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The Good Life: The Autobiography Of Tony Bennett
by Tony Bennett Will FriedwaldA wonderfully warm, resonant, and captivating autobiography from iconic singer and entertainer Tony Bennett.He&’s that regular guy from Astoria, Queens, who left his heart in San Francisco. He&’s the postwar heartthrob who inspired hundreds of young girls to wear black outside St. Patrick&’s Cathedral on his wedding day. He&’s the darling of the MTV generation who made music history when, at the age of 68, he won the coveted Grammy Award for Album of the Year. He&’s the consummate artist known worldwide for his paintings. He&’s Tony Bennett, and here, this legend shares his amazing life story. &“Tony Bennett has not just bridged the generation gap, he has demolished it,&” praised The New York Times. From his appearance with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the 1993 MTV Video Awards to his Radio City Music Hall concert with Lady Gaga, Bennett was the hottest—and coolest—pop-culture icon for today&’s younger listeners, while remaining beloved by their parents and grandparents. Multiple generations have experienced the Tony Bennett magic—the mesmerizing spell of a singer in love with singing, who embraces his audience with a soulful serenity communicated by both the man and his music. Honored with countless awards and with more than ninety albums to his credit, no other recording artist has attained Bennett&’s stature—or garnered the half-century of memories shared in The Good Life. From Sinatra, Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald, to k.d. lang and Elvis Costello, Bennett shares his unique takes on the most fascinating talents of our time. Here is the story of his lifelong love affair with art, music, and performing—from his childhood in Depression-era Queens, where opera and Billie Holiday flowed freely; to his stint as a singing waiter; to soaking up the New York jazz scene in the 1940s. With crisp wit and firmly grounded emotion, Bennett captures the people and places that shaped his sublime performances. The dozens of hits he introduced to the great American songbook, including &“Because of You,&” &“Rags to Riches,&” &“Cold, Cold Heart,&” and his signature song, &“I Left My Heart in San Francisco,&” remain a legacy of truth and beauty for the classic art of intimate singing. In this unforgettable self-portrait, we get to know Tony Bennett as he really is: an unpretentious and thoughtful human being. Through all of his personal and artistic challenges, he was, in his own words, &“a humanist&” whose Zen-like philosophy of life remains an inspiration for all ages. Like the fascinating story he shares in The Good Life, Tony Bennett was one of a kind, an American treasure, an enduring artist seasoned with experience and self-knowledge, and a true class act.
Good Evening Europe!: An unofficial party guide for every Eurovision fan
by Pyramid Trinity RougéFrom the good, the bad and the downright extraordinary, the Eurovision Song Contest is more than just one night of the year, it's a celebration of all things fabulous. This handy little guide is jam-packed with a myriad of Eurovision ideas to help you get your party started and guarantee yourself a great celebration that's as weird and wonderful as the acts themselves.So, get ready for questionable outfits, hilarious sassy commentary and lots of feathers.This isn't the time to be formal or trendy - focus on flamboyance and tackiness in large doses. Lay on the cheese as thickly as you can, and you won't go far wrong!
Good Evening Europe!: An unofficial party guide for every Eurovision fan
by Pyramid Trinity RougéFrom the good, the bad and the downright extraordinary, the Eurovision Song Contest is more than just one night of the year, it's a celebration of all things fabulous. This handy little guide is jam-packed with a myriad of Eurovision ideas to help you get your party started and guarantee yourself a great celebration that's as weird and wonderful as the acts themselves.So, get ready for questionable outfits, hilarious sassy commentary and lots of feathers.This isn't the time to be formal or trendy - focus on flamboyance and tackiness in large doses. Lay on the cheese as thickly as you can, and you won't go far wrong!
Good Day Sunshine State: How the Beatles Rocked Florida
by Bob KealingThe musical and cultural impact of the Fab Four in Florida In 1964, Beatlemania flooded the United States. The Beatles appeared live on the Ed Sullivan Show and embarked on their first tour of North America—and they spent more time in Florida than anywhere else. Good Day Sunshine State dives into this momentous time and place, exploring the band’s seismic influence on the people and culture of the state. Bob Kealing sets the historical stage for the band’s arrival—a nation dazed after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and on the precipice of the Vietnam War; a heavily segregated, conservative South; and in Florida, recent events that included the Cuban Missile Crisis and the arrest and imprisonment of Martin Luther King Jr. in St. Augustine. Kealing documents the culture clashes and unexpected affinities that emerged as the British rockers drew crowds, grew from fluff story to the subject of continual news coverage, and basked in the devotion of a young and idealistic generation. Through an abundance of letters, memorabilia, and interviews with journalists, fellow musicians, and fans, Kealing takes readers behind the scenes into the Beatles’ time in locations such as Miami Beach, where they wrote new songs and met Muhammad Ali. In the tropical environs of Key West, John Lennon and Paul McCartney experienced milestone moments in their friendship. And the band dodged the path of Hurricane Dora to play at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, where they famously refused to perform until the city agreed to integrate the audience. Kealing highlights the hopeful futures that the Beatles helped inspire, including stories of iconic rock-and-rollers such as Tom Petty who followed the band’s lead in their own paths to stardom. This book offers a close look at an important part of the musical and cultural revolution that helped make the Fab Four a worldwide phenomenon.Funding for this publication was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul in American Music
by Ann PowersNPR Best Books of 2017In this sweeping history of popular music in the United States, NPR’s acclaimed music critic examines how popular music shapes fundamental American ideas and beliefs, allowing us to communicate difficult emotions and truths about our most fraught social issues, most notably sex and race.In Good Booty, Ann Powers explores how popular music became America’s primary erotic art form. Powers takes us from nineteenth-century New Orleans through dance-crazed Jazz Age New York to the teen scream years of mid-twentieth century rock-and-roll to the cutting-edge adventures of today’s web-based pop stars. Drawing on her deep knowledge and insights on gender and sexuality, Powers recounts stories of forbidden lovers, wild shimmy-shakers, orgasmic gospel singers, countercultural perverts, soft-rock sensitivos, punk Puritans, and the cyborg known as Britney Spears to illuminate how eroticism—not merely sex, but love, bodily freedom, and liberating joy—became entwined within the rhythms and melodies of American song. This cohesion, she reveals, touches the heart of America's anxieties and hopes about race, feminism, marriage, youth, and freedom. In a survey that spans more than a century of music, Powers both heralds little known artists such as Florence Mills, a contemporary of Josephine Baker, and gospel queen Dorothy Love Coates, and sheds new light on artists we think we know well, from the Beatles and Jim Morrison to Madonna and Beyoncé. In telling the history of how American popular music and sexuality intersect—a magnum opus over two decades in the making—Powers offers new insights into our nation psyche and our soul.
Gone Wild: Book 3 (Rock War #3)
by Robert MuchamoreThe Rock War TV show is the most-watched reality show on British telly, and it's only halfway through. Jay, Summer, Dylan and their bands have all made it past the tough boot camp stage, and now the last six will fight it out until the season's finale, live on Christmas Eve.But it's not all about the music. Summer was hit by a motorbike at the end of boot camp. Jay's brother Theo can't keep out of trouble - or out of handcuffs. And Dylan, the outsider, is investigating corruption within the workings of the competition itself.They've got everything to play for ...The dramatic third book in this spectacular series from Robert Muchamore, bestselling author of CHERUB.
Gone Wild: Book 3 (Rock War #3)
by Robert MuchamoreThe Rock War TV show is the most-watched reality show on British telly, and it's only halfway through. Jay, Summer, Dylan and their bands have all made it past the tough boot camp stage, and now the last six will fight it out until the season's finale, live on Christmas Eve.But it's not all about the music. Summer was hit by a motorbike at the end of boot camp. Jay's brother Theo can't keep out of trouble - or out of handcuffs. And Dylan, the outsider, is investigating corruption within the workings of the competition itself.They've got everything to play for ...The dramatic third book in the explosive new series from Robert Muchamore, author of CHERUB.(P) Hodder Children's Books 2016
Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Folk Music Revival (Music in American Life)
by Ray AllenGone to the Country chronicles the life and music of the New Lost City Ramblers, a trio of city-bred musicians who helped pioneer the resurgence of southern roots music during the folk revival of the late 1950s and 1960s. Formed in 1958 by Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley, the Ramblers introduced the regional styles of southern ballads, blues, string bands, and bluegrass to northerners yearning for a sound and an experience not found in mainstream music. Ray Allen interweaves biography, history, and music criticism to follow the band from its New York roots to their involvement with the commercial folk music boom. Allen details their struggle to establish themselves amid critical debates about traditionalism brought on by their brand of folk revivalism. He explores how the Ramblers ascribed notions of cultural authenticity to certain musical practices and performers and how the trio served as a link between southern folk music and northern urban audiences who had little previous exposure to rural roots styles. Highlighting the role of tradition in the social upheaval of mid-century America, Gone to the Country draws on extensive interviews and personal correspondence with band members and digs deep into the Ramblers' rich trove of recordings.
Gone 'Til November: A Journal of Rikers Island
by Lil Wayne&“Transfixing…[Wayne&’s] prison diary is, above all, a testament to the irrepressibility of his charisma—his is a force that can never go dormant, even when it&’s not plainly on display.&” –The New YorkerFrom rap superstar Lil Wayne comes Gone &’Til November, a deeply personal and revealing account of his time spent incarcerated on Rikers Island for eight months in 2010.In 2010, recording artist Lil Wayne was at the height of his career. A fixture in the rap game for more than a decade, Lil Wayne (aka Weezy) had established himself as both a prolific musician and a savvy businessman, smashing long-held industry records, winning multiple Grammy Awards, and signing up-and-coming talent like Drake and Nicki Minaj to his Young Money label. All of this momentum came to a halt when he was convicted of possession of a firearm and sentenced to a yearlong stay at Rikers Island. Suddenly, the artist at the top of his game was now an inmate at the mercy of the American penal system. At long last, Gone &’Til November reveals the true story of what really happened while Wayne was behind bars, exploring everything from his daily rituals to his interactions with other inmates to how he was able to keep himself motivated and grateful. Taken directly from Wayne&’s own journal, this intimate, personal account of his incarceration is an utterly humane look at the man behind the artist.
Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung
by Min KymThe spellbinding memoir of a violin virtuoso who loses the instrument that had defined her both on stage and off -- and who discovers, beyond the violin, the music of her own voice Her first violin was tiny, harsh, factory-made; her first piece was “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.” But from the very beginning, Min Kym knew that music was the element in which she could swim and dive and soar. At seven years old, she was a prodigy, the youngest ever student at the famed Purcell School. At eleven, she won her first international prize; at eighteen, violinist great Ruggiero Ricci called her “the most talented violinist I’ve ever taught.” And at twenty-one, she found “the one,” the violin she would play as a soloist: a rare 1696 Stradivarius. Her career took off. She recorded the Brahms concerto and a world tour was planned.Then, in a London café, her violin was stolen. She felt as though she had lost her soulmate, and with it her sense of who she was. Overnight she became unable to play or function, stunned into silence.In this lucid and transfixing memoir, Kym reckons with the space left by her violin’s absence. She sees with new eyes her past as a child prodigy, with its isolation and crushing expectations; her combustible relationships with teachers and with a domineering boyfriend; and her navigation of two very different worlds, her traditional Korean family and her music. And in the stark yet clarifying light of her loss, she rediscovers her voice and herself.
Gondola (Books That Changed the World)
by Donna LeonThe international bestselling author delivers “a delightful look at the gondola as cultural icon, marvel of construction and object of romance and mystery” (Judith Malafronte, Opera News).Of all the trademarks of Venice—and there are many, from the gilded Basilica of San Marco to the melancholy Bridge of Sighs—none is more ubiquitous than the gondola. In Gondola, the acclaimed “American with the Venetian heart,” tells the fascinating story of this famous boat, complete with gorgeous full-color illustrations (The Washington Post).First used in medieval Venice as a deftly maneuverable getaway boat, the gondola evolved over the centuries into a floating pleasure palace, bedecked in silk, that facilitated the romantic escapades of the Venetian elite. Sumptuary laws turned it black—a gleaming, elegant hue for a boat manned by robust gondolieri in their iconic black-and-white-striped shirts and straw hats.Each boat is carefully fashioned in a maestro’s workshop—though Leon also recounts a tale of an American friend who attempted to make a gondola all on his own. Once its arched prow pushes off from the dock, the single Venetian at its oar just might break out in a barcarole, the popular songs sung by gondolieri. Please note this ebook edition does not include audio recordings.
Goldmine Record Album Price Guide
by Martin PopoffWhether you're cleaning out a closet, basement or attic full of records, or you're searching for hidden gems to build your collection, you can depend on Goldmine Record Album Price Guide to help you accurately identify and appraise your records in order to get the best price. Knowledge is power, so power-up with Goldmine! 70,000 vinyl LPs from 1948 to present Hundreds of new artists Detailed listings with current values Various artist collections and original cast recordings from movies, televisions and Broadway 400 photos Updated state-of-the-market reports New feature articles Advice on buying and selling Goldmine Grading Guide - the industry standard
Goldi Rocks & the Three Bears
by Corey Rosen Schwartz Beth CoultonA rockin' twist on Goldilocks and the Three Bears that shows how being yourself can get you out of a tight spot.Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear know how to rock! But they need a new singer, so they audition everyone—the Three Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, and more. To their dismay, no one seems just right. Could the perfect lead singer be the mysterious girl sleeping on Baby Bear&’s keyboard?This mash up of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Voice is a surefire storytime hit. From the author of The Three Ninja Pigs.
The Golden Touch
by Laura LondonFor fans of Julie Garwood, Jude Deveraux, Loretta Chase, Johanna Lindsey and Kathleen E. Woodiwiss comes a classic novel about what happens when the bad boy rock star rides into town, from acclaimed author Laura London. Kathy Carter has seen many things in her small-town instrument repair shop. But never has a dangerously hot, world-famous rock star pulled up on his motorcycle, needing his guitar fixed. Kathy's not surprised to find he's endlessly sexy, with a voice that would make any woman's heart melt. What she doesn't expect: he wants her bad.Neil meets a lot of women who would do anything to be with him. Sweet, beautiful Kathy is nothing like them. She doesn't care about fame, and that's why he can't keep his mind-or his hands-off her. Yet once things start getting hot, Kathy pulls away. Soon Neil realizes that it's more than his life in the limelight that scares her. When the ghosts of the past make a guest appearance, Neil and Kathy must decide if what they have is forever, or if Neil is still a solo act... Fall in love with the richly romantic, classic love stories of Laura London, author of The Windflower, as her beloved novels are released in ebook for the first time.
The Golden Thread: Experiencing God’s Presence in Every Season of Life
by Darlene Zschech Joyce Meyer“I know your faith will be lifted and increased with this new treasure.”~Chris TomlinDo you feel like you are barely holding on?Let the golden thread of God's presence be the calm on the other side of chaos.It could be that He is weaving a brilliant new beginning in the middle of your mess.Join beloved worship leader Darlene Zschech as she traces God’s goodness through her recent transitions—moving to a new city, starting a church. The songwriter of “Shout to The Lord” urges us to maintain joy in the middle of it all.Rather than seeing her many life changes as a zigzag of unrelated events, Darlene and her family have learned to trace God’s goodness through every crisis—even as she faced the battle for her life, cancer.Your heart will be encouraged, and your faith will soar right along with Darlene’s.
Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era (University of California Series in Jewish History and Cultures #3)
by Jeremiah LockwoodA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.Golden Ages is an ethnographic study of young singers in the contemporary Brooklyn Hasidic community who base their aesthetic explorations of the culturally intimate space of prayer on the gramophone-era cantorial golden age. Jeremiah Lockwood proposes a view of their work as a nonconforming social practice that calls upon the sounds and structures of Jewish sacred musical heritage to disrupt the aesthetics and power hierarchies of their conservative community, defying institutional authority and pushing at normative boundaries of sacred and secular. Beyond its role as a desirable art form, golden age cantorial music offers aspiring Hasidic singers a form of Jewish cultural productivity in which artistic excellence, maverick outsider status, and sacred authority are aligned.
The Golden Age Musicals of Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes
by Bernard F. DickBeginning with The Jazz Singer (1927) and 42nd Street (1933), legendary Hollywood film producer Darryl F. Zanuck (1902–1979) revolutionized the movie musical, cementing its place in American popular culture. Zanuck, who got his start writing stories and scripts in the silent film era, worked his way to becoming a top production executive at Warner Bros. in the later 1920s and early 1930s. Leaving that studio in 1933, he and industry executive Joseph Schenck formed Twentieth Century Pictures, an independent Hollywood motion picture production company. In 1935, Zanuck merged his Twentieth Century Pictures with the ailing Fox Film Corporation, resulting in the combined Twentieth Century-Fox, which instantly became a new major Hollywood film entity.The Golden Age Musicals of Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes is the first book devoted to the musicals that Zanuck produced at these three studios. The volume spotlights how he placed his personal imprint on the genre and how—especially at Twentieth Century-Fox—he nurtured and showcased several blonde female stars who headlined the studio’s musicals—including Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Vivian Blaine, June Haver, Marilyn Monroe, and Sheree North. Building upon Bernard F. Dick’s previous work in That Was Entertainment: The Golden Age of the MGM Musical, this volume illustrates the richness of the American movie musical, tracing how these song-and-dance films fit within the career of Darryl F. Zanuck and within the timeline of Hollywood history.
Gold, Festivals, and Music in Southeast Brazil: Sounding Portugueseness (SOAS Studies in Music)
by Barbara AlgeGold, Festivals, and Music in Southeast Brazil: Sounding Portugueseness is a study of the musical legacy of the eighteenth century Brazilian gold rush that integrates ethnographic research of the main genres of former mining communities in Brazil – from liturgical music in the style of European art music to Afro-Brazilian musical expressions. Its content and structure are informed by Norbert Elias’s idea of the civilizing process, which is explored regarding its relevance in interpreting sociocultural processes and choreo-musical expressions in the small town of Morro Vermelho. The book’s innovative feature is its focus on a little-known area to non-Brazilian scholars, and its focus on the colonial and European heritage in Brazil. Morro Vermelho’s cultural traditions have received relatively limited attention. The Catholic festival of Our Lady of Nazareth provides a setting for the documentation and analysis of the musical setting and is thus placed at the center of the discussion. It leads through the vast writings on Brazilian identity and challenges the view on Brazilian-ness as constructed in terms of the mixing of races. Norbert Elias’s concept of the "civilizing process" structures the book and is relevant for understanding the cultural sphere of the festival of Our Lady of Nazareth. The book combines discourses of Portugueseness with historical sources and observations from fieldwork and community building in the virtual world. The focus on the music to support social constructions of "Portugueseness" is supported with evidence from diverse data sources: music (literature and fieldwork recordings), original interviews, marketing materials and historical narratives. The combination of archival, ethnographic, and bibliographic research methods attempts a seamless narrative. Its approach to fieldwork and frank reflections on the process and relevant issues help to contextualize the analyses and serve as useful advice for future researchers.
Gold Experience: Following Prince in the '90s
by Jim WalshThroughout the 1990s, Prince feuded with his record label, Warner Bros., over his rights as an independent recording artist—and made some of the most brilliant music of his career. During that time, Jim Walsh covered Prince for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and wrote about him passionately, thoughtfully, exhaustively. Here, in real time, is that coverage: a clip-by-clip look back at Prince in the ‘90s. Walsh’s newly unearthed interviews, essays, columns, and reviews make Gold Experience an essential slice of history for fans, scholars, and latecomers to the Minneapolis-born musical genius Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958–April 21, 2016).Join Walsh at the 1994 NBA All-Star game after party and release bash for the single “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.” Accompany him to the after-hours clubs Erotic City, Glam Slam, and, of course, Paisley Park. Meet Prince’s wife and bandmate Mayte (and while you’re at it, take in the wedding and reception). Enjoy a two-hour sit-down interview with Prince. Explore Prince’s veganism, talk to fans in line for a Target Center show, preview the “Jam of the Year” concert and check in at the after party. The passions and influences, from Mozart to funk godfather Larry Graham; the gigs and the Paisley Park garage sale; Walsh’s open letter to the artist and his reflections on religion and spirituality. This is Prince as few have seen him, reported as only Jim Walsh can: a portrait of the artist from a dizzying array of angles, captured in living color for all time.
Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks
by Stephen Davis<p>Stevie Nicks is a legend of rock, but her energy and magnetism sparked new interest in this icon. At sixty-nine, she's one of the most glamorous creatures rock has known, and the rare woman who's a real rock ‘n' roller.</p> <p>Nicks' work and life are equally sexy and interesting, and Davis delves deeply into each, unearthing fresh details from new, intimate interviews and interpreting them to present a rich new portrait of the star. Just as Nicks (and Lindsey Buckingham) gave Fleetwood Mac the "shot of adrenaline" they needed to become real rock stars―according to Christine McVie―Gold Dust Woman is vibrant with stories and with a life lived large and hard.</p>
Going Up the Country: Adventures in Blues Fieldwork in the 1960s (American Made Music Series)
by Marina Bokelman David EvansAt the height of the blues revival, Marina Bokelman and David Evans, young graduate students from California, made two trips to Louisiana and Mississippi and short trips in their home state to do fieldwork for their studies at UCLA. While there, they made recordings and interviews and took extensive field notes and photographs of blues musicians and their families. Going Up the Country: Adventures in Blues Fieldwork in the 1960s presents their experiences in vivid detail through the field notes, the photographs, and the retrospective views of these two passionate researchers. The book includes historical material as well as contemporary reflections by Bokelman and Evans on the times and the people they met during their southern journeys. Their notes and photographs take the reader into the midst of memorable encounters with many obscure but no less important musicians, as well as blues legends, including Robert Pete Williams, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Al Wilson (cofounder of Canned Heat), Babe Stovall, Reverend Ruben Lacy, and Jack Owens. This volume is not only an adventure story, but also a scholarly discussion of fieldwork in folklore and ethnomusicology. Including retrospective context and commentary, the field note chapters describe searches for musicians, recording situations, social and family dynamics of musicians, and race relations and the racial environment, as well as the practical, ethical, and logistical problems of doing fieldwork. The book features over one hundred documentary photographs that depict the field recording sessions and the activities, lives, and living conditions of the artists and their families. These photographs serve as a visual counterpart equivalent to the field notes. The remaining chapters explain the authors’ methodology, planning, and motivations, as well as their personal backgrounds prior to going into the field, their careers afterwards, and their thoughts about fieldwork and folklore research in general. In this enlightening book, Bokelman and Evans provide an exciting and honest portrayal of blues field research in the 1960s.
Going Down to the River: A Homeless Musician, an Unforgettable Song, and the Miraculous Encounter that Changed a Life
by Doug Seegers Steve EubanksThe astonishing story of a singer-songwriter living on the streets of Nashville who met Jesus, got sober, and found international stardom at the age of 62.Doug Seegers left New York for Nashville in search of every songwriter’s dream. When he didn’t find success, he fell into a state of loneliness that fed an addiction he had battled since adolescence. Soon, he was homeless, playing his guitar on the street with a cardboard sign asking for money. But then he cried out to God in repentance and need, and God graciously met him. Doug then found sobriety, regained some footing, and in a miraculous moment was discovered outside a food pantry by a Swedish musician and documentarian who put his story on the air in Stockholm. Within days of the documentary airing--even though he still walked to the public library every day and acquired most of his belongings from nearby Dumpsters--Doug had the number-one selling song in Sweden. Going Down to the River is Doug’s inspirational story of faith, forgiveness, and the power of prayer and belief. It is also the never-give-up tale of a man who played music for 55 years without success only to become a chart-topping artist at the age of 62.
Goethe and Zelter: Musical Dialogues
by LorraineByrne BodleyGoethe and Zelter spent a staggering 33 years corresponding or in the case of each artist, over two thirds of their lives. Zelter's position as director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin and Goethe's location in Weimar resulted in a wide-ranging correspondence. Goethe's letters offer a chronicle of his musical development, from the time of his journey to Italy to the final months of his life. Zelter's letters retrace his path as stonemason to Professor of Music in Berlin. The 891 letters that passed between these artists provide an important musical record of the music performed in public concerts in Berlin and in the private and semi-public soir of the Weimar court. Their letters are those of men actively engaged in the musical developments of their time. The legacy contains a wide spectrum of letters, casual and thoughtfully composed, spontaneous and written for publication, rich with the details of Goethe's and Zelter's musical lives. Through Zelter, Goethe gained access to the professional music world he craved and became acquainted with the prodigious talent of Felix Mendelssohn. A single letter from Zelter might bear a letter from Felix Mendelssohn to another recipient of the same family, reflecting a certain community in the Mendelssohn household where letters were not considered private but shared with others in a circle of friends or family. Goethe recognized the value of such correspondence: he complains when his friend is slow to send letters in return for those written to him by the poet, a complaint common in this written culture where letters provided news, introductions, literary and musical works. This famous correspondence contains a medley of many issues in literature, art, and science; but the main focus of this translation is the music dialogues of these artists.
Goethe and Beethoven
by Rolland RomainRomain Rolland (29 January 1866 – 30 December 1944) was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings".“OF THE two giants, Goethe and Beethoven, who are the subject of this book, Beethoven is probably far better known to the English-speaking public than Goethe.There are two reasons for this. Beethoven addresses the world in the language of music, a universal language, which can be understood by many who have not made even an elementary study of it. There is hardly a concertgoer in the world who has not heard Beethoven’s symphonies or sonatas, or who has had no opportunity of feeling the influence of that mighty composer. The second reason is that there are many more people who, as amateur or professional musicians, have formed a closer acquaintance with Beethoven than that of mere hearing. They have played his works, analyzed them, interpreted them, and often enough, attracted by his work, have enquired into his life and his psychology. They have found at their disposal a comprehensive mass of literature, easily accessible; they have read of him in critical essays published in the press. And Ernest Newman’s excellent translation of Romain Rolland’s Beethoven: the Creator has given those who read it, a deep insight into the composer’s greatness.Not so with Goethe. To understand and appreciate him is reserved to the comparatively small community which has a perfect knowledge of German, for no translation can do him justice. And those who do not know any of his works lack the interest which would prompt them to enquire into the great poet’s life, thought, work, and influence.”-Foreword
God’s Song and Music’s Meanings: Theology, Liturgy, and Musicology in Dialogue (Routledge Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts)
by James Hawkey Ben Quash Vernon WhiteTaking seriously the practice and not just the theory of music, this ground-breaking collection of essays establishes a new standard for the interdisciplinary conversation between theology, musicology, and liturgical studies. The public making of music in our society happens more often in the context of chapels, churches, and cathedrals than anywhere else. The command to sing and make music to God makes music an essential part of the DNA of Christian worship. The book’s three main parts address questions about the history, the performative contexts, and the nature of music. Its opening four chapters traces how accounts of music and its relation to God, the cosmos, and the human person have changed dramatically through Western history, from the patristic period through medieval, Reformation and modern times. A second section examines the role of music in worship, and asks what—if anything—makes a piece of music suitable for religious use. The final part of the book shows how the serious discussion of music opens onto considerations of time, tradition, ontology, anthropology, providence, and the nature of God. A pioneering set of explorations by a distinguished group of international scholars, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in Christianity’s long relationship with music, including those working in the fields of theology, musicology, and liturgical studies.