Few American artists in any medium have enjoyed the international and lasting cultural impact of Duke Ellington. From jazz standards such as "Mood Indigo" and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore", to his longer, more orchestral suites, to his leadership o...

Performed throughout Europe during the 1700s, Italian heroic opera, or opera seria, was the century's most significant musical art form, profoundly engaging such figures as Handel, Haydn, and Mozart".Opera and Sovereignty" is the first book to addres...

The music industry's ongoing battle against digital piracy is just the latest skirmish in a long conflict over who has the right to distribute music. Starting with music publishers' efforts to stamp out bootleg compilations of lyric sheets in 1929, B...

The Sacred Harp choral singing tradition originated in the American South in the mid-nineteenth century, spread widely across the country, and continues to thrive today. Sacred Harp isn't performed but participated in, ideally in large gatherings whe...

The concept of genius intrigues us. Artistic geniuses have something other people don't have. In some cases that something seems to be a remarkable kind of inspiration that permits the artist to exceed his own abilities. It is as if the artist is sud...

Though some dismiss opera as old-fashioned, it shows no sign of disappearing from the world's stage. So why do audiences continue to flock to it? Given its association with wealth, one might imagine that opera tickets function as a status symbol. But...

The extraordinary career of Franz Liszt (1811-1886) as a composer, conductor, and virtuoso pianist – whose incomparable skill and personal charisma dazzled audiences all over Europe, from London and Paris to Berlin, Moscow, and even Constantinople –...

This book is the first to examine the brilliant gathering of composers, conductors, and other musicians who fled Nazi Germany and arrived in the Los Angeles area. Musicologist Dorothy Lamb Crawford looks closely at the lives, creative work, and influ...

"Remembered Rhythms" explores the role of music and cultural memory in shaping and creating diasporic identities. With contributions from leading scholars in the fields of ethnomusicology, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology, the essays ran...

In this meticulously researched book, Oliver Hilmes paints a fascinating and revealing picture of the extraordinary Cosima Wagner – illegitimate daughter of Franz Liszt, wife of the conductor Hans von Bulow, then mistress and subsequently wife of Ric...