"When Divas Confess: The World's Great Opera Singers in Their Leading
Roles"
by Marcia Lieberman and Paul Griffiths
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Despite the tabloid title, "When Divas Confess" offers a magnificently
revealing photographic essay--with epigrammatic textual interludes by
critic Paul Griffiths--on some 60 opera singers, from cult-status
superstars to the relatively unknown. Photojournalist Marcia Lieberman
has assembled a suite of visual performances--mostly shot in dressing
rooms during breaks--that are bizarrely intimate, campy, and radiant
with love for the stage.
"Naples: City of Celebrations"
by Dinko Fabris
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Unlikely as it may seem today, during the 17th and 18th centuries
Naples was considered equal to Paris as a musical capital of
Europe. This gorgeous little volume provides vivid paintings,
photographs, and anecdotes (in side-by-side English and German text)
depicting five centuries of music making in this famously voluble
city. It's not often that a beautifully produced coffee-table book
devoted to music turns up--let alone one in a convenient small size at
a reasonable price (and with two CDs included).
"The Parisian Worlds of Frederic Chopin"
by William G. Atwood
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More about France--specifically Paris--than about Chopin, this book
seems geared toward the historian, though musicians and music lovers
with a flair for cultural, social, and political history will also
find it of value. The author's research into French life between 1830
and the 1848 revolutionary period results in a thickly detailed tour
through Paris, royal politics, literature, the Polish refugee
community, and the like, conveying a vivid sense of the city's rich
cultural ferment.
"First Nights: Five Musical Premieres"
by Thomas Forest Kelly
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Based on a popular lecture course Thomas Forrest Kelly gives at
Harvard, "First Nights" offers vivid reenactments of five of the most
explosively exciting musical premieres in music history. Starting with
Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo," Kelly's context-rich, delightfully anecdotal
investigations also include the first nights of "Messiah," Beethoven's
Ninth, Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastique," and modern music's most
notorious premiere: Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." However well you
know these masterpieces, Kelly's essays abound in new insights--and
they'll make you heartily wish you had had these hot tickets.
HARMONIA MUNDI BACH EDITION
***************************
Spring is a-comin' in, which means it's time to celebrate the birthday
of J.S. Bach. In fact, this seems to be the year to plunge into his
work, as the music world commemorates the 250th anniversary of this
supreme genius with concerts, festivals, and a tsunami of releases.
Among the best of the latter is Harmonia Mundi's handsomely packaged
series spotlighting some of today's most extraordinary Bach
interpreters, from Lionel Rogg to Philippe Herreweghe and Andrew
Manze. The Harmonia Mundi Bach Edition includes a host of midpriced
reissues along with four major new releases. Here's a compilation of
the entire series:
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GET STARTED IN CLASSICAL
************************
Johannes Brahms occupies a heady, prominent position in the pantheon
of classical composers, yet he is also one of the most
misunderstood. A great way into his music--with all its
contradictions--is through the lyrically abundant Violin Concerto
Brahms composed during his mature, fertile outburst of symphonic
creativity. Check out our latest Get Started in Classical feature on
Brahms, which includes an audio tour and essay, and let Amazon.com's
experts introduce you to this immensely rewarding composer.
Sale Priced
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The Celestial Twins : Poetry and Music Through the Ages
by H. -T Kirby-Smith
Our Price: $40.00
Publication date: January 2000
Binding: Hardcover
Subjects: General; Lyric poetry; History and criticism
ISBN: 1558492259
URL: REVIEW
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Rock Confidential
by Coral Amende
Our Price: $11.86 -- You Save: $2.09 (15%)
Publication date: January 31, 2000
Binding: Paperback
Subjects: Rock music; History and criticism; Rock musicians
ISBN: 0452281571
URL: REVIEW
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Music Therapy
Our Price: $45.00
Publication date: February 2000
Binding: Paperback
Subjects: Music
ISBN: 0028654234
URL: REVIEW
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Who Bop
by Jonathan London, Henry Cole (Illustrator)
Our Price: $11.21 -- You Save: $3.74 (25%)
Publication date: February 2000
Binding: Hardcover
Subjects: Children's poetry, American; Jazz; Poetry
ISBN: 0060279176
URL: REVIEW
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Tchaikovsky: 18 Piano Pieces, Op. 72
by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky
Our Price: $6.76 -- You Save: $1.19 (15%)
Publication date: February 2000
Binding: Paperback
Subjects: Music; Songbooks; Classical
ISBN: 9639059692
URL: REVIEW
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Shostakovich in Context
by Rosamund Barlett(Editor)
Our Price: $70.00
Publication date: February 2000
Binding: Hardcover
Subjects: Music; Classical; Composition
ISBN: 0198166664
URL: REVIEW
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Puccini : His International Art
by Michele Girardi
Our Price: $65.00
Publication date: February 2000
Binding: Hardcover
Subjects: Puccini, Giacomo,; 1858-1924; Criticism and interpretation
ISBN: 0226297578
URL: REVIEW
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The Spheres of Music : A Gathering of Essays
by Leonard B. Meyer
Our Price: $55.00
Publication date: February 2000
Binding: Hardcover
Subjects: Music; History and criticism; Philosophy And Esthetics Of Music
ISBN: 0226521532
URL: REVIEW
"Bach"
by Malcolm Boyd
REVIEW
Though he begins by bemoaning "the difficulty of writing
anything on Bach remotely worthy of its subject," Malcolm
Boyd goes on to do exactly that. This volume from the Master
Musicians Series intermingles chapters on Bach's life with
chapters on his music in a delightfully clearheaded way.
Boyd is perfectly willing to say whether he finds a piece of
music to be substandard and freely takes issue with the
scholarship of earlier analysts. Taking nothing for granted,
Boyd disproves common assumptions about relative dates of
compositions. The section on cantatas begins with brief
notes on the genre, a few antecedents, and the subtypes of
secular and sacred. Boyd then briskly reviews the surviving
works, dwelling on a few for some enlightening and
representative details. Boyd's charts are very easy to
follow (appropriate for a composer whose music is often
compared to architecture), and his musical examples are
spectacularly well chosen. A 22-page work list (revised in
1997), a life calendar, and a brief chapter on numerology
round out a highly rewarding volume.
"Maria Callas: Sacred Monster"
by Stelios Galatopoulos
REVIEW
Maria Callas is a biographer's dream. Born into poverty, she
turned herself from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan,
and in the process became the most celebrated diva of the
20th century. She breathed life, drama, and passion into an
art form that had hitherto remained the preserve of an
intellectual elite, and was single-handedly responsible for
turning opera from an arts-page sideshow to front-page
news. Her bust-ups with the New York Met and her disastrous
love life were as enthralling as her voice, and there was a
depressing inevitability about her mysterious, early death
in 1977 at the age of 54. What separates Stelios Galatopoulos
from the rest of her biographers is the wealth of previously
unpublished material from which he draws. He is stronger
than most on Callas's early years. Galatopoulos was a close
personal friend of Callas; as such he was privy to her most
private thoughts and he offers us some fascinating new
insights. What he doesn't always do, though, is maintain a
critical eye. Overall, Galatopoulos does a superb job in
re-creating the opera world of the 1940s through to the
1970s, and he excels in his assessment of Callas's artistic
achievements.
"Vincenzo Bellini: Norma"
by David Kimbell
REVIEW
This is the first time that the excellent series of
Cambridge Opera Handbooks has put together a guide to a bel
canto opera. The longest chapter gives a detailed synopsis
of the plot, but the most helpful chapter gathers together
sources for the libretto, information that is difficult to
find elsewhere. (Librettist Felice Romani was a classical
scholar, and the story has parallels with the Medea myth.)
Also of interest is a selection of critical reactions from
other composers. Mahler, we learn, was moved to tears by the
work, and the impact on Wagner is given its due. Two of the
analytical chapters concentrate almost entirely on the first
scene, and more of this would have been welcome. The final
chapter briefly discusses five interpreters of the title role.
"Stormy Applause: Making Music in a Worker's State"
by Rostislav Dubinsky
REVIEW
Though written remarkably well and full of brave, defiant
flashes of wit and humor, this is a sad and haunting
book. Dubinsky was the founder, and for 30 years the first
violinist, of the Borodin String Quartet, one of the supreme
ensembles of its kind. Here he describes a musician's life
under a totalitarian regime: the soul-destroying
restrictions and constant dangers, exacerbated by a
pervasive anti-Semitism--officially illegal but actively
encouraged and ruthlessly practiced by the authorities. The
quartet's original players were all Jews, though the cellist
was a half-Jew who passed as Russian; the second violinist
and violist were eventually replaced by Russians. Dubinsky
was the "artistic director" in charge of rehearsals and
musical decisions, but the quartet's activities, including
the members' personal interrelationships, were completely
dominated by politics. And, indeed, so is the narrative:
Dubinsky only rarely talks about music, though always
movingly and with insight, and he never explains how the
group attained its greatness. Ever present is the paralyzing
fear of the mercenary, soulless Russian bureaucracy.
"An Equal Music"
by Vikram Seth
REVIEW
The violinist hero of Vikram Seth's third novel would very
much like to be hearing secret harmonies. Instead, living in
London 10 years after a key disaster, Michael Holme is
easily irritated by his beautiful young girlfriend and by
his colleagues in the Maggiore Quartet. In short, he's fed
up with playing second fiddle in life and art. Yet a chance
encounter with Julia, the pianist he had loved and lost in
Vienna, brings Michael sudden bliss. Her situation, however--
and the secret that may end her career--threatens to undo
the lovers. Seth offers up exquisite complexities, personal
and lyrical, while deftly fielding any fears that he's
composed a Harlequin for highbrows. In addition to the pitch
of its love story, one of the book's joys lies in Seth's
creation of musical extremes. This is a novel in which the
length of Schubert's "Trout Quintet" matters deeply, the
discovery of a little-known Beethoven opus is a miracle, and
each instrument has its own being.
