Musicals Books

This CD is awesome! You feel as if you were listening to Hazel and her Hazelnuts broadcasting in 1927! The songs are cute and funny! I LOVE THIS SHOW! If you love musical theatre, you must have this CD!

My husband and I went to see a local production of Radio Gals. We knew nothing about it prior to going. It was so delightful that I came home and ordered the CD right away. Then we got tickets so our kids could see the production too. It's truly a family favorite. We enjoy music that's just plain fun and you can't get much more fun than this.

I just came from a performance of radio gals (since it was FABULOUS) and decided to look for the soundtrack...i heard this one and was glad that it could give me my radio gals fix...im glad i ordered it

Attracted by the theme, I ordered this CD without having heard it at all, and it has turned out to be one of my favorites! This is the story of Hazel Hunt and her Hazelnuts, a day in the life of a homegrown all-gals radio station in 1927 Arkansas. There is a lot of great songwriting on this album, well-rendered by find song-singing and playing. Tender love songs, winsome ballads, foot-stompin' hand-clappin' homefried numbers, and even a couple of song-stories fill out the bill of 22 songs, with not a single bad apple in the barrel. "Radio Gals" is a musical playing here and there around the country; see it if you have a chance, and by all means give this CD a listen! (The musical is written by Mike Craver of "Wagoner's Lad" fame and the late Mark Hardwick, who was a co-creator of "Pump Boys and Dinettes" and other musicals.)

This book is well organized, clearly written and full of all kinds of mind-blowing stuff that will keep me entertained for a while. It also gives the best explanation of modulation that I have seen. The demo CD contains about all the examples played out along with some "musical considerations" so you get to hear how this crazy stuff can be applied.

Great book. Very interesting stuff that you've heard Simon Phillips, Vinnie Collaiuta, and the like do forever. this takes the "mystery" out of some elusive concepts and gives you a systematic way to develop the tools. It's kind of like the Chaffee material in that it is very well laid out, systematized, and organized to go through all (or most) of the permutations. Especially great if you're disciplined enough to go through it a little bit at a time b/c it's not easy stuff. It can give you a bit of a headache. Once the concepts, feel of the displacements and modulations, and application of the material within a musical context are together, you're going to impress a lot of people.

WOW! Now here is a Great book, I've often been Puzzled by some of the Rhythms I've heard in either Modern Music or some of the Jazz or Fusion Music I've been listening to and I've not been able to figure them out, But finaly here is a book that Explaines much of it, and it's funny that some of these Illusions are quite simple actualy, that is in theory, But in practise they can be very difficult, at least some of them.

This Book is for the drumset, I don't play the drumset but bought it anyway because these Rhythm concept can be applied to any instrument.

The Book deals with many Rhythm concept like Beat displacement, Modulation, Rhythmic scales and Polyrhythm, ther's a lot of Material here and I must agree with Bill Bruford in his Foreword to the book "I've got Work to Do".

Other good books that deal with some of these things are "Rhythm and Meter Patterns By Gary Chaffee" and "Polyrhythms by Peter Magadini".

This book showed me so much about what can be done on the drums. It explains things that one might never think of or might have ideas about but never be bale to put them on paper. Also comes with a brilliant CD that will make your head spin!

Every Jewish fanatic who thinks they know everything about Wagner's relationships w/Jews and who base their opinions on the fact that he was an anti-semite ought to read this book. Loads of stuff not previously known, at least not by me. jww

Despite a few notable exceptions, Milton Brener's Richard Wagner and the Jews is nearly the only book that deals fairly with the famed opera composer's anti-Semitism; and as such, this book is a welcome corrective to some of the more shrill anti-Wagner screeds of the last few decades. Brener does not intend to excuse Wagner; he merely comes closer than most in explaining him.

Besides being probably the greatest artist who ever lived, Wagner was also a bundle of contradictions. However, this bundle of contradictions never seemed to be able to realize that he was just that. Indeed, Wagner did possess anti-Semitic attitudes, but his anti-Semitism was of a different stripe than that espoused by the Nazis. Wagner called for Jewish assimilation within the German population, which certainly did not conform with later Nazi policy. Like many a 19th-Century anti-Semite, Wagner seems to have seen Jewishness as almost an abstract, metaphysical concept. Of course, that does not excuse him. He did indeed say vile things about Jews, and he needs to be held accountable for those attitudes, but to simply (and wrongly) call him a proto-Nazi is not only intellectually dishonest, it wrongly stains the reputation of an artist who created stupendous, deeply human works-of-art.

As Brener also points out, there is nothing inherently anti-Semitic in any of Wagner's great works of art. Unfortunately, some writers, such as Robert Gutman, seem to have a compulsion to find even the most tenuous, implausible Anti-Semitic connections in Wagner's work. It is simply impossible to find such links. There is not the slightest overt connection to anti-Semitism in any of Wagner's works, and if there are any such covert links, then one would have had to have entered the composer's mind to see them. Wagner's many genuine friendships with Jews complicate Gutman's position even more.

This is simply a fabulous book. And, along with The Darker Side of Genius and The Ring of Myths, it is also the most responsible volume available that deals specifically with Wagner's most famous character flaw.

Also included, as an appendix, is the composer's infamous essay, "Judaism in Music". While the essay is bitter and paranoid, it is helpful for a frame of reference to the preceding 300 pages. Needless to say, I find Wagner's argument that Jews are incapable of generating higher culture to be utterly worthless. Schoenberg & Mahler (and many other Jewish artists) obviously dismantle that argument, and as for Wagner's claim that Jews are incapable of high art because they are "rootless", we only need to look at Aaron Copland, a man of Lithuanian Jewish heritage, who used Appalachian & Mexican melodies and rhythms to create incredible works of art.

Having read many books on the life of Wagner over the years, I can safely say that this biographical sketch by Brener ranks among the best. The author is a retired attorney who is also a music and art critic. Like most of us who love Wagner's music, Brener is troubled by the composer's less than admirable traits -- his manipulation of his friends, his skipping out on debts, and particularly his anti-Semitism. How could a man who wrote some of the most moving music and insightful music dramas in Western civiilzation be such a defective human being? Brener sets out to understand Wagner the man in human perspective and succeeds admirably. He focuses mainly on Wagner's public views of "the Jews" and his private, long-standing and meaningful friendships with many individual Jews. A retired lawyer, he has done his homework, deposed all the key witnesses, and developed an argument that leaves no stone unturned. Brener makes a compelling case for Wagner as a nuanced human being rather than the black and white monster as some biographers portray him. In addition, the book is extremely well written and hard to put down. I came away with a greater appreciation of Wagner and a deeper understanding of the nature of prejudice. Highly recommended.

This is not the usual diatribe that we expect on Wagner's Antisemitism. Instead it is a biography focusing on the composer's relations with the Jews. Brener makes a sharp distinction between "the Jews" in Roman type and the same phrase in italic, the former representing Wagner's Jewish friends, the latter the Jewish community that he despised.

The main characters are Karl Tausig, Heinrich Porges, Joseph Rubinstein, and Hermann Levi--all close associates of Wagner and all Jewish. The chapters on Levi are especially revealing, a sharp challenge to orthodox opinion by such scholars as Peter Gay. The analysis of Wagner's major tract on the subject, "Judaism in Music," is adequate.

Brener is a good writer with a refined sense of tone and wit. He knows the primary literature backwards and forwards. His mastery of the secondary sources seems less secure but still sufficient for his purposes. Obviously he has visited most of the places he discusses, for his descriptions of them (both then and now) are vivid.

His theme is summed up in a concise sentence that concludes his preface: "I do not beleive that, at the deeper levels, the man who created Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, and Der Ring des Nibelungen could possibly have been the monster that so many have painted." He proves his point well.

I enjoyed this book and learned much from it. I recommend it wholeheartedly to fellow Wagnerians.

Well, after how many years of being a drummer, I've looked for drums instructional books that would revive me out of rhythm death. But time and again I get severely disappointed becuase you'll either run across things that are just way too basic or way too extreme. Man, all I want is something practical, but challenging, and leaving a lot of room to grow. That's why I feel that I have been brought to life with this book. Rick doesn't just talk about linear drumming, beat displacements, etc. He shows you practical and useful excercises and grooves that will get you started on the right track. The concepts go beyond the book itself, but at least finally there's something out there to get you started in the first place without making you feel like you already have to be insanely great to begin with. Yes, I recommend this book for the intermediate drummer that have a fairly good dexterity with paradiddles and it's relatives. It's amazing how much you can do with just the right concepts.

This book and cd is a great help to me and my playing.
Rick helped me with broadening my playing by the exercises within the book. Even beginners with knowledge of the basic note values can benefit from Rick's Licks.

I just read the latest review in Modern Drummer for Rick's Licks which received a 9 out of 10 rating, so I had to get a copy. They weren't kidding when they said "The concept that simple patterns, when applied and accented different ways on the drumkit, can sound so awesome, has great appeal, and Rick's Licks is an eye- and ear- opener to those horizons. Simply, it demystifies odd times and polyrhythms. Drummers working in any style can use this book to expand their personal bag of tricks." I couldn't agree more. Great stuff!!!

This book/CD is a great tool to develop better independence skills, and fill your "drum fill bucket" with hundreds of ideas. This book is very well written, easy to understand and
tons of fun to work through. As a teacher, I use this with all my intermediate and advanced players. A must for your library of drum books!

Robert Schumann (b. June 8 1810, d. July 29 1856) Herald of a New Poetic Age, by: John Daverio. Published 1997 by Oxford University Press, Inc. (I bought it on 21 January 2000)

Twice I read this book and I must say I enjoyed all the chapters. But was there any LOVE between Clara and Brahms? Was there any intercourse after Robert's gone? I have chosen the following excerpts that are of particular interest to me ...............

Forced by a hand injury to abandon a career as a pianist, RS went on to become one of the world's great composers.......... Brahms in a letter of January 1873 wrote ""The remembrance of Schumann is sacred to me. I will always take this noble pure artist as my model""
Antinomy: A contradiction between two statements that seem equally reasonable

P 4: ""It is easy to write a Schumann biography because Schumann wrote it himself. It is difficult to write a Schumann biography because the modern biographer must chart the composer's relationships to his complicated and contradictory social surroundings"" Karl Laux. - There is wealth of biographical material -travel notes, diaries maintained with some regularity from January 1827 to early 1854. - Households account books with entries extending from early October 1837 to 23 February 1854 - that is to just four days before Schumann's suicide attempt ... marriage diaries jointly kept by Clara from Sept 1840

P 6 From late March 1833 to July 1836 Schumann did not keep diary. He was an ardent bibliophile - Someone who loves (and usually collects) books.

P. 7: Hermeneutic; (Interpretive or explanatory) challenges posed by Schumann's diaries - his works poured forth at the behest of mysterious voices from the beyond ...his works are mosaic-like assembly of fragmentary ideas, suggesting a kind of composition-as-planned-improvisation that finds its sources in his earliest experience at the keyboard.

P 8: His family's special repository of letters - the so called Familienkassette - which itself suffered severe water damage as a result of the 1945 bombing of Dresden and survives only because Boetticher had the foresight to microfilm much of the collection at Dresdener Landesbibliothek in 1938.
Clara Schumann and Brahms transmitted in the old collected edition- Breitkopf & Hartel 1881-93 - Schumann's thorough engagements with the music.

P 9: Literature held a place in Schumann's creative life comparable to that of philosophy in Wagner's. As a youth of 15 read with his friends- particularly all of Schiller's dramas - and as paterfamilias of 43 reread -in some cases for the fourth or fifth time- his favorite Jean Paul novels (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter - 21 March 1763- 14 November 1815)

P 10: Schumann's interpretation of life and art in his works - they comingle here more thoroughly than with any other 19th. Century composers - Music as confession- wrote of his favorite author ""In all his works Jean Paul mirrors himself, but always as two persons ......"and as a more mature journalist said of Liszt ""His own life is situated in his music"" ""Strictly speaking, a sheet of music was for Schubert what for others was a diary"" ...... The Variations on the Sehnsuchtwalzer - Yearning Waltz - in turn demonstrate a continued engagement with the musical idol of Schumann's youth: Franz Schubert. P 107
Copious references from the letters can be marshaled to support the view that many of the piano works from the 1830s..... were bound up with conflicts over Schumann's troubled suit for Clara's hand.
Schumann's suicide attempt, in February 1854, and its immediate aftermath. Biographical narrative and value judgment go hand in hand, for Schumann's works are thus reduced to a therapeutic means of warding off impending madness. To be sure, composing may have been a form of therapy (therapy!!) for Schumann - it probably is for most composers-.
Brahms said "'Schumann went one way, Wagner another, and I a third"" Schumann's era comes from a period of transition from faith in philosophical idealism to resigned embrace of political realism. His music comes between the youthful bloom of Weber and the autumnal reflection of Brahms.

P 13: Schumann's hopes for a career as virtuoso pianist, dashed in the autumn 1831 by the realization that his lame finger would not allow for it, run parallel with an intense preoccupation with literature; both factors coalesce in his engaging review of Chopin's virtuoso variations on Mozart's ""La ci darem la mano""
Johannes Brahms: German Composer- Romantic period (May 7, 1833 - April 3, 1897)
Frederic Chopin: Polish/French Composer and Virtuoso Pianist of the Romantic period (March 1, 1810 - October 17. 1849)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: German Composer of the Classical era (27 January 1756 - 5 December 1791)
P14: The "New Germans"- Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner - and the ""Academic Classicists""- Schumann, Brahms, that raged so furiously in the second half of the 19th Century.

P 16: A dimming of the composer's genius was already apparent at the end of the 1840s (For some early critics) in works such as the opera Genoveva. By the beginning of the following decade, Theodor Uhlig (Musician, song writer and composer 1822-1853 and close friend to R. Wagner) would find signs in the A-Minor Sonata for piano, op.105, that idiosyncrasy (A behavioral attribute that is distinctive and peculiar to an individual) had given way to musical mannerism such as obsessive repetitions and curious mixtures of the bizarre and commonplace........By Schumann own account, the theme of his last set of keyboard variation was dictated to him ""by the angels"".

P 17: Indeed, anyone who scans Schumann's last diary entries (on the trip to Hannover in late January 1854) for signs of mental decay will be disappointed.... Likewise, an unbiased look at the late music will disclose qualities too frequently overlooked: a heightened intensity of expression, a rigorous limitation of thematic materials, and a visionary pre-figuration of features associated with later composers including Bruckner, Reger and even Schoenberg........Only a composer in full command of his or her rational powers can realize the consequences of this interdependence (principal themes in music) of variety and unity. Robert Schumann was such a composer - until February 1854.

P 18: Cycles of keyboard pieces from the 1830s and the songs of 1840 have contributed to a view of Schumann as a sentimental lyricist - Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche

P 19: Liszt found further proof of Schumann's modernity in the later works for chorus and orchestra, elevation from musical craftsman to tone poet...... has literary culture ... the musician as intellectual....for a new modern bourgeois.... 1840 as the culmination of Schumann creative life.... He was many things - a progressive, a tone poet, a bourgeois intellectual, and a classicist, a lover of the bizarre and enigmatic..... He was a master of transforming one genre into another, without our being able to pin-point where one leaves off and the other begins... the notion that music should be imbued with the same intellectual substance as literature....Schumann developed this conviction while he was still a teenager; he held to it until the end of his career
P 20-25: Passed his early years in a milieu conducive to the pursuit of literary studies. Father: A book dealer. Lexicographer (A compiler or writer of a dictionary; a student of the lexical component of language)
Schumann a firm believer of Enlightenment: ""What binds the German people together is literature"".
When his mother contracted typhus (he was 3??) ... separation anxiety that fed into the composer's later depressive condition....later learned Latin, French and Greek.
His diploma awarded March 15/1828 testifies to a graduation ""With Honor"" he was convinced as a teenager that he would eventually become a famous man. (Ref his friend Emil Flechsig)
As a gymnasiast (A student in a school for students intermediate between elementary school and college; usually grades 9 to 12), Schumann had read the classical tragedians and Horace in the original Greek and Latin and no later than 1825 he began to make metric translations of Anacreon, Homer and Sophocles.

P 26-30: Diary 1827; His father succumbed to a nervous disorder on 10 August 1826, and his 19 year old sister Emilie - whose death, perhaps from suicide - probably occurred the same time. At once pained by these losses but joyful over the possibility of union with Liddy, Schumann gives utterances to the feelings of guilt that naturally arose from the emotional discrepancy ""Can the outer being mourn, if the inner being perhaps rejoices? Or is the inner mourning a condition for outer mourning?"" ""Is it not horrid enough ... to be robbed of a father? Why shouldn't one try to forget pain through joy? Why not be jolly in jolly company?
....peering into the pages of his diaries, there is a sense that Schumann was writing to be read not just by him, but by others....
Another factor probably contributed to Schumann's turn to song in the summer of 1827 and 1828: his encounter with Agnes Carus; an attractive woman 8 years his senior and reportedly a gifted singer. Her husband Dr. Ernst August Carus was a nephew of Karl Erdmann Carus, a merchant in whose home Schumann was a regular guest. It was here during the spring of 1827 that he first met the young Frau Dr. Carus and in all probability promptly became enamored of her, though whether or not their contact tipped the balance in favor of Schumann's decision on musical career it is difficult to say..... early songs...."My Songs"" diary 14/8/1828 - ""were intended as an actual reproduction of my inner self; but no human being can present something exactly as the genius creates it; even she (Agnes Carus) sang the most beautiful passages badly and didn't understand me"" .............we know of thirteen songs .....(June, July, and August 1828)

P 34- 39: "" at 18, my mother's wished to study Law; my own still vaguely formed intent, to devote myself entirely to music""
Friederich Wiek (piano teacher) played a major role in Schumann's professional and personal life. Schumann loved Franz Shubert's music; Schumann was thrown into such an agitated state by the news of Schubert's death on 19 November 1828.... Sobbing the whole night....
His roommate Flechsig's description(P 35): Schumann puffed at a cigar (while composing) but since smoke got into his eyes, he pressed it upwards with his mouth as far as would go (Like Puccini), at the same time casting his eyes downwards in a squint, so that he made the strangest grimace all the while...and grew into a singularly handsome fellow who bore his attire well, and was a thoroughly noble character, chaste and pure as a vestal virgin (A chaste woman)...was reveling in Jean Paul (poet) and Schubert. Each figure in turn providing him with a model for his own creative endeavors.
As late as 1853 we find him rereading - often aloud and in collaboration with Clara - the novels of his youthful idol. Reading of novel-Titan... (Schumann diaries bear reflective influence from Jean Paul's novels!!!)... important to read P36....when he visited Jean Paul's widow, writing to Rosen from Leipzig on June 5 1828 Schumann felt compelled to observe ""If the whole world read Jean Paul, it would certainly be better, but unhappier place - he's often brought me to madness, but rainbow of peace and of human spirit always hovers delicately over all the tears, while the heart is wondrously elevated and tenderly transfigured""
Jean Paul (b 21 March 1763, d.14 November 1825) - best known for his humorous stories and novels - was also the writer who brought up more metaphors (A figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity) than any other. Schumann in his diary "" I've often asked myself where I might be had I not gotten to know Jean Paul; yet he seems on the one hand to be interwoven with my inner being, as if I had earlier premonition of him""

P 40-45: Ref to Schumann's epistolary novel Bernard von Nontelliers.... (Written in the form of or carried on by letters or correspondence - "an endless sequence of epistolary love affairs".... there is a rich allusion to the favored themes of his beloved Jean Paul ... also Schumann's reading of Jean Paul's autobiography but also to the writer's idiosyncratic style - Peculiar to the individual- "we all have our own idiosyncratic gestures"; "Michelangelo's highly idiosyncratic style of painting"
""Music is poetry elevated to a higher power, spirits speak the language of poetry, but the angels communicate in tones"" P 43. """tones are higher words"" ""Schubert's variations are thus the composed novel that Goethe has yet to write"" ...the same line of thinking ""why shouldn't there be such a thing as an opera without text? Now that would be most certainly dramatic. There's much for you in Shakespeare"".......Schubert is equated with Goethe but also with Novalis.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: (28 August 1749 - 22 March 1832) German Writer. George Eliot called him ""Germany's greatest man of letters...and the last true polymath to walk the earth....
Novalis: Pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg (May 2, 1772 - March 25, 1801) an author and philosopher of early German Romanticism...

P46-54: By late August 1828 Schumann was spending much time in the company of Caruses and his piano teacher, Friedrich Wieck. Through whom he gained access to Leipzig's elite musical circles, and at whose home he came into contact with his teacher's daughter Clara - b. September 13, 1819 d. May 20, 1896) at nine years old a burgeoning concert pianist.
Admiration for Schubert and Jean Paul.... Dedicated to his brothers, Eduard and Carl and Julius, the VIII Polonaises ... op III [WoO20}. Also he was obviously taken by his Jean Paulian blend of "melancholy and enchantment"' see page 510 number-114

P 55-60:Topken, a friend of Schumann, wrote of his friend in a probable allusion to Schumann's use of the finger-strengthening device (cigar mechanism) as he calls it in his diary that perhaps brought on but certainly exacerbated the `'numbness'' in the third finger of his right hand, a complained registered in late 1830..........
Late Dec 1829...He records the largely adultery views (Extramarital sex that willfully and maliciously interferes with marriage relations-adultery is often cited as grounds for divorce") of his playing voiced by 21 individuals ... `'your piano playing is extraordinary....'' P 58.
Self-analysis "" Schumann is the young man I've loved and observed for a long time. I would like to portray his soul, but I don't know it completely. ... He possesses talent for many things and unusual individual traits distinguish him from the common horde...His temperament is melancholic because there in the power of feeling expresses itself more strongly that the power of observation; hence is more subjectivity ((Judgment based on individual personal impressions and feelings and opinions rather than external facts)) than objectivity ((Judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices)) in his judgments and creative work ...He has a lively memory and recollective faculty. Acumen, intellection, and wit are no so strongly developed....He is more inclined to artistic activity than to speculation....excellent in music and poetry - but not a musical genius - his talent as musician and poet are at the same level"" P 60/1....

P 61- 68: To change his studies from Law to Piano, he had to receive his mother's consent.

P 69: in a letter to his mother he wrote ""you can have no conception of Wieck's enthusiasm, his judgment and his insights into art., but when it comes to his or Clara's interest, he is like a wild boor (A crude uncouth ill-bred person lacking culture or refinement).........Wieck was careless in attending to his student's specific technical problems (???) And, if we read the subtext, more concerned with the furtherance of his daughter Clara's career, Wieck had grown curiously indifferent to Schumann's progress "........ P 69.
See Schumann's comments taken as anti-Semitic - re his one-time mentor - Probst - stands so much taller than Wieck, who gawks (Look with amazement; look stupidly) longingly at the Alps from which the former has already descended - He tries to hide his stinginess (A lack of generosity; a general unwillingness to part with money) .... But his greed has contaminated all his thoughts. Little by little, Jewishness has insinuated itself even into his facial features""....P 69

P 79-93: ...more direct evidences for a link between novel and poetic cycle keyboard.... Butterflies............ ""let each listener to catch the butterflies for himself, allowing their colorful play to glitter in a sunny hour....P. 86 When Clara played the work "Papillion's' in late May 1832, the assembled guests, ""incapable of grasping the rapid alteration of the pieces, looked at one another in amazement"" P. 87 Kant's views ""music was more enjoyment than culture"" after all Schumann was probably of a different opinion "music was an agent for the transmission of transcendental ideas"" i.e. Existing outside of or not in accordance with nature..

P 105-118: Schumann continued to work on his G-minor symphony - certainly on the last movement and perhaps also on the second and third as well - 1833 - , the first movement of which was rendered but only with limited success, at Clara's ""grand concert"" of 29 April at the Gewandhaus ..""His richest and most active period"" Unfortunately, this period was hampered by the suspension of his diaries for much of the four-year period between March 1833 and October 1837. But he went along with some record on his daily activities...
1833 Schumann was attacked by Malarial fever.... Recovery slowed by persistent and heavy drinking, his brother Julius died (28) of Tuberculosis. The death of his favorite sister-in-law, Rosalie, a victim of the same disease from which Schumann was slowly recovering, took him over the edge... 1833 was the first of neurotic spell.... Characterized by onslaught of anxiety and depression.... "" I was seized by an idée fixe: fear of going mad"" 17-18 October 1833....

P. 119- 130: Chronological History of Music.... Very interesting P 120....divides three-thousand-year span into ten periods .....(Read them)...the tenth period "marks the summit of art"" in figures such as Beethoven and Schubert...whose works present the fulfillment of the aspirations of previous ages... Music history is thus construed not only as a succession of great men, but also as the logical progression of stylistic trends embodied in their works...""Cheerfulness, repose, grace, the characteristics of the artworks of antiquity, are also those of Mozart's school. Just as the Greeks gave their thundering Zeus a cheerful expression, so too does Mozart restrain his lightning bolts"" P 121...
As a writer on music critiques: In the Introduction to the 1854 collected edition of his writings, he provides a succinct rationale for the strategy ""In order to express different points of view on artistic matters, it seemed appropriate to invent contrasting artist-characters of whom Florestan and Eusebius were the most important with master Raro occupying a mediating position between them"" P 127. Madness????

P 131-139: Art and life are perhaps more closely interwoven in Schumann's music than in that of any other composer of the nineteenth century. His Piano music in the middle and later 1830s, much of it bound up with the young woman whom he fell passionately and irrevocably in love during the latter half of 1835: Clara Wieck. To his teacher, Heinrich Dorn, in a letter ""Certainly much in my music embodies, and indeed can only be understood against the background of the battle that Clara cost me. She was practically the sole motivation for the Concert {sans Orchestre op. 14}, the Sonata {op. 11}, the Davidsbundlertanze, Kreisleriana, and the Novelletten. The Kinderscenen op 15 and Fantasie op. 17 belongs in the same list.......October 1835 and June 1836 respectively, can be coordinated with two factors: non-stop editorial work.....and emotional upheavals occasioned by the enforced separation of Robert and Clara just weeks after they declared their mutual love in December 1835.......
Schumann endeavors to make his works more appealing to the `dilettante'' circles for which it was intended... (By early 1840) P 138

P. 182-196: Returned from Zwickau to Leipzig on 14 April 1839...... a storm of greater magnitude was brewing. Writing from Paris on 9 April, Clara informed Schumann of her discovery of a clandestine correspondence between her friend Emilie List and Wieck, who was threatening to disinherit her, confiscate her earnings, and initiate a lawsuit against the lovers unless Clara promised to break off all relations with Schumann.. P 182 ... Wieck began to whistle a somewhat different tune, implying that his consent would be forthcoming contingent upon Schumann's ability to ensure Clara a ""worry-free future""... Clara begged her father passionately for his approval of her marriage to ""the best of men"" and assuring him that her love for Schumann was ""hardly a passing whim""... ""every man has his peculiarities: should one therefore reject him? Don't you believe that I am aware of Robert's shortcomings? Yet I also know his virtues"" also her conditions that Schumann should earn more money.... P 183 ""Unbelievable vile behavior on Wieck's actions (need for more money and securities). I could hate him to the point of madness"" Schumann summed it up...

P 203-218: Schumann's engagement with his compositions (of lieder)... In early December 1840, he took obvious pride in reporting his annual earnings - actual and projected... He demonstrates the potential of music for the transmission of ideas; it's potential, in other words, as a literary art....

P 219-221: By the fall of 1840 Schumann himself was anxious to tackle ""new artistic forms"" - his thoughts had already turned to string quartet and opera in the summer of 1839 and the winter of 1840, respectively. .... Early in the next month, Clara raised the possibility of a Parisian tour, but Schumann would hear nothing of t until first completing a piano concerto and a symphony. Within a year, he had made important contributions to both genres. As for the trip to Paris, it never took place.....

P 222- 226: Settling into Marriage - and Symphonic Composition...To judge from the diaries, the first year of the Schumanns marriage passed with a relative minimum of emotional upset, Their hearts, Schumann wrote in April 1841, were ""ever clear and bright and full of love .... This too is inscribed in my music"""...Only Clara's father, whose libelous charges against his son-in-law earned him 18 days in prison, was a source of consternation.... P 224....

P 227-241: A few days after Clara's 22nd birthday Schumann queried: ""What might I offer her apart from my own artistic endeavors?"" and then went on to list them: the publication of the Ruckert lieder (op 37), the appearance of the printed parts for the First Symphony, and the completion of the D-minor symphony. The last-named of Schumann's birthday gifts turns out to be a dual-natured offering, its gestures of emulation countered by a desire to outdo Clara in the area of motive integration. Is it too much to suggest that Schumann felt compelled to clear imaginative space for himself not only in relation to Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn, but also as regards his composer-pianist wife? P.241

P. 242-246: The Chamber Music..... The first crisis in Schumann's married life occurred in 1842, the year during which he would extend his conquest of the principal musical genres into the realm of chamber music.

P. 246-266: ""I love Mozart dearly"" Schumann wrote in a diary entry of November 1842 ""but Beethoven I worship like a god who remains forever apart, who will never become one with us"" P.252

P. 329-336: the Musical Dramatist.... Conventional wisdom has it that Schumann possessed neither the temperament nor the talent necessary for a successful career in theatre. A born lyricist (A person who writes the words for songs) with an ill-developed sense for characterization, or so we are told, Schumann could not but fail as a dramatist. In a word, Schumann dramatic music has been deemed un-dramatic. (Un-romantic???) If by ""dramatic"" we mean "stagey"" then there is no doubt some truth to the charge.......

P. 336-356: Robert and Clara suspected his (Wieck's) hand in a snide (Expressive of contempt) notice placed in a January issue of Leipzig's Signale fur die musikalische Welt: ""In nine years much has changed: the artist who was deified (Consider as a god or godlike) as Clara Wieck is ignored as Clara Schumann""
.... Schumann's placement of the 16th or the 17th century chorale into the mouths of an 8th century Catholic community is no doubt both anachronistic (Chronologically misplaced) and naturally suspect, but these incongruities (being unsuitable and inappropriate) hardly interfere with melody's function as an agent of historicity...P 350
P 434-438: Schumann's works on Latin texts with unmistakable religious connotations: the Mass op. 147 and Requiem op 148... (Interesting reviews... to read).... 1849 and late 1850

P 439-452: Municipal Music Director in Dusseldorf..... Summer 1849... Schumann resumed his song writing activities... On 12 August the Schumann's travelled to Scheveningen, a spa situated near The Hague on the Dutch coast, where Schumann again began a daily regimen of bathing, much as he had in Norderney during the summer of 1846. At first, the bath seemed to do him some good: before long he regained his appetite, slept more comfortably, took pleasure in the company of Jenny Lind and the conductor and composer Johan Verhulst, played dominos with family and friends in the evenings, and even returned to the scoring of Vom Pagen und der Konigstochter (completed in early September). P 449 Short-lived improvement in his condition... and on September 3 of ""a burning feeling in the back of the head""... P 450... Nor was Clara faring well. On 9 September she suffered a miscarriage, another remarkable parallel with the couple's experiences in Norderney.........P 450. Towards the end of the month the Schumanns discovered a new (and for us, unusual) pastime: table-turning or table-rapping (Strike sharply) the act of moving a table or producing knocking sounds without apparent physical means, ascribed to spiritual force with which the participants are thus able to communicate....Schumann voiced his astonishment over this mysterious practice in a letter to Hiller of 25 April 1853: ""Yesterday we did some table-turning for the first time. What a remarkable power. Just think. I asked for the rhythm of the first two measures of (Beethoven's) C-Minor Symphony! The table hesitated with the answer longer than usual, then finally it began... though at first quite slowly. When I said: `'but the tempo is quieter, dear table'' it raped in the correct tempo.... We were all beside ourselves with amazement to be surrounded with such wonders"" P. 452 ... some biographers have interpreted Schumann's fascination with table-turning (an article he wrote on the subject does-not survive) as a sign of impending madness, it should be noted that if the composer was mad for indulging in this party game, so too were his family and many of his friends: his personal physician and friend, Dr Hesenclever, no less than Clara's friend, the pianist Rosalie Leser, joined in with an enthusiasm, just as great as Schumann's. Even his seven-year-old daughter Julie had her own to table (""Puppentisch"")... P 452....

P 453-459: While still at work on the Violin Concerto on 30 September (1853), Schumann received visit from a fair-haired young man from Hamburg who had been recommended to him by Joachim. A pianist and composer, his name was Johannes Brahms. Schumann at once recognized his twenty-year-old guest as a genius... (Madness!!... They say!! (???) My Q mark).... Hailing him in a letter to Joachim of 8 October 1853 as a ""young eagle"" and a ""true apostle who will inscribe revelations that many Pharisees (A member of an ancient Jewish sect noted for strict obedience to Jewish traditions)... will not un-riddle for centuries to come"" P 454
While Brahms has often been credited with inspiring the last surge in Schumann's creativity, we can now recognize this conjecture as a distortion of the facts. (See page 566 - ref 31-) "" In 1925 Martin Kreisig made a copy of the former list that is now housed in the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau. From it we learn that Schumann's music library contained about 500 titles, most of them scores, among which are represented all the major categories of compositions: Church music, Operas, Orchestral music, Instrumental chamber music, and Hausmusik (choral part songs, lieder, and piano music)..See Bischoff - Monument fur Beethoven pp 364-65,...... Still there is no denying Brahms's role in rekindling Schumann's Davidsbundler spirit. The ""Pharisees"" to whom Schumann alluded in his letter to Joachim are no doubt offspring's of the ""Philistines"" (A person who is uninterested in intellectual pursuits) that he and his collaborators on the Neue Zeitschrift battled in the 1830s........ and more... Clara destroyed some of her husband's works 40 years later, as she found them unworthy of her husband's genius.. (They were a set of five Romanzen for cello and piano)???? P 455
24 November 1853, Clara and Robert embarked on a tour to the Netherlands (one month) that would prove to be a major triumph... P 457..
19 January 1854, Clara and Robert journeyed the Hannover, where Joachim served as concertmaster of the court orchestra. The next 12 days were taken up with spirited conversation among friends - Schumann and Joachim were soon joined by Brahms and another young talent, Julius Otto Grimm -and a steady stream of music making public performances of Schumann's 4th Symphony and Phantasie for violin concerto with Joachim and the court orchestra..........P 457
By February 26 (1854) Schumann was well enough to play through a sonata by the young Martin Cohn for Dietrich, but afterward worked himself into such a state of ""Joyous exaltation"" that he was bathed in sweat. Fearful he might harm Clara during the night, he demanded to be taken to an asylum. Although the physician called in to examine the overwrought composer, a Dr Boger, was able to convince him to take to his bed, he awoke the next morning in a profoundly melancholy state, murmuring ""Ah Clara, I am unworthy of your love"". After working for a time on the fair copy of his variations, he slipped undetected from the house. Rubert Becker recorded the painful climax of the tale in his diary """Schumann snuck out of his bedroom-wearing felt slippers-and headed straight for the Rhine, jumping into the river from the middle of the bridge! Luckily he was noticed at the entrance to the bridge, and indeed because he offered his handkerchief as a pledge since he had no money for the toll! Fortunately several fishermen who had been observing this odd transaction came along with the little boat, immediately after he leapt, and saved him. Once in the boat, he tried to jump into the water again, but the fishermen prevented him. The trip home must have been dreadful: he was transported by eight men and followed by a group of people (it was Carnival season) who amused themselves at his expense...."""P 458..
Clara was kept from seeing her husband upon his return, his doctors surmising that the sight of her might increase his agitation; hence she passed the next days in nervous anticipation at the home of her friend Rosalie Leser.. Nor was she informed of Schumann's attempted suicide, a desperate action motivated by numbing depression, pathological guilt (the probable cause of which we will take up later), and fears of harming his wife....P. 458 In fact she could not piece together the terrible truth until over two years later, when Schumann's wedding ring could not be located after his death. Then she remembered the contents of a note she had once found among his papers ""Dear Clara, I am going to throw my wedding ring into the Rhine; do the same with yours, and then both rings will be united"" P 458

As other reviewers have said, this is not the biography to read if you want to be titillated by the real or imagined sexual peccadillos of a great master. Instead, this is a critical biography in the best sense. John Daverio's book unfolds Schumann's life with warmth and deep respect for its subject and without undo speculation. Then it goes on to an appreciation of the music whose only failing might be a too-positive appraisal of some works that critics have formerly been cool or even hostile toward. In certain cases, though, Daverio is clearly right. Obviously a well-trained musician, perhaps he can imagine beauties that others have not found through a study of the scores, for many of the works he praises are not available in recorded form--some haven't been heard for ages, I'm sure. This includes, for example, the choral ballads from Schumann's last years. Daverio praises Das Gluck von Edenhall as the finest among them and even argues for its rehabilitation to the repertoire. Knowing Die Sangers Fluch and other examples of Schumann's late choral music, I'm somewhat skeptical. The music in these works is generally four-square and lacking in the orchestral and vocal color the master brought to earlier pieces such as Paradise und die Peri or Requiem fur Mignon. But who can say? Perhaps Das Gluck is an unknown gem that should be taken up again by choral-music groups.

The point is that Daverio listens afresh to (or imagines skillfully from the printed score) music that others have dismissed as the work of a genius in decline, and he makes an undeniable point: though Schumann's last works are uneven, they don't represent a thorough collapse of musical powers but in some cases a wholly new approach to musical problems. This is true, say, of the works for violin from the last years, the sonatas and Fantasia. They are unusual even in the context of Schumann's other chamber and concerted works but in no way suggest a diminution of compositional strength.

In his appreciation of Schumann's growth as a composer, Daverio reminds me of Joan Chissell, the eminent British Schumann scholar, whose music reviews appeared for years in the Gramophone. I recall that she was constantly revising her estimate upwards for Schumann works each time she actually heard them in recording for the first time, explaining that it was impossible to imagine from the score alone how effective they actually were. Daverio goes even farther out on a critical limb, arguing for the importance of works that haven't been played by anybody for years. And his enthusiasm is infectious, partly because his writing is so good--clean, clear, unaffected, but engaging. Besides, Daverio was clearly right about one work. His book praises Das Paradise und die Peri as a neglected classic of Romanticism. Small wonder, then, that he was chosen to write the notes for John Eliot Gardiner's marvellous recording of the same that appeared on DG a few years ago. And if you haven't heard this recording, do. It proves Daverio right beyond the slightest doubt.

If you are a Schumann lover, this carefully considered, tastefully appreciative biography should be on your bookshelf.

This biography is a superb survey of Schumann's life and works. Those of us who adore Schumann's music have found a great musicologist and champion in John Daverio. His insight into German Romantic music was already made stunningly clear in his previous book on 19th Century music and German Romantic Ideology. Now this book concentrates on the arch-Romantic composer who synthesized the old and the new to create a "New Way" for music. While being deeply analytical when necessary, particularly in regard to the musical works themselves, Daverio writes in a very accessible style which brings his subject quite vividly to life. And Daverio's concluding remarks are timely, beautiful and extremely touching. Just a wonderful book in every respect.

Daverio's biography of Robert Schuman eschews the hackneyed themes familiar to what he terms "psychobiography"--dwelling on the supposed interrelationship between Schumann's idiosyncratic style and his mental collapse following the composition of the marvelous "Gesange der Fruhe." Instead, he offers insight after insight into the originality of Schumann's musical (and literary) genius, especially as they inform what he terms Schumann's uniquely "literary" musical enterprise. A must read for any Schumann devotee.

A clear, concise and totally successful way to learn the essential backbone of rock 'n' roll; namely rhythm guitar. This is the part of the song you dance to - without it, there is no it! The author should have a plaque in the Rock Hall.

For those wanting to learn how to become good or better at one of the most popular forms of modern music.

If you have budding rockers in your nest or pad or band, who want (or need!) to learn more about their guitar & their music, i recommends Yoichi Arakawa's ROCK GUITAR CHORDS AND ACCOMPANIMENT, if for no other reasons than you'd like them to a) know what they're doing, & b) your ears to hear good playing!

Rock Guitar Chords And Accompaniment by guitar expert Yoichi Arakawa is a methodical, step-by-step, technically flawless instructional guide to playing rock-rhythm guitar music. Filled from cover to cover with a variety of appropriate guitar chords, exercises, instructions for performing accompaniment patterns such as fingerstyle, comping, and riffs, music examples, sample songs, and more, Rock Guitar Chords And Accompaniment is confidently recommended as being a truly first-rate self-teaching tool or as a supplement to professional instruction curriculum materials. Also very highly recommended for personal and professional guitar instruction reference collections are Yochi Arakawa's previous instructional guides from by Six Strings Music Publishing: Guitar Chords And Accompaniment; More Guitar Chords And Accompaniment; Jazz Guitar Chords And Accompaniment; More Jazz Guitar Chords And Accompaniment; Country Guitar Chords And Accompaniment.; and Blues Guitar Chords And Accompaniment.

Written for the beginning guitarist, "Rock Guitar Chords and Accompaniment" provides a thorough introduction to rock guitar playing. The book consists of six chapters with the first chapter covering the basics of the guitar, tuning, notation, major scales, and chords. The second chapter gets deeper into the guitar and music theory and covers slash notation, major triads, dominant 7, minor triads, power chords, and 12-bar blues. Next comes a chapter on barre chords and shifting techniques. The fourth chapter is the final one on basic guitar technique and covers fingerpicking and arpeggios. All of these first four chapters are the foundation of all guitar playing and should be understood by anyone interested in learning to play the guitar. Starting with the fifth chapter Mr. Arakawa moves into the rock music genre by covering the most common distinguishing characteristic of rock guitar playing - rock riffs. The chapter covers the important techniques of hammer-on, pull-off, slide, bend, and vibrato. When it comes to the riffs he examines all the most common ones including single-note, power-chord, double-stop, and small-chord. The techniques covered are all the most common ones necessary for rock style from early rock-and-roll to heavy metal. Chapter six finishes off the book with coverage of amplifiers and special effects. The book is well illustrated and easy to follow as you progress along a well-designed learning pathway. When it comes to rock music you would be hard pressed to find a better beginner book that explains the basic concepts and the specifics of the various rock styles as well as this one. "Rock Guitar Chords and Accompaniment" is a highly recommended read for the beginning guitarist wanting to learn rock technique.

I wish that I could have seen just what songs this book had before I bought it. While the songs range from the 60's to the 80's in style, most of the songs aren't my favorite songs although I do like Walk Don't Run (the Ventures), Sunshine of Your Love (Cream), and Won't Be Fooled Again (the Who). The others I could live without.

However, over all this is a very good book to have around for intermediate to advanced guitar players. If you are a beginner I wouldn't quite recommend this book as most of the music is fairly advanced. This shouldn't come as a surprise as the music was written by accomplished rock musicians and played by accomplished rock musicians. The book tries to help by providing notes at the beginning of the book about many of the songs on the techniques involved and how these songs should be played but still, this is not a book for rank amateurs unless someone with more experience is around to help answer a few questions.

But given the short supply of rock music with both standard music notation and tablature, this book is a good resource for a few good songs to learn such as Hit Me With Your Best Shot, I want You To Want Me, Message In A Bottle, The Boys Are Back In Town, Shattered, Born To Be Wild, and others. Also, what would really help this book is a CD of the songs like those found in the Guitar For Dummies and Rock Guitar For Dummies books, but sadly, I guess for contractual reasons, no CD of the songs is offered here although there could be cover versions but we don't even get those. So for lack of a CD and the limited number of hot rock songs, I give this book only four stars.

If you are looking for a great collection of classic rock songs, this is it. It includes both tab and music and great performance notes to get many of the nuances from the original performers. Many of the songs are very easy to play and you can ramp up the complexity as your playing improves. We used this book to round a out a playlist for a garage band and loved the song selection and format. Just get it.

Herriges gives you detailed descriptions on how to play 35 rock classics, from Cheap Trick to Van Halen. Symbols, technical help, notation definitions, a guitar notation legend, a chord chart, and TAB for every song! "Proud Mary," "Smoke on the Water," "Brown Eyed Girl," and "Hey, Joe." A previous knowledge of music notation and tab is helpful, but the references in the back will clear up any confusion.

This is a great book, even for non-dummies. It would be great if it included a CD, but perhaps that would have been cost prohibitive. If you can collect the albums that these songs are on, you will have a great and diverse rock album collection.

It might not have a CD, but what it does include is sheet music and tablature for 35 classic rock songs. You can learn a few basic chords and strum along, or get deeper into the licks, riffs, and solos. It also includes notes and tips for each song.

For instance, several songs require tuning down a half-step. Kiss, Van Halen, AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix, and even Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys favored this "rock tuning." To have this simple technique explained saved me from endless frustration, trying to pick up the songs by ear. Palm muting is another technique this helpful manual explains. And there are ample examples of "5" chords, that have a very big "rock" sound because they lack the third, and all notes are either roots or 5ths. If the theory and explanations go over the heads of any "dummies" they can just play it, and feel the rock and roll!!!!!

Wild Thing, by The Troggs, is a classic but simple song, and one of the easier ones to play--but there are just a few simple tricks, and this book clues you in on the secrets. Sweet Home Alabama and David Bowie's Rebel, Rebel from the Diamond Dogs album are other simple, yet brilliant, songs that are easy to play, once you unlock the secrets. All Right Now, by Free, from Fire and Water, is yet another example of a riff that sounds so cool, but is so easy to play once you see how.

Smoke on the Water, from Machine Head by Deep Purple? Yes, it's here. Brown Eyed Girl, by Van Morrison, from the groovily titled Blowin' Your Mind!? It's here, too. Walk This Way? Ditto. You got your Cream, your Z.Z. Top, your Police, your Rolling Stones, your Stray Cats, your Steppenwolf--you got your Bachman-Turner Overdrive II, too. So, Who's Next? With all the helpful tips, you Won't Get Fooled Again.

Once again, the book arrived on schedule and in fine condition. I always am confident ordering from Amazon.

CR

good collection of songs by R. Quilter. Suitable for Bass, who can sing higher notes up to F, and for Baritone who can manage lower range.

A very good collection. A little disappointing not to see "Go, Lovely Rose" included and there are a couple of alarming misprints ("Now sleeps the crimson petal, NOT the white"). I wasn't a huge fan of the Finale typesetting either, but it's easy enough to read. It is great to see the best of Quilter's excellent songs assembled so conveniently and for such a low price. A must-have for the library of any serious young singer and probably a good purchase for a repiteteur or teacher.

I have a multitude of Hal Leonard Vocal Library publications in my library and I am very pleased with the quality... especially for the price. Even at full price (which I have yet to pay for one of these gems at Amazon), they are well worth it. I recommend "The Vocal Library" to students and educators alike.

Undoubtedly,we are in presence of Marvellous Edition with high quality paper and a print very clear and legible.This Anthology book contain any originals pieces and trascriptions of almost the best authors of "Era Romantica".The Author of this Antology F.Noad, should have choosen better I thing, the pieces of every composer.
G.F.Ruia

This is an exceptionally well produced book with clear print on good paper. the commentaries at the head of each piece are enormously helpful as are the smaller touches; for instance the transposition of sections of music to match the wider necks of modern guitars. Overall the variety of the music offered should keep both the guitar enthusiast and concert performer contented.

Yeah I have two of his books. The romantic guitar, and solo guitar playing. They are awesome if you really want to learn. Noad def knows his stuff.

Noad's books in this series have a very tasteful presentation of staples of the repertoire mixed with more obscure pieces, illustrations, and history. Highly recommended!

More kudos for the librarian at storytime! She introduces us to such great books that we usually come home and order them. Who knew there were additional verses to Row, Row, Row your boat. The artwork is beautiful. My son loves the catchy song, giggles at the animals, and constantly requests this book. I only wish it came in a board book. We keep it along with our other favorite paper books on the shelf. Other Favorites: It Looked Like Spilt Milk, The Baby Goes Beep.

We don't own this - yet - but my daughter ADORES it (we've borrowed it at least three times from the library). Just tonight she was rooting through all her books mumbling "Woe-woe..woe-woe..." so I knew it was time to look to buy a copy! Between being able to sing it and the colorful illustrations, it is a toddler hit.

Everybody knows the song, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", but what happens after the boat leaves the stream? In this short little tale two children set out in the boat to open sea, landing on an island filled with exotic creatures. The book is filled with very warm illustrations and the book inspires inspiration and creativity in children, challenging them to imagine and think for themselves.

This is a wonderful book based of the well known children's tune row, row, row, your boat. Each page is delightfully illustrated and has a verse which adapts to the original tune. Two young children explore both the fun and the fantasy of a magical boat ride encountering elephants, monkeys and a lion. The journey home (to the original verse) leaves the young children questioning was this reality or a dream. Its a fun way to read with your children while encouraging imagination and creative thinking!