Muzyka

..". demystifies more than 2000 names of composers, conductors and performers, titles of works and musical terms in some two dozen languages." --Publishers Weekly

..". Fradkin's guide will save people from both error and affectation." --Rettig on Reference

"What a great idea for a book." --Denver Post

"Multifaceted and well organized... A wide range of useful tips will help attentive readers avoid common pronunciation gaffes and build on the sound advice offered... This is a book for the linguistically sensitive and musically inclined to keep handy."...

"In this book, Barbara Owen has created a rich resource of historical information coupled with strategies for interpreting that information on today's instruments." Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society

..". Barbara Owen has succeeded admirably in distilling three centuries of organ registration practice into a volume less than three hundred pages long.... Anyone with an interest in the history of the organ and its music... will not want to ignore this book." Sixteenth Century Journal

"It is rare to find a book that combines such careful scholarship with a...

"I am immensely impressed by the scholarship and painstakingly detailed analysis." --George Jellinek

Song by song, this comprehensive study addresses the works of Faure, Chausson, Duparc, and Debussy, four composers who brought to the magnificent poetry of their contemporaries the delicacy, sensitivity, and voluptuousness that characterize French music from 1865 to 1914.

..". an extraordinary book, monumental and challenging... Buy this book and immerse yourself in it. You will enter a new world." --American Musical Instrument Society Newsletter

With the help of author James McKay, the late Louis Skinner, America's master bassoon reedmaker, documented his techniques for making specialized and general purpose reeds for the bassoon and the contrabassoon. In this work, step-by-step explanations of reedmaking techniques are complemented by photographs and drawings, making every procedure clear. Throughout, the emphasis is on giving practical advice, not...

..". one of the most interesting, useful and even exciting books on the process of musical creation." --American Music Teacher

..". noteworthy contribution... with plenty of insight into interpretation... remarkable as an insider's account of the works in an individual perspective." --European Music Teacher

Drake groups the Beethoven piano sonatas according to their musical qualities, rather than their chronology. He explores the interpretive implications of rhythm, dynamics, slurs, harmonic effects, and melodic development and identifies specific measures where Beethoven...

..". detailed and thorough... a wealth of information... David Yeomans deserves our thanks for a job exceedingly well done." --American Music Teacher

..". a must for pianists... " --American Reference Book Annual

"David Yeomans's study is certainly to be recommended for all good music libraries, pianists and students of Bartok." --The Music Review

"Although there are currently more than 15 books in print about composer Bela Bartok, this short volume is unique in its focus on his complete oeuvre for solo piano.... Recommended for pianists, piano teachers, and students from...

..". a valuable book of scholarly yet highly readable studies... every organist and anyone interested in the music of J. S. Bach should have it." --Early Keyboard Journal

..". a very perceptive and informative guide... " --Early Music

..". this book is a must." --The American Organist

..". invaluable and entertaining... " --American Music Teacher

..". among the most important and accomplished studies on eighteenth-century performance. Its comprehensiveness, clarity, and scholarship make it indispensable." --Performance Practice Review

In J. S. Bach as...

..". a landmark work, the first attempt to write a pre-history of minimalism that embraces all the arts. Its importance cannot be overestimated." --K. Robert Schwarz, Institute for Studies in American Music

"All told, this book is mandatory reading for anyone who wishes to understand the history and nature of minimalism." --i/e NINE

"The death of Minimalism is announced regularly, which may be the surest testimonial to its staying power," says Strickland in this study, the first to examine in detail Minimalist tendencies in the plastic arts and music. Investigating the origins...

" I]nvaluable for musicologists and troubadour scholars interested in knowing about the 'whole song', and it also provides an excellent introduction to troubadour music for the historian, philologist or, indeed, anyone with a passing interest." --David Cashman, Parergon

"It is a down-to-earth treatment of the discernible facts, ordered according to the type of evidence that survives. It is a book to sober up the discipline." --Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, Times Literary Supplement

" A] welcome guide for the growing number of performers wishing to recreate these magical treaures...

"All practising musicians with an interest in the baroque owe it to themselves to be exposed to the ideas contained in this book." Continuo

"This is a book from an excellent musician in the early field who turns out also to be a most persistent scholar... " Early Music

..". the book offers a vast quantity of data from a wide range of sources.... George Houle is to be congratulated for his honest presentation of the entire spectrum." Music Educators Journal

The treatment of meter in performance has evolved dramatically since 1600. Here is a practical guide for the...

..". a fascinating overall impression of the day-to-day concerns and working environment of a professional musician of the late 17th century." --American Recorder

This volume presents Muffat's texts along with variants from his own editions in other languages. Wilson's highly readable supplementary materials make this a useful work for theorists, historians, and performers. The book is particularly enlightening on differences between French and German practice. Treats pitch, ornamentation, bowing, and more.

This updated, expanded, and reorganized edition of Women and Music features even more women composers, performers, and patrons, even more musical contexts, and an expanded view of women in music outside Europe and North America. A popular university textbook, Women and Music is enlightening for scholars, a good source of programming ideas for performers, and a pleasure for other music lovers.

Now in paperback

Organists and Organ Playing in Nineteenth-Century France and Belgium
Orpha Ochse

From the catastrophes of the French Revolution to a Golden Age of organ culture.

" O]ne simply must recommend this highly coherent and well-illustrated book...." L Orgue

"Even the well-informed reader will find a number of surprises. Who knows, for example, that Fryderyk Chopin played the organ for a funeral service and that Lefebure-Wely, in turn, played the great pianist and composer s Preludes for his funeral at the Madeleine? The abundance of details, we should...

Now in paperback

Little Labels Big Sound
Small Record Companies and the Rise of American Music

Rick Kennedy and Randy McNutt
Foreword by Al Kooper

A wild ride through American popular music.

" T]hese cats had their ears to the ground and cut vinyl that created the hip sounds of the day, sounds that still reverberate today.... Little Labels Big Sound is a great primer into the history of these... independent record labels."
Blue Suede News

" L]ike the labels it celebrates and the 45s and the 78s those labels put out... full of exciting and vital...

Now in paperback

The Pianist's Guide to Transcrip-tions, Arrange-ments, and Paraphrases

Maurice Hinson

Lists transcriptions for piano from orchestral and other compositions, more than 2,000 works in all.

..". a thorough summary of an important body of music written by a musician of extraordinary, perhaps unrivaled knowledge of the repertory."
--American Music Teacher

Some of the most celebrated composers--Beethoven, Brahms, Busoni, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel--prepared piano transcriptions of some of their own works, as well as those of other...

Now in paperback

Music for More than One Piano
An Annotated Guide

Maurice Hinson

When one piano is simply not enough.

"Maurice Hinson s Music for More than One Piano] ought not only to stand in the bookshelf for reference, but as a true dictionary in the best sense, it should mainly be read for pleasure and enlightenment." Konrad Wolff

In an alphabetic listing by composer, this guide describes works for two or more keyboard instruments composed mainly since 1700. The range of combinations is considerable: works for two, three, four, or more pianos; for...

Stylized dance music and music based on dance rhythms pervade Bach's compositions. Although the music of this very special genre has long been a part of every serious musician's repertoire, little has been written about it.

The original edition of this addressed works that bore the names of dances--a considerable corpus. In this expanded version of their practical and insightful study, Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne apply the same principals to the study of a great number of Bach's works that use identifiable dance rhythms but do not bear dance-specific titles.

Part I...

..". a remarkable collection of observations and reflections on past experiences by many excellent artists and teachers that will doubtless help... those interested in creating 'opera magic.'" --Tito Capobianco

Singing, Acting, and Movement in Opera is designed for use in opera and musical theater workshops and by beginning professional singers. Drawing on years of research, teaching, and performing, Mark Ross Clark provides an overview of dramatic methodology for the singing actor, encouraging the student's active participation through practical exercises and application to...

This quintet of essays examines the reasons why music education should be transformed, investigates the nature of education and musical transformation, and suggests alternative educational models and strategies. Estelle Jorgensen frames her argument for new approaches against the backdrop of historical musical and educational practice and draws on literature from various fields. Transforming Music Education is addressed to current and future music teachers, those who train them, and all who are interested in revolutionizing music education.