Biography & Autobiography : Composers & Musicians

Richard Rodgers was one of America's most prolific and best-loved composers. A world without "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady is a Tramp," "Blue Moon," and "Bewitched," to name just a few of the songs he wrote with Lorenz Hart, is scarcely imaginable, and the musicals he wrote with his second collaborator, Oscar Hammerstein--Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music--continue to enchant and entertain audiences. Arranged in four sections, Rodgers and Hart (1929-1943), Rodgers and Hammerstein (1943-1960), Rodgers After Hammerstein (1960-1979), and The Composer Speaks (1939-1971), The Richard Rodgers Reader offers a cornucopia of informative, perceptive, and stylish biographical and critical overviews. It also contains a selection of Rodgers's letters to his wife Dorothy in the 1920s, the 1938 Time magazine cover story and New Yorker profiles in 1938 and 1961, and essays and reviews by such noted critics as Brooks Atkinson, Eric Bentley, Leonard Bernstein, Lehman Engel, Walter Kerr, Ken Mandelbaum, Ethan Mordden, George Jean Nathan, and Alec Wilder. The volume features personal accounts by Richard Adler, Agnes de Mille, Joshua Logan, Mary Martin, and Diahann Carroll. The collection concludes with complete selections from more than thirty years of Rodgers's own writings on topics ranging from the creative process, the state of the Broadway theater, even Rodgers's bout with cancer, and a generous sample from the candid and previously unpublished Columbia University interviews. For anyone wishing to explore more fully the life and work of a composer whose songs and musicals have assumed a permanent--and prominent--place in American popular culture, The Richard Rodgers Reader will offer endless delights. more...

Price: $34.00

List of Illustrations. Key to Sigla. Preface to First Edition. Preface to Second Edition. 1. The formative years (1792-1810). 2. Venice and Milan (1811-14). 3. Arrival in Naples (1815). 4. Rome and Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816). 5. Naples, Rome and Milan (1816-17). 6 Mose in Egitto and Return to Pesaro (1818). 7. 1819-21. 8. Vienna, Verona, Venice (1822-3). 9. Paris and London (1823-4). 10 Paris (1824-9). 11. Retirement from operatic composition. 12. Bologna, Paris, Madrid (1829-34), Stabat mater, Olympe Pd'elissier, and Balzac. 13. Paris, the Rhineland, and return to Italy (1835-46). 14. Times of Barricades and Assassinations, Bologna, Florence, and departure from Italy (1847-55). 15. Return to Paris (1855). 16. Saturday soirees and a New Mass. 17. Last Years (1865-8). 18. Entr'acte: Some Problems of Approach to the Works. 19. The Early Operas (I): Farse for Venice's Teatro San Moisd`e. 20. Overtures. 21. The Early Operas (ii): Demetrio e Polibio, L'equivoco stravagante,Ciro in Babilonia, La Pieta del Paragone. 22. Tancredi: Heroic Comedy and the Forming of a Method. 23. L'italiana in Algeri: Formal Mastery in the Comic Style. 24. Milan and Venice (1813-14), Aureliano in Palmira, Il turco in Italia, Sigismondo. 25. Arrival in Naples (1815-16), Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, La gazzetta. 26. Il barbiere di Siviglia and the Transformation of a Tradition. 27. Otello and the Confrontation of Tragedy. 28. La Cenerentola: an Essay in Comic Pathos. 29. La Gazza Ladra and the Semiseria Style. 30. Armida and the New Romanticism. 31. Mose in Egitto (1818-19) and Moise et Pharaon (1827). 32. A lost Masterpiece and a Forgotten Favorite: Ermione,and Ricciardo e Zoraide. 33. Rossini and Scott: La Donna del Lago. 34. Maometto II (1820) and Le Siege de Corinth (1826). 35. Back from the Shadows: Matilde di Shabran and Zelmira. 36. Farewell to Italy: Semiramid. 37. Il viaggio a Reims (1825) and Le Comte Ory (1828). 38. Guillaume Tell. 39. Sacred Music, Me more...

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The bass player for the greatest improvisational band in American history tells the full, true story of his life, Jerry Garcia, and the Dead.Phil Lesh first met Jerry Garcia in 1959 in the clubs of East Palo Alto, California. At Garcia's suggestion, Lesh learned to play the electric bass, joining him in a new band that blendedR&B, country, and rock and roll with an experimental fervor never before heard. Now, in time for the Grateful Dead's 40th anniversary, Phil Lesh offers the first behind-the-scenes history of the Dead—a story no one will ever know as he does. From their first gigs to the legendary Acid Tests, in San Francisco's Summer of Love, at Woodstock, Monterey, Altamont, and the Pyramids, the Dead have been in the center of rock's defining moments. Phil Lesh tells what it has been like to live at the heart of this whirlwind, making uncompromisingly original musicwith bandmates Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Pigpen, Mickey Hart, and especially Jerry Garcia, the charismatic, enigmaticsoul of the band. He tells the stories behind songs like “Dark Star,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Truckin',” and his legendary composition “Box of Rain.” And in intimate detail, Leshdescribes what it was like to storm heaven night after night—and the price he and others have paid, up to and following Jerry Garcia's tragic death in 1995. SEARCHING FOR THE SOUND is a ruthlessly honest look inside one of thegreatest American bands, written with humor, intelligence,and a deep affection that only Phil Lesh himself could provide. more...

Price: $15.95

Janis Ian was catapulted into the spotlight in 1966 at the. age of fifteen when her soul-wrenching song “Society’s. Child” became a national hit. An intimate portrait of an. interracial relationship, “Society’s Child” climbed the charts. despite the fact that many radio stations across the country. refused to play it because of its controversial subject matter. But. this was only the beginning of a long and illustrious career. In. this fascinating memoir of her life in the music business, Ian. chronicles how she did drugs with Jimi Hendrix, went shopping. for Grammy clothes with Janis Joplin, and sang with Mel Tormé. —all the while never ceasing to create unforgettable music. In Society’s Child, Ian shares with readers what it felt like to. move in and out of the public eye. In 1975 her legendary song “At. Seventeen” earned two Grammy awards and five nominations. But during the 1980s she made a conscious decision to walk. away from the often grueling music business to study ballet and. acting. She also struggled through a difficult marriage that. ended with her then husband’s threat to kill her. The hiatus from. music lasted for nearly a decade until, in 1993, Ian returned with. the release of Breaking Silence. Rather than risk losing artistic. control, she took out a second mortgage on her home to fund. the record. It paid off as Breaking Silence gained Ian her ninth. Grammy nomination. Now in her fifth decade, Ian continues to. draw large audiences around the globe. Janis Ian has inspired generations of fans and in this moving. book she shares the fascinating story of her life in music. more...

Price: $16.95

The New York Times called Stephen Sondheim "the greatest and perhaps best known artist in the American musical theater," while two months earlier, the same paper referred to his contemporary, Andrew Lloyd-Webber as "the most commercially successful composer in history." Whatever their individual achievements might be, it is agreed by most critics that these two colossi have dominated world musical theater for the last quarter century and hold the key to the direction the musical stage will take in the future. Here in the third volume of Stephen Citron's distinguished series The Great Songwriters--in depth studies that illuminated the musical contributions, careers, and lives of Noel Coward and Cole Porter (Noel & Cole: The Sophisticates), and Oscar Hammerstein 2nd and Alan Jay Lerner, (The Wordsmiths)--this eminent musicologist has taken on our two leading contemporary contributors to the lyric stage. His aim has not been to compare or judge one's merits over the other, but to make the reader discover through their works and those of their contemporaries, the changes and path of that glorious artform we call Musical Theater. In his quest, Citron offers unique insight into each artist's working methods, analyzing their scores--including their early works and works-in-progress. As in Citron's previously critically acclaimed books in this series, great significance is given to the impact their youthful training and private lives have had upon their amazing creative output. Beginning with Sondheim's lyrics-only works, West Side Story, Gypsy, Do I Hear A Waltz? through his scores for Saturday Night, Company, Anyone Can Whistle, Follies, Pacific Overtures, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday In the Park, Into the Woods, Assassins, and Passion, all these milestones of musical theater have been explored. Lloyd-Webber's musical contribution from his early works, The Likes of Us and Joseph to Jesus Chri more...

Price: $54.00