Shows the witty and vividly humorous side of Hindemith's personality.

In Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing, Cary Ginell vividly portrays memorable personalities, stylistic growth, musical rivalry, touring, recording sessions, business practices, and driving determination. Drawing on a rich array of primary resources, including oral histories, family scrapbooks, and newspaper files, he documents Brown's role in creating Western swing, a musical genre that still resonates in George Strait's recent recording of Right or Wrong (originally a Brown hit) and the vibrant energy of the band Asleep at the Wheel.

Once the most popular form of Spanish entertainment short of the bullfight, the zarzuela boasts a long history of bridging the categories of classical and popular art. It is neither opera nor serious drama, yet it requires both trained singers and good actors. The content is neither purely folkloric nor high art; it is too popular for some and too classical for others. In Zarzuela, Janet L. Sturman assesses the political as well as the musical significance of this chameleon of music-drama.

Sturman traces the zarzuela's colorful history from its seventeenth-century origins as a Spanish court...

In this first full-length study of Henry Cowell, Michael Hicks shows how the maverick composer, writer, teacher, and performer built his career on the intellectual and aesthetic foundations of his parents, community, and teachers--and exemplified the essence of bohemian California. Author of the highly influential New Musical Resources and a teacher of John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Burt Bacharach, Cowell is regarded as an innovator, a rebel, and a genius. One of the first American composers to be celebrated for the novelty of his techniques, Cowell popularized a series of experimental...