Among the many introductions to opera, this is perhaps the best. J. Merrill Knapp, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, divides his subject into two parts: In the first, he discusses the structure, production, theatrical conventions, and esthetics of opera; in the second, he features biographies of the major composers and cogent analyses of exemplary qualities in their works. "Opera should have a wide appeal," says Knapp in his Preface. "In the past too many sensible people have associated it with diamond tiaras, exclusive theater boxes, opening night social snobbery, and haughty prima...
Among the many introductions to opera, this is perhaps the best. J. Merrill Knapp, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, divides his subject int...
Jean-Luc Godard, like many of his European contemporaries, came to filmmaking through film criticism. This collection of essays and interviews, ranging from his early efforts for La Gazette du Cinema to his later writings for Cahiers du Cinema, reflects his dazzling intelligence, biting wit, maddening judgments, and complete unpredictability. In writing about Hitchcock, Welles, Bergman, Truffaut, Bresson, and Renoir, Godard is also writing about himself--his own experiments, obsessions, discoveries. This book offers evidence that he may be even more original as a thinker about...
Jean-Luc Godard, like many of his European contemporaries, came to filmmaking through film criticism. This collection of essays and interviews, rangin...
In December 1950 General Matthew B. Ridgway replaced General Walton Walker as commander of the Eighth Army, and in April 1951 he succeeded Douglas MacArthur as supreme commander of the United Nations forces in Korea and supreme commander of the United States Far East Command. In this spirited book, General Ridgway describes how he took a dispirited army and rebuilt it in a few short months, leading it into battle against the Chinese and North Korean forces, forcing them back over the 38th parallel and "victory." It is a book that takes a close look at MacArthur, his failings and brilliance,...
In December 1950 General Matthew B. Ridgway replaced General Walton Walker as commander of the Eighth Army, and in April 1951 he succeeded Douglas Mac...
"The reader must have noted in the favorite magazines of the practicing pianist how often the same troubled queries reappear: How can memorizing be made easier and more secure? How can the fourth and fifth fingers be strengthened? What produces musicianship? These and many others are perennial questions of the greatest practical importance to student, teacher, and performer. Strange, then, that adequate answers are so hard to find. With all the time and effort devoted to the study of the piano, with all the advances in the psychology of training, with all the special studies that have been...
"The reader must have noted in the favorite magazines of the practicing pianist how often the same troubled queries reappear: How can memorizing be ma...
The story of one of the most important and least-understood jobs in moviemaking--film editing--is here told by one of the wizards, Ralph Rosenblum, whose credentials include six Woody Allen films, as well as The Pawnbroker, The Producers, and Goodbye, Columbus. Rosenblum and journalist Robert Karen have written both a history of the profession and a personal account, a highly entertaining, instructive, and revelatory book that will make any reader a more aware movie-viewer.
The story of one of the most important and least-understood jobs in moviemaking--film editing--is here told by one of the wizards, Ralph Rosenblum, wh...
This infamous book has enjoyed a lively underground reputation since its first publication in 1970. Richard Meltzer (a.k.a. R. Meltzer) took his training as a young philosopher and applied it with unalloyed enthusiasm to the lyrics, sound, and culture of rock and roll. Never before had anyone noticed the relationship between the philosophy of Heidegger and a tune by Little Anthony and the Imperials, heard the cries of agony in the Shangri Las' "Remember (Walkin' in the Sand)," or transcribed every "papa-ooma-mow-mow" in the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird."From Dionne Warwick to Plato, Jim...
This infamous book has enjoyed a lively underground reputation since its first publication in 1970. Richard Meltzer (a.k.a. R. Meltzer) took his train...
This book analyzes the process of composition, learning and performance of the Southern folk blues of black America. Never before has this musical form been examined so scrupulously. Evans traces the impact of commercialism, especially the phonograph record, on blues history, as well as the various local traditions that produce a given blues tune and text. The author has done extensive field work in Mississippi and provides here a structure for understanding not only the blues but almost any other oral literature from other cultures.
This book analyzes the process of composition, learning and performance of the Southern folk blues of black America. Never before has this musical for...
"Marcel Duchamp, one of this century's pioneer artists, moved his work through the retinal boundaries which had been established with impressionism into t field with impressionism into t field where language, thought and vision act upon one another, There it changed form through a complex interplay of new mental and physical materials, heralding many of the technical, mental and visual details to be found in more recent art...In the 1920s Duchamp gave up, quit painting. He allowed, perhaps encouraged, the attendant mythology. One thought of his decision, his willing this stopping. Yet on one...
"Marcel Duchamp, one of this century's pioneer artists, moved his work through the retinal boundaries which had been established with impressionism in...
Major General J. F. C. Fuller, a pioneer of mechanized warfare in Great Britain, was one of this century's most renowned military strategists and historians. In this magisterial work he spans military history from the Greeks to the end of World War II, describing tactics, battle lines, the day-to-day struggles while always relating affairs on the field to the larger questions of social, political, and economic change in Western civilization. A masterpiece of scholarship and biting prose, these volumes are available for the first time in a handsome trade paperback edition.
Major General J. F. C. Fuller, a pioneer of mechanized warfare in Great Britain, was one of this century's most renowned military strategists and hist...
"Here is the American Revolution, the epic struggle that brought forth a new nation, told in a great measure by those who fought and lived it: major figures like Washington, Revere, Franklin and many o"
"Here is the American Revolution, the epic struggle that brought forth a new nation, told in a great measure by those who fought and lived it: major f...