As the twentieth century draws to a close, Igor Stravinsky's stature as one of its master musicians is indisputable. His active career as a composer covered fully two-thirds of the century, from the songs and the symphony he wrote as a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg to the music on sacred themes he produced as an old man in Los Angeles. Between these early and late works stretched a creative life that included triumphs of the Ballets Russes such as The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring; children's piano pieces; works based on Greek myth and on Russian peasant theatre; new approaches to concerto grosso form as well as to ragtime; liturgies as well as sketches for circus band; reworkings of ideas from the Baroque, and explorations of possibilities no one had dreamed of. Stravinsky's influence is incalculable and, like his output, extraordinarily wide in range. It has been felt by composers from Debussy and Schoenberg to those who had not yet been heard from when he died in 1971. In his long and honored life he came into contact with people from Tchaikovsky and Ravel to T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, from Benito Mussolini to John F. Kennedy, from Picasso, Nijinsky, and Cocteau to Louis B. Mayer. In this new study, Paul Griffiths surveys Stravinsky's vastly variegated life and output in one chronological sweep, showing how certain basic images and principles emerge again and again in the music, but also emphasizing his capacity to start afresh, to confront us not with one Stravinsky but with many. Since Stravinsky's death, publication of his correspondence and other material has made possible a deeper investigation of his creative methods. Profiting from this, and exploring the works both as individual creations and as elements in a wider context, Paul Griffiths's book is a new and stimulating guide to Stravinsky's life and music.

Stravinsky (Master Musicians Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

Griffiths, Paul.

Arts & Literature

Schirmer Reference

A respected music critic offers a comprehensive overview of the world of classical music in an A-to-Z reference that encompasses more than a millennium of Western music and includes biographies of thousands of composers, as well as coverage of individual works, musical history and instruments, musical forms, technical terms and jargon, operatic plots, and other key areas. Original.

The Penguin Companion to Classical Music

Arts & Photography

Music

Penguin??Books

This superbly authoratitive new work provides a comprehensive A-Z guide to some 1000 years of Western music. It explores in detail the lives and achievements of a vast range of composers, as well as looking at such key topics as music history, performers, theory and jargon.

Penguin Companion to Classical Music

Penguin Press

The New Penguin Dictionary of Music is the essential A-Z of some 1,000 years of Western music. It explores in detail the lives and achievements of a huge range of composers, and examines such key topics as music history (from medieval plainchant to contemporary minimalism), performers, theory, and jargon. Written by an award-winning music critic, and blending scholarship with personal insight and opinion, this dictionary is both a pleasurable read and an invaluable and authoritative reference book for all lovers of music, whether amateur or professional.

The New Penguin Dictionary of Music

Penguin

The years between 1550 and 1700 saw significant changes in the nature and scope of local government: sophisticated information and intelligence systems were developed; magistrates came to rely more heavily on surveillance to inform 'good government'; and England's first nationwide system of incarceration was established within bridewells. But while these sizeable and lasting shifts have been well studied, less attention has been paid to the important characteristic that they shared: the 'turning inside' of the title. What was happening beneath this growth in activity was a shift from 'open' to 'closed' management of a host of problems--from the representation of authority itself to treatment of every kind of local disorder, from petty crime and poverty to dirty streets. Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1150-1700 explores the character and consequences of these changes for the first time. Drawing on wide-ranging archival research in 34 archives, the book examines the ways in which the notion of representing authority and ethics in public (including punishment) was increasingly called into question in early modern England, and how and why local government officials were involved in this. This 'turning inside' was encouraged by insistence on precision and clarity in broad bodies of knowledge, culture, and practice that had lasting impacts on governance, as well as a range of broader demographic, social, and economic changes that led to deeper poverty, thinner resources, more movement, and imagined or real crime-waves. In so doing, and by drawing on a diverse range of examples, the book offers important new perspectives on local government, visual representation, penal cultures, institutions, incarceration, and surveillance in the early modern period.

Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700: Turning Inside

History

Europe

Oxford University Press

John Cage's name has long been well known and his influence widely acknowledged. Yet his music is comparatively unexplored and his ideas have often been misrepresented. This book is the first serious study of Cage's output and considers his music in relation to the development of his thinking. Paul Griffiths (born 24 November 1947) is a British music critic, novelist and librettist. He is particularly noted for his writings on modern classical music and for having written the librettos for two 20th-century operas, Tan Dun's Marco Polo and Elliott Carter's What Next?.

Cage

A Concise History of Avant-Garde Music: From Debussy to Boulez

Thames&Hudson

This fully revised new edition re-establishes Paul Griffiths's survey as the definitive study of music since the Second World War. The disruptions of the war, and the struggles of the ensuing peace, were reflected in the music of the time: in Pierre Boulez's radical re-forming of compositional technique and in John Cage's move into zen music, in Milton Babbitt's settling of the serial system, and in Dmitry Shostakovich's unsettling symphonies, in Karlheinz Stockhausen's development of electronic music and in Luigi Nono's pursuit of the universally human, in Iannis Xenakis's view of music as sounding mathematics and in Luciano Berio's consideration of it as language. The initiatives of these composers and their contemporaries opened prospects that have continued to unfold. This constant expansion of musical thinking since 1945 has left us with no single history of music. 'We live' as Griffiths says, 'among many simultaneous histories'. His study accordingly follows several different paths, showing how they converge and diverge. In addition to the composers mentioned above, others whose music is discussed include Steve Reich, Jean Barraque, Elliott Carter, Olivier Messiaen, Gyorgy Kurtag, Bill Hopkins, Harrison Birtwhistle and Gyorgy Ligeti. Publication and recording details are given for the works of all these composers and many others. For its breadth and for its wealth of detail, Modern Music and After will appeal to both student and the general reader in search of a lively and comprehensive introduction to the music of our time.

Modern Music and After - Directions Since 1945 (Clarendon Paperbacks)

This fully revised new edition re-establishes Paul Griffiths's survey as the definitive study of music since the Second World War. The disruptions of the war, and the struggles of the ensuing peace, were reflected in the music of the time: in Pierre Boulez's radical reforming of compositional technique and in John Cage's move into zen music, in Milton Babbitt's settling of the serial system and in Dmitry Shostakovich's unsettling symphonies, in Karlheinz Stockhausen's development of electronic music and in Luigi Nono's pursuit of the universally human, in Iannis Xenakis's view of music as sounding mathematics and in Luciano Berio's consideration of it as language. The initiatives of these composers and their contemporaries opened prospects that have continued to unfold. This constant expansion of musical thinking since 1945 has left us with no single history of music. Paul Griffiths's study accordingly follows several different paths, showing how and why they converge and diverge. In addition to the composers mentioned above, others whose music is discussed include Steve Reich, Jean Barraque, Elliott Carter, Olivier Messiaen, Gyorgy Kurtag, Harrison Birtwistle, and Gyorgy Ligeti. Publication and recording details are given for the works of all these composers and many others. For its breadth and wealth of detail, Modern Music and After will appeal to both the student and the general reader in search of a lively and comprehensive introduction to the music of our time.

Modern Music and After

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Griffiths, Paul.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Griffiths, Paul.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Griffiths, Paul.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Stravinsky (Master Musicians Series)

The Penguin Companion to Classical Music

Penguin Companion to Classical Music

The New Penguin Dictionary of Music

Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700: Turning Inside

Cage

A Concise History of Avant-Garde Music: From Debussy to Boulez

A Concise History of Avant-Garde Music: From Debussy to Boulez

Modern Music and After - Directions Since 1945 (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Modern Music and After