The Variations of Johannes Brahms

The Variations of Johannes Brahms
Author: Julian Littlewood
Publisher: Plumbago Books and Arts
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2004
Genre: Variations
ISBN: 0954012348

Variation is a fundamental musical principle, yet its most naked expression - variation form - resists all but the broadest of descriptions. This book offers listener, performer, analyst and composer an eclectic array of approaches to `Theme and Variations', including: patterns of departure and return; real versus perceived time; strategies of propulsion and closure in an intrinsically cyclic and open-ended form; the interplay of authorial voices deriving from dialogue between the `self' of variations and the `other' of their theme; critique of a theme through a set's generic references; drama and narrative achieved through textural and tonal control; and the intrinsic sound of a variation, so different from that of a freely composed work. These topics are introduced through a general survey of the form, seen through the prisms of the provenance of themes and the ideologies of sets, before being developed through close study of Brahms's variation sets and movements. Brahms was supremely aware of his place in music history and was uncommonly self-conscious in his manipulation of different techniques of composition. His variation sets - some of the most well-crafted and beloved examples - place the interplay of forms and styles at the heart of their identity. Moreover, in their stunning breadth and diversity they offer a microcosm of Brahms's entire output, a succinct revelation of his life-long concerns. Through them we marvel at his technical and poetic mastery, and journey to the heart of his creative character.

Graphic Music Analysis

Graphic Music Analysis
Author: Eric Wen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2019-02-14
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1538104679

This book approaches Schenkerian analysis in a practical and accessible manner fit for the classroom, guiding readers through a step-by-step process. It is suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of musicology, music theory, composition, and performance, and it is replete with a wide variety of musical examples.

Brahms Studies

Brahms Studies
Author: David Lee Brodbeck
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1998-12-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780803212879

The eight essays in Brahms Studies 2 provide a rich sampling of contemporary Brahms research. In his examination of editions of Brahms?s music, George Bozarth questions the popular notion that most of the composer?s music already exists in reliable critical editions. Daniel Beller-McKenna reconsiders the younger Brahms?s involvement in musical politics at midcentury. The cantata Rinaldo is the centerpiece of Carol Hess?s consideration of Brahms?s music as autobiographical statement. Heather Platt?s exploration of the twentieth-century reception of Brahms?s Lieder reveals that advocates of Hugo Wolf?s aesthetics have shaped the discourse concerning the composer?s songs and calls for an approach more clearly based on Brahms?s aesthetics. In his examination of the rise of the ?great symphony? as a critical category that carried with it a nearly impossible standard to meet, Walter Frisch provides a rich context in which to understand Brahms?s well-known early struggle with the genre. Kenneth Hull suggests that Brahms used ironic allusions to Bach and Beethoven in the tragic Fourth Symphony in order to subvert the enduring assumption that a minor-key symphony will end triumphantly in the major mode. Peter H. Smith examines Brahms?s late style by concentrating on Neapolitan tonal relations in the Clarinet Sonata in F Minor. Finally, David Brodbeck delineates the complex evolution of Brahms?s reception of Mendels-sohn?s music.

The Saga of Toi and Me -- A Memoir

The Saga of Toi and Me -- A Memoir
Author: Merredith F. Perkins, Ph.D.
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2017-02-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1480930997

The Saga of Toi and Me – A Memoir by Merredith F. Perkins, Ph. D. The Saga of Toi and Me — A Memoir is about our environment, family, and ancestry. It’s about how the actions of love can be influential and powerful. Saga is about taking risks and learning something that is beneath the surface of our being that makes us fight for our productive lives. It’s about being down, but getting up. It’s about harnessing a power that we found in ourselves that propelled us forward. Power. This memoir is for “mothers, daughters, fathers and sons, and families” who use their interwoven strength to struggle through circumstances of loss and love. My story is for all to read about examples of how resilience, perseverance, and the strength in each of us propels us to develop a power in handling the matters that we can control and matters that we can’t, self-power that is taught via a people support system. My survival has to be based on my power of determination to do so... and to have newly defined fun along the way. Toi has “unleashed” me to do just that. Looking back and laughing is cathartic, that is what The Saga of Toi and Me — A Memoir is all about.

Focal Impulse Theory

Focal Impulse Theory
Author: John Paul Ito
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0253049946

Music is surrounded by movement, from the arching back of the guitarist to the violinist swaying with each bow stroke. To John Paul Ito, these actions are not just a visual display; rather, they reveal what it really means for musicians to move with the beat, organizing the flow of notes from beat to beat and shaping the sound produced. By developing "focal impulse theory," Ito shows how a performer's choices of how to move with the meter can transform the music's expressive contours. Change the dance of the performer's body, and you change the dance of the notes. As Focal Impulse Theory deftly illustrates, bodily movements carry musical meaning and, in a very real sense, are meaning.

Parry Before Jerusalem

Parry Before Jerusalem
Author: Bernard Benoliel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2019-03-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429821417

First published in 1997, this volume demonstrates that through his activities as a composer, historian, lecturer and administrator, Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918) played a significant role in British music during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Yet despite his achievements, this century has for the most part neglected both Parry’s writings and his compositions; his name is remembered by the general public for one work alone – Jerusalem. In this collection of essays, Bernard Benoliel examines some of the reasons for this neglect and reassesses some of Parry’s most important works. These essays show that it was due to the large number and diversity of his public engagements (both social and work related) that Parry’s musical achievements did not often reach the heights of creative genius of which he might otherwise have been capable. By examining Parry’s personal relationships with his family, and in particular with his wife, Maude, Benoliel reveals an immensely complex personality; a man whose private and public selves were very much shaped by the society in which he lived. The book concludes with a selection of Parry’s own published writings, with introductions by the author.

Brahms and His World

Brahms and His World
Author: Walter Frisch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2009-07-06
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1400833620

Since its first publication in 1990, Brahms and His World has become a key text for listeners, performers, and scholars interested in the life, work, and times of one of the nineteenth century's most celebrated composers. In this substantially revised and enlarged edition, the editors remain close to the vision behind the original book while updating its contents to reflect new perspectives on Brahms that have developed over the past two decades. To this end, the original essays by leading experts are retained and revised, and supplemented by contributions from a new generation of Brahms scholars. Together, they consider such topics as Brahms's relationship with Clara and Robert Schumann, his musical interactions with the "New German School" of Wagner and Liszt, his influence upon Arnold Schoenberg and other young composers, his approach to performing his own music, and his productive interactions with visual artists. The essays are complemented by a new selection of criticism and analyses of Brahms's works published by the composer's contemporaries, documenting the ways in which Brahms's music was understood by nineteenth- and early twentieth-century audiences in Europe and North America. A new selection of memoirs by Brahms's friends, students, and early admirers provides intimate glimpses into the composer's working methods and personality. And a catalog of the music, literature, and visual arts dedicated to Brahms documents the breadth of influence exerted by the composer upon his contemporaries.

The Little Book of Heartbreak

The Little Book of Heartbreak
Author: Meghan Laslocky
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2012-12-31
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 110160283X

The perfect anti-valentine: a whirlwind tour through love’s most crushing moments What’s the best way to mend a broken heart? Forget ice cream, wine, and sappy movies. Journalist Meghan Laslocky advises: Read through the pain. From forbidden love in 12th century Paris to the art of crafting the perfect “I’m over you” mix, The Little Book of Heartbreak is a quirky exploration of all things lovelorn, including: • How serial cheater Ernest Hemingway stole his wife’s job just as their marriage was collapsing • Kinky spells cast by lovesick men in ancient Greece • Painter Oscar Kokoschka’s attempt to get over an ex by creating (and having liaisons with!) her life-size replica • Brooding crooner Morrissey’s personal creed about how romantic love is useless • The surprising science behind heartbreak and love addiction • The connection between World War II and what you talk about with your therapist • Insights into the tricky chemistry of monogamy and infidelity, courtesy of tiny rodents • And other lessons learned from ill-fated romances, lovers’ quarrels, and hell-hath-no-fury spats throughout the ages Featuring anecdotes from history, literature, culture, art and music, The Little Book of Heartbreak shares the entertaining, empowering and occasionally absurd things that happen when love is on its last legs.

Lateness and Brahms

Lateness and Brahms
Author: Margaret Notley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2007
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0195305477

Lateness and Brahms takes up the fascinating, yet understudied problem of how Brahms fits into the culture of turn-of-the-century Vienna. Brahms's conspicuous and puzzling absence in previous scholarly accounts of the time and place raises important questions, and as Margaret Notley demonstrates, the tendency to view him in neutralized, ahistorical terms has made his music seem far less interesting than it truly is.In pursuit of an historical Brahms, Notley focuses on the later chamber music, drawing on various documents and perspectives, but with particular emphasis on the relevance of Western Marxist critical traditions.