Your Search Results(showing 26)

    • Westernx
    • Trusted Partner
      The Arts
      February 2023

      Manchester Beethoven studies

      by Barry Cooper, Matthew Pilcher

      Manchester Beethoven studies presents ten original chapters by scholars with close ties to the University of Manchester. It throws new light on many aspects of Beethoven's life and works, with a special emphasis on early or little-known compositions such as his concert aria Erste Liebe, his String Quintet Op. 104 and his folksong settings. Biographical elements are prominent in a wide-ranging reassessment of his religious attitudes and beliefs, while Charles Hallé, founder of the Manchester-based Hallé Orchestra, is revealed to have been a tireless and energetic promoter of Beethoven's music in the later nineteenth century.

    • Trusted Partner
      The Arts
      February 2023

      Manchester Beethoven studies

      by Barry Cooper, Matthew Pilcher

      Manchester Beethoven studies presents ten original chapters by scholars with close ties to the University of Manchester. It throws new light on many aspects of Beethoven's life and works, with a special emphasis on early or little-known compositions such as his concert aria Erste Liebe, his String Quintet Op. 104 and his folksong settings. Biographical elements are prominent in a wide-ranging reassessment of his religious attitudes and beliefs, while Charles Hallé, founder of the Manchester-based Hallé Orchestra, is revealed to have been a tireless and energetic promoter of Beethoven's music in the later nineteenth century.

    • Trusted Partner
      The Arts
      February 2023

      Manchester Beethoven studies

      by Barry Cooper, Matthew Pilcher

      Manchester Beethoven studies presents ten original chapters by scholars with close ties to the University of Manchester. It throws new light on many aspects of Beethoven's life and works, with a special emphasis on early or little-known compositions such as his concert aria Erste Liebe, his String Quintet Op. 104 and his folksong settings. Biographical elements are prominent in a wide-ranging reassessment of his religious attitudes and beliefs, while Charles Hallé, founder of the Manchester-based Hallé Orchestra, is revealed to have been a tireless and energetic promoter of Beethoven's music in the later nineteenth century.

    • Trusted Partner
      Literature & Literary Studies
      December 2023

      Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism

      by Helen Dell

      In the period between the Second World War and the present, there has been an extraordinary rise in the production of medievalist fantasy literature and film. This has been accompanied by the revival, performance and invention of medieval music. In this enterprise modern fantasies of the Middle Ages have exercised great influence. Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism shows how music, medievalism and nostalgia have been woven together in the fantasies of writers and readers, musicians, musicologists, directors and listeners, film-makers and film-goers. This book studies the ways in which three fields of creative activity inspired by the medieval - musical performance, literature, cinema and their reception - have worked together to produce and sustain, for some, the fantasy of a long-lost, long-mourned paradisal home.

    • Trusted Partner
      Literature & Literary Studies
      December 2023

      Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism

      by Helen Dell

      In the period between the Second World War and the present, there has been an extraordinary rise in the production of medievalist fantasy literature and film. This has been accompanied by the revival, performance and invention of medieval music. In this enterprise modern fantasies of the Middle Ages have exercised great influence. Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism shows how music, medievalism and nostalgia have been woven together in the fantasies of writers and readers, musicians, musicologists, directors and listeners, film-makers and film-goers. This book studies the ways in which three fields of creative activity inspired by the medieval - musical performance, literature, cinema and their reception - have worked together to produce and sustain, for some, the fantasy of a long-lost, long-mourned paradisal home.

    • Trusted Partner
      Literature & Literary Studies
      January 2026

      Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism

      by Helen Dell

      In the period between the Second World War and the present, there has been an extraordinary rise in the production of medievalist fantasy literature and film. This has been accompanied by the revival, performance and invention of medieval music. In this enterprise modern fantasies of the Middle Ages have exercised great influence. Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism shows how music, medievalism and nostalgia have been woven together in the fantasies of writers and readers, musicians, musicologists, directors and listeners, film-makers and film-goers. This book studies the ways in which three fields of creative activity inspired by the medieval - musical performance, literature, cinema and their reception - have worked together to produce and sustain, for some, the fantasy of a long-lost, long-mourned paradisal home.

    • Trusted Partner
      Biography & True Stories
      September 2025

      She played and sang

      Jane Austen and music

      by Gillian Dooley

      A fascinating study of the role that music played in Jane Austen's life. Like her much-loved heroine Emma Woodhouse, Jane Austen 'played and sang'. Music occupied a central role in her life, and she made brilliant use of it in her novels to illuminate characters' personalities and highlight the contrasts between them. Delving into the Austen family music books, Gillian Dooley discovers a treasure trove of evidence that unveils a previously underappreciated facet of Austen's world. She unravels the author's musical connections with family and friends, revealing the intricate ties between her fiction and the melodies she performed. With these revelations, Austen's musical legacy comes to life, granting us a deeper understanding of her artistic prowess and the influences that shaped her literary masterpieces.

    • Trusted Partner
      The Arts
      July 2024

      Pasticcio opera in Britain

      History and context

      by Peter Morgan Barnes

      This study overturns twentieth-century thinking about pasticcio opera. This radical way of creating opera formed a counterweight, even a relief, to the trenchant masculinity of literate culture in the seventeenth century. It undermined the narrowing of nationalism in the eighteenth century, and was an act of gross sacrilege against the cult of Romantic genius in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, it found itself on the wrong side of copyright law. However, in the twenty-first century it is enjoying a tentative revival. This book redefines pasticcio as a method rather than a genre of opera and aligns it with other art forms which also created their works from pre-existing parts, including sculpture. A pasticcio opera is created from pre-existing music and text, thus flying in face of insistence on originality and creation by a solo genius.

    • Trusted Partner
      Literature & Literary Studies
      December 2023

      Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism

      by Helen Dell

      In the period between the Second World War and the present, there has been an extraordinary rise in the production of medievalist fantasy literature and film. This has been accompanied by the revival, performance and invention of medieval music. In this enterprise modern fantasies of the Middle Ages have exercised great influence. Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism shows how music, medievalism and nostalgia have been woven together in the fantasies of writers and readers, musicians, musicologists, directors and listeners, film-makers and film-goers. This book studies the ways in which three fields of creative activity inspired by the medieval - musical performance, literature, cinema and their reception - have worked together to produce and sustain, for some, the fantasy of a long-lost, long-mourned paradisal home.

    • Trusted Partner
      The Arts
      April 2025

      The theatrical orchestra

      British music ensembles experiment with performance

      by Adrian Curtin

      The Theatrical Orchestra analyses experimental performances by British music ensembles in the twenty-first century. Orchestras are reconceiving how concerts are programmed and presented, how musicians perform, where performance can occur, and the role of the audience in the co-creation of the live event. They are embracing theatricality, thereby realising music more fully as a multi-sensory performance art. This book explains how and why orchestras are thinking theatrically about performance, and uses the work of British music ensembles as exemplars. It analyses performances by Aurora Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Manchester Collective, Multi-Story Orchestra, Paraorchestra, Scottish Ensemble, and Southbank Sinfonia. The book bridges musicology and theatre studies to analyse the theatrical orchestra on the concert stage and beyond, addressing such topics as visuality, storytelling, physical performance, site-engaged performance, and immersive performance.

    • Trusted Partner
      Biography & True Stories
      March 2024

      She played and sang

      Jane Austen and music

      by Gillian Dooley

      Like her much-loved heroine Emma Woodhouse, Jane Austen 'played and sang'. Music occupied a central role in her life, and she made brilliant use of it in her books to illuminate characters' personalities and highlight the contrasts between them. Until recently, our knowledge of Austen's musical inclinations was limited to the recollections of relatives who were still in their youth when she passed away. But with the digitisation of music books from her immediate family circle, a treasure trove of evidence has emerged. Delving into these books, alongside letters and other familial records, She played and sang unveils a previously unknown facet of Austen's world. This insightful work not only uncovers the music closely associated with Austen, but also unravels her musical connections with family and friends, revealing the intricate ties between her fiction and the melodies she performed. With these revelations, Austen's musical legacy comes to life, granting us a deeper understanding of her artistic prowess and the influences that shaped her literary masterpieces.

    • Trusted Partner
      The Arts
      January 2026

      Pasticcio opera in Britain

      History and context

      by Peter Morgan Barnes

      This study overturns twentieth-century thinking about pasticcio opera. This radical way of creating opera formed a counterweight, even a relief, to the trenchant masculinity of literate culture in the seventeenth century. It undermined the narrowing of nationalism in the eighteenth century, and was an act of gross sacrilege against the cult of Romantic genius in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, it found itself on the wrong side of copyright law. However, in the twenty-first century it is enjoying a tentative revival. This book redefines pasticcio as a method rather than a genre of opera and aligns it with other art forms which also created their works from pre-existing parts, including sculpture. A pasticcio opera is created from pre-existing music and text, thus flying in face of insistence on originality and creation by a solo genius.

    • History
      November 2014

      Flogging Others

      Corporal Punishment and Cultural Identity from Antiquity to the Present

      by G.Geltner

      Corporal punishment is often seen as a litmus test for a society's degree of civilization. Its licit use purports to separate modernity from premodernity, enlightened from barbaric cultures. As Geltner argues, however, neither did the infliction of bodily pain typify earlier societies nor did it vanish from penal theory, policy, or practice. Far from displaying a steady decline that accelerated with the Enlightenment, physical punishment was contested throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, its application expanding and contracting under diverse pressures. Moreover, despite the integration of penal incarceration into criminal justice systems since the nineteenth century, modern nation states and colonial regimes increased rather than limited the use of corporal punishment. Flogging Others thus challenges a common understanding of modernization and Western identity and underscores earlier civilizations' nuanced approaches to punishment, deviance, and the human body. Today as in the past, corporal punishment thrives due to its capacity to define otherness efficiently and unambiguously, either as a measure acting upon a deviant's body or as a practice that epitomizes - in the eyes of external observers - a culture's backwardness.

    • Biography: arts & entertainment

      Last Stop, Carnegie Hall

      New York Philharmonic Trumpeter William Vacchiano

      by Brian A. Shook

    • Fiction
      July 2013

      The Poisoned Banquet

      by ANTHONY JAMES

      A romantic thriller; A tales of an abused celebrity wife. A contemporary novel set in UK and USA. The novel is a study of morbid jealousy and follows the lives of the heroine Rachel a beorgening international pianist and her husbad the charming but morbidly jealous and corrupt banker Michael Johnson. The story opens with the death of Michael's baby sister - accident or infanticide? Michael determines to becaome the apple of his parents' eye and he grows up as an athletic, bright and charming but ruthlessyoung man. He falls for Rachel, wooes her but rather in the mold of Jeckyll and Hyde he becaomes morbidly jealous of rachel and her musical career. Rachel's unshakeable devotion tolerates the ever worsening excesses of Michael's obsessive jealousy into tawdry drug and sexual abuse. Rachel meets a geeky but brilliant young musician and is infatuated by his musical talent - her world is turned upside down. Is her love of music or her love of Michael the greater? What of both are taken away?

    • Theatre studies

      Ballad of Baby Doe

      "i Shall Walk Beside My Love"

      by Duane A Smith , John Moriarty

      First produced at the Central City Opera House in 1956, 'The Ballad of Baby Doe' is now widely considered a classic and is the second most produced American opera. In THE BALLAD OF BABY DOE, Smith tells the tale of the complicated birth of this most American of operas. Inspired in 1953 by composer Douglas Moore's interest in Horace Tabor's story and funded by the Central City Opera House Association, the opera came together through a unique combination of hard work and serendipity. Smith relates how key people -- including investors and historians in addition to creative talent -- turned Moore's idea into a reality and brought the story of the Tabors to millions of opera fans worldwide. In addition, Smith compares the opera's libretto with historical reality, and the book even includes a chapter on the production written by John Moriarty, who conducted the opera in 1981, 1988, and 1996.

    • Biography: general

      Simply Wagner

      by Thomas S. Grey

      More than 130 years after his death, the operas and philosophy of Richard Wagner (1813–1883) continue to provoke controversy. A man of unquestioned artistic brilliance, he was also a fierce nationalist and outspoken anti-Semite, who was posthumously embraced by the Nazis and became a cultural hero of the Third Reich. Though he changed the course of classical music, in his personal life Wagner was an overbearing and ruthless megalomaniac, who stopped at nothing to achieve his ambitions. In Simply Wagner, musicologist and author Thomas Grey navigates the turbulent course of Wagner’s life, as he sought to create a total “musical-dramatic art work of the future.” From his early “romantic operas” through the harmonic cataclysm of Tristan und Isolde, to the epic 16-hour cycle The Ring of the Nibelung, Grey traces Wagner’s musical development, clearly explaining the nature of his achievement. Grey also shares key events in Wagner’s personal life, including the composer’s relationship with his patron, “mad” King Ludwig of Bavaria, and his extended affair with Cosima von Bülow—eventually his second wife—who bore him three children while still married to someone else. Written for a general readership, Simply Wagner offers a complete portrait of Wagner the man, the thinker, and the artist, and explores the circumstances that made him the most discussed artistic figure of his time, and one of the most controversial ever since.

    • Fiction
      October 2011

      Song at Dawn

      1150 in Provence

      by Jean Gill

      Winner of the Global Ebooks Award for Best Historical Fiction - a medieval thriller/romanceBook 1 in the Troubadours Series 1150 in Provence, where love and marriage are as divided as Christian and Muslim. A historical thriller set in Narbonne just after the Second Crusade. On the run from abuse, Estela wakes in a ditch with only her lute, her amazing voice, and a dagger hidden in her petticoats. Her talent finds a patron in Alienor of Aquitaine and more than a music tutor in the Queen's finest troubadour and Commander of the Guard, Dragonetz los Pros. Weary of war, Dragonetz uses Jewish money and Moorish expertise to build that most modern of inventions, a papermill, arousing the wrath of the Church. Their enemies gather, ready to light the political and religious powder-keg of medieval Narbonne. Watch the trailer youtube.com/watch?v=XZvFmOkD6Pc

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