Music : History & Criticism

A comprehensive study of the clarinet in use through the classical period, 1760 to 1830, a period of intensive musical experimentation. The book provides a detailed review and analysis of construction, design, materials, and makers of clarinets. Rice also explores how clarinet construction and performance practice developed in tandem with the musical styles of the period.  more...

Price: $74.00

Studies in the dynamic life of music, education and culture. more...

Price: $45.00

The time: 1936-1938. The mood: Hopeful. It wasn't wartime, not yet. The music: The incomparable Count Basie and Benny Goodman, among others. The setting: Living rooms across America and, most of all, New York City. Dream Lucky covers politics, race, religion, arts, and sports, but the central focus is the period's soundtrack—specifically big band jazz—and the big-hearted piano player William "Count" Basie. His ascent is the narrative thread of the book—how he made it and what made his music different from the rest. But many other stories weave in and out: Amelia Earhart pursues her dream of flying "around the world at its waistline." Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., stages a boycott on 125th Street. And Mae West shocks radio listeners as a naked Eve tempting the snake. Critic Nat Hentoff praises the "precise originality" with which Roxane Orgill writes about music. In Dream Lucky , she magically lets readers hear the past. more...

Price: $19.95

Ernst von Dohnányi was written from a first-hand perspective by Dohnányi's widow. Dohnányi (1877-1960) was one of the most highly respected musicians of his time. The young Dohnányi enjoyed an international prestige that brought him into contact with such 19th-century masters as Brahms and Eugene d'Albert. He is remembered for his technique and interpretive skills as a pianist and conductor, as well as for the masterpieces he composed for piano, chamber ensembles, and orchestra. As a teacher and administrator, Dohnányi was responsible for the training of an entire generation of musicians in Hungary and for helping to shape the country's musical culture. more...

Price: $27.95

"It was all so honest, before the end of our collective innocence. Top Forty jocks screamed and yelled and sounded mightier than God on millions of transistor radios. But on FM radio it was all spun out for only you. On a golden web by a master weaver driven by fifty thousand magical watts of crystal clear power . more...

Price: $19.00