Audiences have long enjoyed Sergei Prokofiev's musical score for Alexander Nevsky, a historical film that cast a thirteenth-century Russian victory over invading Teutonic Knights as an allegory of contemporary Soviet strength in the face of Nazi warmongering. The cantata that Prokofiev derived from the score has proven even more popular and remains one of his most-performed works. This critical companion explores this music and the ways in which it hasengaged listeners, performers, and artists throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, tracing its path from state propaganda to...

Appalachian Spring, with music by Aaron Copland and choreography by Martha Graham, counts among the best known American contributions to the global concert hall and stage. In the years since its premiere-as a dance work at the Library of Congress in 1944-it has become one of Copland's most widely performed scores, and the Martha Graham Dance Company still treats it as a signature work. Over the decades, the dance and the music have taken on a range of meanings that have transformed a wartime production into a seemingly timeless expression of American identity, both musically and...

One of today's most widely acclaimed composers, Arvo Part broke into the soundscape of the Cold War West with Tabula Rasa in 1977, a work that introduced his signature tintinnabuli style to listeners throughout the world. In the first book dedicated to this pathbreaking composition, author Kevin C. Karnes tells the story of Tabula Rasa as one of Part and of Europe itself, traced over the course of a quarter-century that saw momentous transitions in European culture and politics, history and memory. Beginning at the site of the work's creation in the Estonian SSR,...

Audiences have long enjoyed Sergei Prokofiev's musical score for Alexander Nevsky, a historical film that cast a thirteenth-century Russian victory over invading Teutonic Knights as an allegory of contemporary Soviet strength in the face of Nazi warmongering. The cantata that Prokofiev derived from the score has proven even more popular and remains one of his most-performed works. This critical companion explores this music and the ways in which it hasengaged listeners, performers, and artists throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, tracing its path from state propaganda to...

One of today's most widely acclaimed composers, Arvo Part broke into the soundscape of the Cold War West with Tabula Rasa in 1977, a work that introduced his signature tintinnabuli style to listeners throughout the world. In the first book dedicated to this pathbreaking composition, author Kevin C. Karnes tells the story of Tabula Rasa as one of Part and of Europe itself, traced over the course of a quarter-century that saw momentous transitions in European culture and politics, history and memory. Beginning at the site of the work's creation in the Estonian SSR,...

Appalachian Spring, with music by Aaron Copland and choreography by Martha Graham, counts among the best known American contributions to the global concert hall and stage. In the years since its premiere-as a dance work at the Library of Congress in 1944-it has become one of Copland's most widely performed scores, and the Martha Graham Dance Company still treats it as a signature work. Over the decades, the dance and the music have taken on a range of meanings that have transformed a wartime production into a seemingly timeless expression of American identity, both musically and...

"Over the Rainbow" exploded into worldwide fame upon its performance by Judy Garland in the MGM film musical The Wizard of Oz (1939). Voted the greatest song of the twentieth century in a 2000 survey, it is a masterful, delicate balance of sophistication and child-like simplicity in which composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg poignantly captured the hope and anxiety harbored by Dorothy's character.

In Arlen and Harburg's Over the Rainbow, author Walter Frisch traces the history of this song from its inception during the development of The Wizard of...

"Over the Rainbow" exploded into worldwide fame upon its performance by Judy Garland in the MGM film musical The Wizard of Oz (1939). Voted the greatest song of the twentieth century in a 2000 survey, it is a masterful, delicate balance of sophistication and child-like simplicity in which composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg poignantly captured the hope and anxiety harbored by Dorothy's character.

In Arlen and Harburg's Over the Rainbow, author Walter Frisch traces the history of this song from its inception during the development of The Wizard of...

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has held musical audiences captive for close to two centuries. Few other musical works hold such a prominent place in the collective imagination; each generation rediscovers the work for itself and makes it its own. Honing in on the significance of the symphony in contemporary culture, this book establishes a dialog between Beethoven's world and ours, marked by the earthshattering events of 1789 and of 1989. In particular, this book outlines what is special about the Ninth in millennial culture. In the present day, music is encoded not only as score but also as...

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has held musical audiences captive for close to two centuries. Few other musical works hold such a prominent place in the collective imagination; each generation rediscovers the work for itself and makes it its own. Honing in on the significance of the symphony in contemporary culture, this book establishes a dialog between Beethoven's world and ours, marked by the earthshattering events of 1789 and of 1989. In particular, this book outlines what is special about the Ninth in millennial culture. In the present day, music is encoded not only as score but also as...