The Language of Music (Oxford Paperbacks)

Arts & Photography

Cooke, Deryck

Music

Oxford University Press

Long considered a masterpiece, Wagner's Ring has baffled and confused critics because of the highly complex meaning of its text and music. The diverse range of commentaries written on the subject since the first performance over one hundred years ago reveals just how little critics have understood The Ring. Deryck Cooke displays his masterly common sense in this study of how and why The Ring took the shape it did. This volume represents only a portion of the enormous book he had planned--his untimely death prevented him from writing a full analysis of the music. Even as it stands, I Saw The World End will give fresh understanding and appreciation to every lover of Wagner's music.

I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Clarendon Press

First published in 1959, this original study argues that the main characteristic of music is that it expresses and evokes emotion, and that all composers whose music has a tonal basis have used the same, or closely similar, melodic phrases, harmonies, and rhythms to affect the listener in the same ways. He supports this view with hundreds of musical examples, ranging from plainsong to Stravinsky, and contends that music is a language in the specific sense that we can identify idioms and draw up a list of meanings. The book's final section analyzes two symphonies, Mozart's Fortieth and Vaughan Williams's Sixth, to explore the nature of musical inspiration and the process whereby the notes actually convey emotion from composer to listener.

The Language of Music (Clarendon Paperbacks)

The New Grove Late Romantic Masters: Bruckner, Brahms, Dvorak, Wolf (New Grove Composer Biography)

NA, NA

Science & Math

Papermac

Gustav Mahler

Cambridge University Press

Vindications: Essays Romantic Music

Contains all Cooke's major articles, including essays on the four composers he cared about most passionately- Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler and Delius. The essay on Beethoven's late quartets, Lennon-McCarney songs, and a sample of his writing about literature are also included.

Vindications: Essays on Romantic Music

Gustav Mahler: An Introduction to His Music

Gustav Mahler: An Introduction to His Music

From the rear cover of this 127 page book: "This is by far and away the best short guide to Mahler's music, written expressly for music lovers by a great scholar who had an unparalleled gift for lucid and attractive exposition. The book contains full texts, in German and English, of all the poems set by Mahler in his songs and symphonies. For this new, second edition the translations have been carefully revised, and the composer David Matthews has contributed a new preface. Deryck Cooke, who died in 1976, was renowned world-wide as a Mahler scholar. His performing version of Mahler's uncompleted 'Tenth Symphony' published by Faber Music, has been recorded by Simon Rattle, and is widely performed."

Gustav Mahler: An Introduction to his Music

Cambridge Univ. Press

Gustav Mahler : An Introduction to His Music

Matthews, David

Matthews, Colin

Faber Music

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