Cellist in Exile

Cellist in Exile
Author: Bernard Taper
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2018-12-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1789126274

The cellist in exile is, of course, Pablo Casals, one of the noble figures of the century, who is aptly described here by Bernard Taper as that rarity—an artist with a sense of commitment to humanity.” The book is informal, deeply personal, and permeated with Mr. Taper’s own wonder and affection for his subject. Sensitive, perceptive, and lucid, Cellist in Exile captures the flavor of a unique personality. The book reveals Casals as he is today—still playing the cello inimitably at the age of eighty-five, still stubbornly asserting the moral tenets which have shaped his life—and shows him in the setting of Puerto Rico, which has been his home for the past few years and is his present place of exile. At the same time the book, without being a formal biography, succeeds in re-creating for the reader a vivid sense of Casals’ long, intense, rich, and purposeful life. In preparing this work, Mr. Taper enjoyed a number of conversations with Casals at his home, talks about a whole gamut of subjects—music, freedom, nature, peace, and the Catalonian homeland that Casals still yearns for after more than two decades in exile. As expanded from the widely acclaimed Profile in The New Yorker, Mr. Taper’s book shows Casals in many moods and many different activities—rehearsing, playing the cello, early morning walks along the beach, and at home with his attractive young wife. He is seen in playful imitation of a novice performer’s nervousness when attempting a quavering line Schubert, a scene then heightened by Casals’ confession of the acute nervousness he has suffered before every one of the performances in his own triumphant career. Mr. Taper conveys the cellist’s warmth and simplicity when working with other famed musicians and the kind of communion in music shared with the members of his Casals’ Festival Orchestra. Beautifully illustrated throughout with numerous photographs, some of which had never before been published.

The 20th Century A-GI

The 20th Century A-GI
Author: Frank N. Magill
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1426
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136593349

Each volume of the Dictionary of World Biography contains 250 entries on the lives of the individuals who shaped their times and left their mark on world history. This is not a who's who. Instead, each entry provides an in-depth essay on the life and career of the individual concerned. Essays commence with a quick reference section that provides basic facts on the individual's life and achievements. The extended biography places the life and works of the individual within an historical context, and the summary at the end of each essay provides a synopsis of the individual's place in history. All entries conclude with a fully annotated bibliography.

The Cellist

The Cellist
Author: Daniel Silva
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2021-07-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062834916

#1 New York Times Bestseller “The pace of “The Cellist” never slackens as its action volleys from Zurich to Tel Aviv to Paris and beyond. Mr. Silva tells his story with zest, wit and superb timing, and he engineers enough surprises to startle even the most attentive reader.“—Wall Street Journal From Daniel Silva, the internationally acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author, comes a timely and explosive new thriller featuring art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon. Viktor Orlov had a longstanding appointment with death. Once Russia’s richest man, he now resides in splendid exile in London, where he has waged a tireless crusade against the authoritarian kleptocrats who have seized control of the Kremlin. His mansion in Chelsea’s exclusive Cheyne Walk is one of the most heavily protected private dwellings in London. Yet somehow, on a rainy summer evening, in the midst of a global pandemic, Russia’s vengeful president finally manages to cross Orlov’s name off his kill list. Before him was the receiver from his landline telephone, a half-drunk glass of red wine, and a stack of documents.… The documents are contaminated with a deadly nerve agent. The Metropolitan Police determine that they were delivered to Orlov’s home by one of his employees, a prominent investigative reporter from the anti-Kremlin Moskovskaya Gazeta. And when the reporter slips from London hours after the killing, MI6 concludes she is a Moscow Center assassin who has cunningly penetrated Orlov’s formidable defenses. But Gabriel Allon, who owes his very life to Viktor Orlov, believes his friends in British intelligence are dangerously mistaken. His desperate search for the truth will take him from London to Amsterdam and eventually to Geneva, where a private intelligence service controlled by a childhood friend of the Russian president is using KGB-style “active measures” to undermine the West from within. Known as the Haydn Group, the unit is plotting an unspeakable act of violence that will plunge an already divided America into chaos and leave Russia unchallenged. Only Gabriel Allon, with the help of a brilliant young woman employed by the world’s dirtiest bank, can stop it. Elegant and sophisticated, provocative and daring, The Cellist explores one of the preeminent threats facing the West today—the corrupting influence of dirty money wielded by a revanchist and reckless Russia. It is at once a novel of hope and a stark warning about the fragile state of democracy. And it proves once again why Daniel Silva is regarded as his generation’s finest writer of suspense and international intrigue.

War, Exile and the Music of Afghanistan

War, Exile and the Music of Afghanistan
Author: Professor John Baily
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2015-08-28
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1472415825

This new publication is the culmination of Baily’s further research on Afghan music over the last 35 years. Arranged chronologically, the narrative traces the sequence of political events - from 1978, through the Soviet invasion, to the coming of the Taliban and, finally, the aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2001. He examines the effects of the ever-changing situation on the lives and works of Afghan musicians, following individual musicians in fascinating detail. John Baily is also an ethnographic filmmaker. Four of his films relating to his research are included on the DVD that accompanies the text.

Italian Jewish Musicians and Composers under Fascism

Italian Jewish Musicians and Composers under Fascism
Author: Alessandro Carrieri
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2021-05-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030529312

This book is the first collection of multi-disciplinary research on the experience of Italian-Jewish musicians and composers in Fascist Italy. Drawing together seven diverse essays from both established and emerging scholars across a range of fields, this book examines multiple aspects of this neglected period of music history, including the marginalization and expulsion of Jewish musicians and composers from Italian theatres and conservatories after the 1938–39 Race Laws, and their subsequent exile and persecution. Using a variety of critical perspectives and innovative methodological approaches, these essays reconstruct and analyze the impact that the Italian Race Laws and Fascist Italy’s musical relations with Nazi Germany had on the lives and works of Italian Jewish composers from 1933 to 1945. These original contributions on relatively unresearched aspects of historical musicology offer new insight into the relationship between the Fascist regime and music.

Britannica Book of the Year 2011

Britannica Book of the Year 2011
Author: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Total Pages: 882
Release: 2011-03-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1615355006

The Britannica Book fo the Year 2011 provides a valuable viewpoint on the people and events that shaped the year. In addition to keeping the Encyclopaedia Britannica updated, it serves as a great reference source for the latest news on the ever-changing populations, governments, and economies throughout the world.

Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and Film

Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and Film
Author: Andrew Kirkman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2016-05-13
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1317161017

Contemplating Shostakovich marks an important new stage in the understanding of Shostakovich and his working environment. Each chapter covers aspects of the composer's output in the context of his life and cultural milieu. The contributions uncover 'outside' stimuli behind Shostakovich's works, allowing the reader to perceive the motivations behind his artistic choices; at the same time, the nature of those choices offers insights into the workings of the larger world - cultural, social, political - that he inhabited. Thus his often ostensibly quirky choices are revealed as responses - by turns sentimental, moving, sardonic and angry - to the particular conditions, with all their absurdities and contradictions, that he had to negotiate. Here we see the composer emerging from the role of tortured loner of older narratives into that of the gregarious and engaged member of his society that, for better and worse, characterized the everyday reality of his life. This invaluable collection offers remarkable new insight, in both depth and range, into the nature of Shostakovich's working circumstances and of his response to them. The collection contains the seeds for a wide range of new directions in the study of Shostakovich's works and the larger contexts of their creation and reception.