Music : History & Criticism

Parental Advisory is a intelligent and entertaining look at the colorful history of popular music in the United States that hs been either challenged or supresseed by forces of government or community. From Dean Martin ("Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am") to Marilyn Manson ("Antichrist Superstar"), Parental Advisory illuminates the complicated issue of music censorship, and demonstrates how censorship comes from all sides of the political spectrum. The book discusses everyone from The Beatles ("More popular than Jesus") to Ozzy Osbourne ("Suicide Solution") to N.W.A. ("Fuck tha Police") and The Prodigy ("Smack My Bitch Up")--as well as frenzied record burnings, controversial album cover art, the censors (Tipper Gore gets her very own chapter), and the freedom fighters (such as Frank Zappa). Featuring amusing sidebars (the PMRC's "Filthy Fifteen" list) chapters divided by subject (Sex; Politics; Violence; Race; Religion; Drugs; MTV) and finally a decade-by-decade timeline of important moments in censorship history, Parental Advisory is by turns frightening, amusing, hilarious, chilling--but always revealing. more...

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Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944), the most widely performed composer of her generation, was the first American woman to succeed as a creator of large-scale art music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, given its premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, was the first work of its kind by an American woman to be performed by an American orchestra. Almost all of her more than 300 works were published soon after they were composed and performed, and today her music is finding new advocates and audiences for its energy, intensity, and sheer beauty. Yet, until now, no full-length critical biography of Beach's life or comprehensive critical overview of her music existed. This biography admirably fills that gap, fully examining the connections between Beach's life and work in light of social currents and dominant ideologies. Born into a musical family in Victorian times, Amy Beach started composing as a child of four and was equally gifted as a pianist. Her talent was recognized early by Boston's leading musicians, who gave her unqualified support. Although Beach believed that the life of a professional musician was the only life for her, her parents had raised her for marriage and a career of amateur music-making. Her response to this parental (and later spousal) opposition was to find creative ways of reaching her goal without direct confrontation. Discouraged from a full-scale concert career, she instead found her metier in composition. Success as a composer of art songs came early for Beach: indeed, her songs outsold those of her contemporaries. Nevertheless, she was determined to separate her work from the genteel parlor music women were writing in her day by creating large-scale works--a Mass, a symphony, and chamber music--that challenged the accepted notion that women were incapable of creating high art. She won the respect of colleagues and the allegiance of audiences. Many who praised her work, however, considered her an exception among women. Beach's reaction to t more...

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ONCE,. T-shirts were just unadorned undergarments. But with the evolution of screen printing and the birth of band merchandising, T-shirts became so much cooler. Now every band with an ounce of savvy knows the importance of T-shirts not only as a lucrative sideline but also as a means of self- promotion and a way for fans to show their allegiance. The Art of the Band T-shirt is a visual history of that perennial fashion statement, complete with nearly two hundred images of the most important, influential, iconic, and ironic T-shirts. more...

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J. S. Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin have been central to the violin repertoire since the mid-eighteenth century. This engaging volume is the first comprehensive exploration of the place of these works within Bach's music: it focuses on their structural and stylistic features as they have been perceived since their creation. Joel Lester, a highly regarded scholar, teacher, violinist, and administrator, combines an analytical study, a full historical guide, and an insightful introduction to Bach's style. Individual movements are related to comparable movements by Bach in other media and are differentiated from superficially similar works from later eras. Lester employs descriptions of historical and contemporary recordings, as well as accounts of nineteenth-century performances and commentaries on historical editions, to explore these works as they evolved through the centuries. Wherever possible, he uses analytic tools culled from eighteenth-century ideas, key notions originally developed for the specific purpose of describing the repertoire under consideration. Beginning with an overview of the solo violin music's place within Bach's oeuvre, this study takes the Sonata No. 1 in G minor as the paradigm of Bach's compositional strategy, examining each movement in detail before enlarging the discussion to cover parallel and contrasting features of the A-minor and C-minor sonatas. Next, a chapter is devoted to the three partitas and their roots in various dance-music traditions. The book concludes with a summary of form, style, and rhetoric in Bach's music, in which Lester muses on these masterpieces with an overall command of the music, criticism, and history of the 1700s that is quite rare among scholars. A novel and unprecedented investigation of a particular portion of Bach's accomplishment and a particular aspect of his universal appeal, Bach's Works for Solo Violin will help violinists, students, scholars, and other listeners develop a deeper persona more...

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