Lamenting the `regrettable tendency (of musical analysis) towards intellectual gymnastics that overlook aesthetic reality', Julian Littlewood makes good again and again his promise to consider the `broader contexts of affect, kinetic control, stylistic reference, and closural strategies'. He is particularly attentive to performance makings and matters of texture. It is a tribute to his originality of approach that he has been able to add distinctively to the already considerable literature on this subject. Nicholas Marston, King's College Cambridge

The Variations of Johannes Brahms (Poetics of Music, 1)

Arts & Photography

Littlewood, Julian

Music

Plumbago Books

Variation is a fundamental musical principle, yet its most naked expression - variation form - resists all but the broadest of descriptions. This book offers listener, performer, analyst and composer an eclectic array of approaches to `Theme and Variations', including: patterns of departure and return; real versus perceived time; strategies of propulsion and closure in an intrinsically cyclic and open-ended form; the interplay of authorial voices deriving from dialogue between the `self' of variations and the `other' of their theme; critique of a theme through a set's generic references; drama and narrative achieved through textural and tonal control; and the intrinsic sound of a variation, so different from that of a freely composed work. These topics are introduced through a general survey of the form, seen through the prisms of the provenance of themes and the ideologies of sets, before being developed through close study of Brahms's variation sets and movements. Brahms was supremely aware of his place in music history and was uncommonly self-conscious in his manipulation of different techniques of composition. His variation sets - some of the most well-crafted and beloved examples - place the interplay of forms and styles at the heart of their identity. Moreover, in their stunning breadth and diversity they offer a microcosm of Brahms's entire output, a succinct revelation of his life-long concerns. Through them we marvel at his technical and poetic mastery, and journey to the heart of his creative character.

The Variations of Johannes Brahms (Poetics of Music) (Volume 1)

<p>Peter Pears once described Benjamin Britten as `a Greek who worships all the gods'; and in order to come to terms with Britten's music it is necessary to recognize a language deeply embedded in this Western tradition. This book is devoted to Night-piece (Notturno), written for the first Leeds International Pianoforte Competition of 1963. It addresses the work from many points of view: historical, documentary, analytical, formal, kinetic, hermeneutical, and affective. It also includes a wide range of illustrated allusions to other music, a full set of sketches, the printed score, arrays of modes and voice-leading graphs, and two appendices that take the issues of intensification and neapolitan relations further. In so doing, it provides a new model for the study of Britten's work in general.</p>

All the Gods: Benjamin Britten's Night-piece in Context (Poetics of Music)

Wintle, Christopher

Our specialist times, with everyone confined to their own discipline, have left little room for the age-old view that, however transmuted, the issues of art and life belong together, or that, for all their differences, the arts have shared concerns: yet realism demands just such an outlook. This book offers an informal attempt to re-open closed borders by the established writer on music, Christopher Wintle. Through a host of aphorisms and thoughts it first probes people, politics, learning and the Gods. It then sketches out a Poetics in terms of style and idea, artists, critics, theory, performers, ethics, opera, sculpture, cinema and sport, before ending with a pair of Urban Fables. The volume includes a collection of Works with Music by the well-known Brazilian artist Ana Maria Pacheco.

Towards a Poetics of Music and the Arts: Selected Thoughts and Aphorisms with Works with Music by Ana Maria Pacheco

Peter Pears once described Benjamin Britten as 'a Greek who worships all the gods'; and in order to come to terms with Britten's music it is necessary to recognize a language deeply embedded in this Western tradition. This book is devoted to Night-piece (Notturno), written for the first Leeds International Pianoforte Competition of 1963. It addresses the work from many points of view: historical, documentary, analytical, formal, kinetic, hermeneutical, and affective. It also includes a wide range of illustrated allusions to other music, a full set of sketches, the printed score, arrays of modes and voice-leading graphs, and two appendices that take the issues of intensification and neapolitan relations further. In so doing, it provides a new model for the study of Britten's work in general. Winner of the Sue Thomson Foundation Publishing Award for 2006.

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Books by Littlewood, Julian

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

The Variations of Johannes Brahms (Poetics of Music, 1)

The Variations of Johannes Brahms (Poetics of Music) (Volume 1)

All the Gods: Benjamin Britten's Night-piece in Context (Poetics of Music)

Towards a Poetics of Music and the Arts: Selected Thoughts and Aphorisms with Works with Music by Ana Maria Pacheco

All the Gods: Benjamin Britten's Night-piece in Context (Poetics of Music)