years on the road, Eric Krasno has spent time sharing stories with countless artists — and these conversations have become some of his most cherished memories. In Eric Krasno Plus One, the audience is invited to join moments like these in podcast form—topics range from early inspirations to discussions about the state of the music industry, to the challenges of life on the road, backstage shenanigans, and much more.

After twenty years on the road, Eric Krasno has spent time sharing stories with countless artists — and these conversations have become some of his most cherished memories. In Eric Krasno Plus One, the audience is invited to join moments like these in podcast form—topics range from early inspirations to discussions about the state of the music industry, to the challenges of life on the road, backstage shenanigans, and much more.

Eric Krasno Plus One is an interview-style series that brings listeners backstage and deep into the lives of incredible musicians. After twenty years on the road, Eric Krasno has spent time sharing stories with countless artists—and these conversations have become some of his most cherished memories. In Eric Krasno Plus One, the audience is invited to join moments like these in podcast form—topics range from early inspirations to discussions about the state of the music industry, to the challenges of life on the road, backstage shenanigans, and much more.

Eric Krasno Plus One is an interview-style series that brings listeners backstage and deep into the lives of incredible musicians. After twenty years on the road, Eric Krasno has spent time sharing stories with countless artists—and these conversations have become some of his most cherished memories. In Eric Krasno Plus One, the audience is invited to join moments like these in podcast form—topics range from early inspirations to discussions about the state of the music industry, to the challenges of life on the road, backstage shenanigans, and much more.

The definitive history of the rise and heyday of the revolutionary Greenwich Village music scene, based on new research and first-hand interviews with many of its legendary performers Although Greenwich Village encompasses less than a square mile in downtown New York, rarely has such a concise...

After 20 years on the road, Eric Krasno has spent time sharing stories with countless artists — and these conversations have become some of his most cherished memories. In Eric Krasno Plus One, the audience is invited to join in and hang out with these old friends. Topics range from early inspirations to discussions about the state of the music industry, to the challenges of life on the road, backstage shenanigans, and much more.

In Revolutions in American Music, award-winning author Michael Broyles shows the surprising ways in which three key decades—the 1840s, the 1920s, and the 1950s—shaped America's musical future. Drawing connections between new styles of music like the minstrel show, jazz, and rock 'n' roll, and emerging technologies like the locomotive, the first music recordings, and the transistor radio, Broyles argues that these decades fundamentally remade our cultural landscape in enduring ways. 

En estas páginas, la exploración de la música latinoamericana conduce hacia la historia más amplia de la conceptualización de la región. Tal como sostiene Palomino: "La música proporciona así un modelo para comprender ahora los mecanismos nacionales y transnacionales que siguen produciendo el lugar de América Latina en el marco de la cultura global conflictiva y fascinante que habitamos".

Het "lied" is een zeer algemeen begrip dat vele soorten en vormen van liederen omvat. Wanneer we tegenwoordig het lied als kunstvorm beschouwen, bedoelen we in feite het lied met begeleiding van piano. Hoewel dat een ernstige beperking impliceert, behandelt Leo Samama in deze serie colleges toch overwegend dat klavierlied. Grofweg van Haydn en Mozart tot in onze tijd. Hij vertelt ook over de ontwikkeling van de spannende samenwerking tussen muziek en tekst. Begint de kracht van de muziek inderdaad waar die van de tekst ophoudt, of is de symbiose vele malen groter dan dat?

The human body is the primary instrument of war, yet those waging war often confront soldiers' bodies in a detached or merely intellectual way. In The Tenderness of Silent Minds, Martha C. Nussbaum, a leading thinker on emotion, morality, and justice, conducts a pioneering study of Benjamin Britten's musical representations of the tender male body amidst the brutality of war, and their ability to transform consciousness by evoking potent, non-personal emotions.

In 1981, David Bowie and Queen both happened to be in Switzerland: They met and made "Under Pressure." Recorded on a lark, the song broke the path for subsequent pop anthems. In Under Pressure, Max Brzezinski tells the classic track's story, charting the relationship between pop music, collective politics, and dominant institutions of state, corporations, and civil society. Brzezinski shows that, like all great pop anthems, "Under Pressure" harnesses collective sentiments in order to model new ways of thinking and acting.

Aunque no se trata de un arte plástico en sentido literal, hay que mencionar que este siglo de la Ilustración dio lugar a una gran explosión musical y vió nacer a los mejores maestros de todos los tiempos. En esta breve relación queremos mencionar a algunos de...

In Live Dead, musicologist John Brackett examines how live recordings—from the group's official releases to fan-produced tapes, bootlegs to "Betty Boards," and Dick's Picks to From the Vault—have shaped the general history and popular mythology of the Grateful Dead for more than fifty years.