A drink with shane macgowan

Best known as the cofounder of the Irish band The Pogues, Shane MacGowan has become a cult figure on the alternative-music scene. His achingly beautiful lyrics, as well as his legendary lifestyle of excess, have earned him an avid following that packs his shows and buys his albums. One of the mos...

Beethoven's lives

Beethoven's Lives will be required reading for anyone interested in understanding how Beethoven biography has evolved through the ages.When Ludwig van Beethoven died in March 1827, the world of music felt an intense loss. The composer's funeral procession was one of the largest Vienna had ever wi...

Claude debussy

English translation and revised edition of the most comprehensive and reliable biography of Claude Debussy.François Lesure's "critical biography" of Claude Debussy (Fayard, 2003) is widely recognized by scholars as the most comprehensive and reliable account of that composer's life and career as ...

Dweller in shadows

The first comprehensive biography of an extraordinary English poet and composer whose life was haunted by fighting in the First World War and, later, confinement in a mental asylumIvor Gurney (1890–1937) wrote some of the most anthologized poems of the First World War and composed some of the gre...

Hannibal lokumbe

This is a captivating, vital portrait and spiritual biography of the pathbreaking orchestral composer and visionary jazz musician Hannibal Lokumbe.

I've had to think up a way to survive

“An ode to storytelling itself . . . A gorgeous and heart-rending story of survival.”—Melissa Febos, author of GirlhoodA moving and essential exploration of what it takes to find your voice as a woman, a survivor, an artist, and an icon.The first time Lynn Melnick listened to a Dolly Parton song ...

Jean sibelius

Letters to yeyito

A captivating memoir from one of jazz's most beloved practitioners, fourteen-time Grammy winner Paquito D’Rivera’s Letters to Yeyito is a fascinating tour of a life lived in music, and a useful guidebook for aspiring artists everywhere. Years after receiving a fan letter with no return address, L...

Losing music

“I was in the car the first time music seemed strange: the instruments less distinct, the vocals less crisp.” John Cotter was thirty years old when he first began to notice a ringing in his ears. Soon the ringing became a roar inside his head. Next came partial deafness, then dizziness and vertig...

Maurice duruflé

A deeply researched biography of the great French organist, who composed some of the best-loved works in the organ repertory -- and the masterful Requiem.Maurice Duruflé: The Man and His Music is a new biography of the great French organist and composer (1902-86), and the most comprehensive in an...

Mdc al schvitz

A captivating memoir detailing the good times as an iconic punk rock drummer and hard time served as a convict in San Quentin

Music's modern muse

A biography of Winnaretta Singer-Polignac, heiress to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, who befriended and subsidized some of the most important musical and literary artists of the 20th Century, including Stravinsky, Proust, Ravel, Cocteau, and Colette.The American-born Winnaretta Singer (1865-1...

On the fragility of life

A conversation of rare depth and tenderness, On the Fragility of Life finds Nick Cave reflecting on love, loss, faith, and the fragile beauty of being alive.

Popular music, popular myth and cultural heritage in cleveland

This book presents a case study of popular music heritage to address why, and how, Cleveland, Ohio has claimed to be the "birthplace of rock 'n' roll" and became the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It explores the role of radio DJs, record stores, concerts and myths in shaping the relatio...

Red wave

A memoir by an American who almost single-handedly introduced Soviet rock to the free world, [...] Stingray, who wrote this memoir with her daughter, Madison, nicely captures her daring amid an atmosphere of liberation and fear, and she's a study in moxie and enthusiasm.—Kirkus ReviewsAs one of t...

Shostakovich

Shostakovich: A Life Remembered is a unique study of the great composer Dmitri Shostakovich, based on reminiscences from his contemporaries. Elizabeth Wilson covers the composer's life from his early successes to his struggles under the Stalinist regime, and his international recognition as one o...

The blues brothers

The story of the epic friendship between John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the golden era of improv, the early days of Saturday Night Live, and the making of a comedic film classic that helped shape our popular culture“They’re not going to catch us,” Dan Aykroyd, as Elwood Blues, tells his brother Ja...

The broadway sound

The previously unpublished autobiography and additional essays by the orchestrator-composer of some of America's most important musical theatre productions.The remarkable career of composer-orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett [1894-1981] encompassed a wide variety of both "legitimate" and popular...

The ghetto swinger

Jazz in Nazi-era and postwar Germany, as lived by a Jewish prodigy who survived the horrors of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz.

The music of herbert howells

The first large-scale study of the music of Herbert Howells, prodigiously gifted musician and favourite student of the notoriously hard-to-please Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.Herbert Howells (1892-1983) was a prodigiously gifted musician and the favourite student of the notoriously hard-to-pleas...

The schubert treatment

For readers of Oliver Sacks and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande comes a “shimmery account of performing … for a series of patients with varied afflictions, including the inevitable final one.”—New York TimesA celebrated art therapist plays the cello for her patients—and offers a moving reflection on...

Uncommon measure

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLISTNPR “BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR” SELECTIONNEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE A virtuosic debut from a gifted violinist searching for a new mode of artistic becomingHow does time shape consciousness and consciousness, time? Do we live in time, or does time live in us? And how d...

Violence girl

The birth of the 1970s' punk movement as seen through the eyes of Chicana feminist and punk musician Alice Bag.

Wagner

Wagner as revolutionary philosopher: a new reading of a trilogy of texts written by the composer in the aftermath of the failed Dresden UprisingForced into exile to avoid arrest after taking part in the failed Dresden Uprising in 1849, Richard Wagner turned to philosophical writing, producing in ...

Who by fire

“An expedition into the troubled soul of one of the world’s greatest songwriters.”—Haaretz “A fascinating and intense account of Leonard Cohen’s time in Israel during the 19-day Yom Kippur War of 1973. A must for any Leonard Cohen completist.”—Suzanne VegaA Vanity Fair Best Book of 2022 * Mosaic ...

Wilhelm furtwängler

A pathbreaking, new intellectual biography of the composer and conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954) has entered the historical memory as a renowned interpreter of the canon of Austro-German musical masterworks. His extensive legacy of recorded performances of Beethoven, B...

Woman with guitar

A vivid portrait of one of the blues' most influential female artists, and the popular poetry of her lyrics.