Composers Books

I loved this book.It was great to hear the Beatles speaking for themselves for once. Great NEW pics too. A MUST buy for Beatles fans.

I have got all of Giulianp's interview books and I think they are terrific. He has got a way with words and organization I have yet to see from any other Beatles historian or pop expert. Really good interviews and great pics. too.

I would just like to say that of all the books I've read on the Beatles this is the most interesting of all. Me being a young fan of only 17 is intrigued by the poliical views and social views of the fab four. This book not only shows their serious side, but it also shows their witty sense of humor. I recommend this book to any fab-4 fan who would like to have a good laugh and insight into these great musicians in history. Peace! 8-)

This book is perfect for Beatles fans of all ages. Based on the radio show that ran for seven years, it collected a lot of great stories. Should be reissued!

The best compilation of stories on The Beatles. A must for any Beatle Fan. The book is based on the succesful Radio Show "Ticket to Ride"

This book should be re-issued.

"Ticket to Ride" was a radio show hosted by Scott Muni devoted entirely to the music and memory of the Beatles (remember the radio station in New York City that played nothing but Beatles music?). Muni was a New York radio mainstay for more than twenty years who was not only a disc jockey but a friend to the Beatles. "Ticket to Ride," the book, brings together photographs, rare Beatles memorabilia from Muni's personal collection, and, most importantly, the transcripts of interviews with those touched by the Beatles in important ways. This means musicians like Elton John, Jimmy Page, Sting, and the Rolling Stones talking about how the Beatles inspired their own careers. Then there are friends like Pete Best and Tommy Smothers, family like Yoko Ono and Julian Lennon, musical associates like Billy Preston and George Martin, and the Beatles themselves talking candidly about their lives and music. Muni writes the introduction, and the transcripts are edited by Denny Somach, Kathleen Somach, and Kevin Gunn. The order of these transcripts could not be characterized as chronological, but there is a general attempt to provide a sense of moving forward. An index would have been nice, so that if you want to read about the Beatles appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," Brian Epstein, or the recording sessions for "Let It Be," that it would be more by purpose than happenstance, but transcripts rarely get presented that way. So, basically what we have in "Ticket to Ride" is an expert interviewer talking with about four dozen famous names about the Beatles, including the most famous names (John, Paul, George and Ringo). These are essentially primary document and virtually every interview is an enjoyable and informative read. Warning: when you read the John Lennon interview be prepared to rummage through your music library to play the same songs that pop up during the conversation.

For years I've been fascinated with the early 1960's folk revival and have read much of the material written about that scene. Folksinger Bill Staines was blessed to have been a part of that scene, first as an enthusiastic Boston area teenager, spending his evenings in the audience at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge and later honing his own unique songwriting and performing skills. It is with this in mind I purchased "The Tour". Bill's many first-hand recollections of these magical times alone are a good reason to read this book.

Years ago I stumbled across the novel "Blue Highways: A Journey Into America" by William Least Heat-Moon. What a marvelous read. One simple man's take on a myriad of plain folk who he meets on a journey across America leads him to not only discover some truths about what makes people tick, but gives him insight into his own heart. Only when I read "The Tour:..." did I get that same sense of a man finding his own way in life through his observance and interaction with others.

Certainly the most comprehensive and entertaining novel I've found on the subject of the 1960's folk scene is "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" by Eric Von Schmidt and Jim Rooney. My not so tongue-in-cheek title for this review may now make a bit more sense!

The tour of which Bill Staines writes juxtaposes a thirty year practically continual tour against his approximately thirty day fall tour of I think 2003. I laughed at stories of home-made hot tubs in remote Alaska and cried as Bill related his belief in the rainbows that seem to appear at just the right times in his life.

I've followed Bill's career over 20 years, and apppreciate what it took to take a life of music and the road, and put it together in this book by the very talented Bill Staines. The book reads like a song, and is a beautiful memoir of the rough life of a solo songster. Hear his music once, and you'll have his songs in your heart forever.

Here's the info from Bill Staines' website about the book:
For more than 35 years, Bill Staines has traveled the highways and byways of North America, playing his music in colleges, coffeehouses, concert halls and folk song societies. He is one of America's quintessential troubadours, logging almost 70,000 miles a year on the open road. The Tour is not only a collection of characters, consequences and experiences, it is - perhaps more importantly - an offering up of some of the wisdom gained from "a life between the lines."

The Tour is a book that will take you on two journeys, one past and one present. Each fall, Bill Staines leaves his home in New England and sets out on a five week tour of North America, playing his music for fans and friends, and covering almost 15,000 miles of open highway. On the twentieth anniversary of the tour, he began writing this narrative.

Read these pages and you will journey with Bill and get to know some of the people and places that make his story worth telling.

The Tour is also a chronicle of a life, from the time that Bill spent growing up in the Boston-Cambridge folk music scene in the early 1960's to the present, when he has come to be considered one of the most respected singer-songwriters on the folk music scene today. It is all here, and it is all written from the heart.

I realize that my rating is not objective, as I am the author. However, I think readers might want to know that the six composers featured in this book are: Ernest Bloch, Howard Hanson, Vittorio Giannini, Paul Creston, Samuel Barber, and Nicolas Flagello.

I was familiar with Walter Simmons writing from his magazine reviews, and I had found him an almost invariably trusted guide to good music. When I found that he had written a book focused on six of my favorite American composers, I was excited but dismayed by the price of the book. Nevertheless, I took the plunge, and the cost became immediately greater: Simmons led me to search out even more recordings by these composers.

Although I was already a devoted follower of the music of Paul Creston, Simmons' analysis added immensely to my understanding of the music. Flagello and Giannini had also been a passion, as had Ernest Bloch. I was forced to look overseas for a recordng of one Bloch work with which I had newly become familiar: "Helvetia: The Land of Mountains and Its People," a thoroughly enjoyable symphonic work.

Each section of Simmons' book follows a similar pattern: a BIOGRAPHY of the composer, followed by a discussion of the MUSIC, typically broken into three or more periods, a CONCLUSION, NOTES, SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY, and ESSNETIAL DISCOGRAPHY. For those intimidated by the cost of the book, consider the fact that it will serve as a constant reference and provide many many hours of absorbing reading. But be prepared to spend even more as you discover recordings of works you suspect you must have.

For those concerned about any technical jargon that might hinder comprehension, be assured that Simmons writes with eloquence in a way to help even the minimally musicologically educated reader to follow his analyses.

If you have even a minimal interest in American music, or in music that touches the heart while showing considerable knowledge of structure, you owe it to yourself to obtain this book. Make it number 1 on your wish list, or, as I did, take the plunge now. You won't regret it.

This book is the first of a projected series of books by the distinguished writer on music, Walter Simmons. I've admired his writings for many years and had heard about this book from several friends who recommended it highly. I now see why. Not only does Simmons have a particularly graceful writing style, he is able to explain with clarity some complicated matters, describing music in non-technical language that most reasonably educated readers would be able to understand. His contention that these six composers have been generally under-appreciated and misunderstood is argued cogently and convincingly, and he shares insights not seen anywhere else. There is a section on each of the six composers - Bloch, Hanson, Giannini, Creston, Barber, and Flagello (I was particularly heartened by the inclusion of the shamefully neglected Giannini and Flagello) -- that contains a brief biography and then a fairly detailed description of his major (and many smaller) works in the order they were composed. Recommendations are made for recordings for those wishing to explore the music itself.

I for one am eager to read each of the five prospective books to follow this one. The subjects of the remaining books will cover American neo-classicists, American opera composers, American nationalists and populists, three traditionalists of the Juilliard School, and American traditionalists of the post-1930 generation. When this series is finished it will, on the evidence of this first volume, comprise one of the very most valuable overall studies of American classical music in print.

Strongly recommended.

Scott Morrison

Great book, have only read a little so far since I am obliged to sit at the table to read it and not in my favorite armchair. It would have been so much simpler to have this published in two volumes. I am prepared to buy it again in order to read it in a more comfortable position. I think I would really enjoy it much more.

This is a serious reference work that comprehensively details Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life and works, together with the Kochel catalogue, a chronology, a bibliography of other authors' works, and a comprehensive index of significant people, places, and events in Mozart's life. This English-language edition has only been available for about 12 months, and I have found it to be one of the most valuable books in my collection of musical literature. Yes, it's a bit dry in its style, but this is not some fluffy novel. If you present classical music for radio, TV, the internet, or are a teacher, this is a work you should have on your bookshelf.

As the centenary of Mozart's birth loomed in 1856, German musicologist Otto Jahn published the first volume of his ground-breaking four volume biography of Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus (Gottlieb) Mozart. Theophilus, meaning 'beloved of God', was changed to its German equivalent, Gottlieb. The names Johann and Chrysostom commemorated the boy's birth on that saint's day. He was born on 27 January 1756 at eight o'clock in the evening. He was the last of seven children: only two of whom, Nannerl, the fourth, and Wolfgang, survived. No one at the time had the slightest foreknowledge of the epochal nature of that birth.

Simultaneous to Jahn's massive undertaking was Ludwig Kochel's similarly path-breaking catalogue of Mozart's works. The two scholars created the historical landscape upon which all subsequent study and knowledge of Mozart's life and works would be based. Jahn's and Kochel's work were as comprehensive and dependable as the then current state of knowledge about Mozart's life and music permitted. In the process, the foundation of a Germanic cultural hero, a Romantic myth, of Mozart, the inestimable, miraculous child genius who created musical masterpieces Jove-like fully formed from his mind, was created. That myth is still with us in books, in concert notes, in recording liner notes, in essays and in films.

Jahn's work was revised several times before Hermann Abert fully reworked it in the post-war years of 1919-1921, taking full advantage of an additional 70 years of research and discovery: in the process modifying Jahn's 19th Century Romantic tone to fit a more modern sensibility. Abert's massive work included everything then known, the most informed and substantial biography of Mozart in any language. It is unquestionably the most comprehensive account of the composer's life and a profound analysis of the composer's work. In Abert's 'book-within-a-book', he scrutinizes the music, with individual chapters on the operas, splendid accounts of the orchestral works, the symphonies and piano concertos, church music and compositions for solo instruments. It is a titanic work that has never been rendered in English until now.

Brilliantly translated by Stewart Spencer, what makes this massive work so impressive is how even Abert's deeply considered words are brought up to date. Recent developments in Mozart scholarship since the last German edition are analyzed by Mozart scholar Cliff Eisen in his meticulous and informative annotations located on every single page. This whole massive undertaking is supported by a coterie of leading Mozart scholars. At the weight of a very healthy baby, this is not a book you will be carrying to your local Starbuck's unless you plan to use it as a portable table. It is, nevertheless, the single most important source on the life of a truly great composer. It is remarkable that it has been unavailable in English. That it now is, and in such a superlative edition, makes its publication the single most important event in English language Mozartean scholarship of this, or perhaps any other, year. This book is not an investment to be made lightly. It probably requires a program of upper arm development (a small lectern might be helpful). But for the committed Mozartean, this mighty volume would make a splendid gift. You will spend the rest of your life absorbed in its 1600 pages. Most strongly recommended.

Mike Birman

I live in Peru. my father went on a business trip in 1979 and bought me my first electric guitar in Manny's. in 1996 i visited New York and stopped by Manny's to thank them for helping my father to choose the guitar, which i still proudly own and this year will be 30 year old. I was impressed by the pics in the walls of the store. More worthy than the memorabillia of a dozen Hard Rock Cafes. I was specially impressed by a letter by Pete Townshend giving a guitar as a present to a yougn boy living in NY with no money to afford a guitar. If you want to witness the history of rock, from Buddy Holly to U2, buy this book. I will.

THE WALL OF FAME: NEW YORK CITY'S LEGENDARY MANNY'S MUSIC recalls a New York institution with a guide to one of the most important music instrument stores of the swing, big band and electric eras. Manny's was the music store of choice for musicians ranging from Kiss to Chet Atkins, Chet Baker and Dizzy Gillespie: THE WALL OF FAME is a rock celebration of these musicians, offers a gorgeous blend of a concert diary and rarely-seen souvenir photos, and reproduces nearly 200 autographed photos from the store's walls. Any definitive music collection whether it be at the college or general lending library levels needs WALL OF FAME.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I wish I was in there shoes growing up. Meeting the stars that are in this book, words can't express. Jimmy, Janis, Paul and Bob to name a few bring goose bumps to my arms. I would rather be in there shoes than to hit the lotto. They rocked!!!!!!

The New York Public Library, Office of Young Adult Services has recognized Where Music Comes From by Nubar Alexanian for it's 1997 list of inspirational books for young adults. This annual list has been published by the library since 1929 and receives attention from school and public libraries in all 50 states, as well as internationally

Nubar Alexanian's photographs in Where Music Comes From (Stockport, England: Dewi Lewis, 1996) are fast and furious, like the performers and fans pictured. Wynton Marsalis lords over his trumpet at the New Orleans Jazz Festival; the Mississippi Mass Choir rehearses on its tour bus; Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo holds red roses and two apples on opening night on Broadway. The book celebrates the dedication that goes into creating great music.

With a title like this, the photographer can include almost any musician, composer or arranger--anyone who makes music--and he did. In this instance, Nubar Alexanian, after a five-year trek across the music landscape, has done his finest work, including such diverse music personalities as Philip Glass, Aretha Franklin, Wynton Marsalis, the Roches, Paul Simon, Junior Wells and Emmylou Harris. To prepare for this project the photographer bought their music, listened to it all, watched them rehearse and perform, hung out with them, and finally, photographed them. Alexanian's photographs are brilliant, imiaginative, compelling and very moving

As an editor who has been assocaited with newspapers and magazines for a number of years, I am interested in all aspects of writing, but Ms. Schultz's book, The Young Composers, is the first time I've had a clear picture of how writing instruction evolved along with our educational system in the last century. Although I am sure Ms. Schultz's primary audience are her colleagues who teach English throughout the country, The Young Composers presents a fascinating story in an engaging way that will interest anyone who loves putting words together. It is, in short, a fine piece of writing itself and well worth a read.

Although meticulously researched, this book is delightful to read, accessible, clear, and often amusing. It provides a new view of the development of contemporary ideas in the teaching of writing, helping us to understand the background of many debates still raging, for example, the role of personal experience in the development of student writers. Most interesting for the contemporary elementary or high school teacher is the revelation that so much that we consider innovative in writing instruction began in the schools not in the colleges. The book serves, then, as a useful corrective to the often elitist view of knowledge always being constructed in the university and sifting down to the lower division schools. The examples of 19th century writings and texts are fun to read, and the effect of the whole work is to help us understand what was originally at stake in the move to situate authority and meaning in the lives and experiences of student writers.

The author serves us well by clarifying the idea of democratization of writing instruction, which began in the nineteenth century schools. It is the method of asking students to write about their own experiences, rather than following the works of great writers. As a result of her work the question can now be raised about which method makes for a better education. The author includes some interesting student essays, for example one from 1846 about the moral dangers of reading novels.

I just bought this book for my mother-in-law because this was one of my favorite piano collections as a young pianist. I love the pieces (ALL of them!) because they're not too difficult to play, yet they sound beautiful and impressive. A MUST for every intermediate pianist!

Wow, this book is a treasure. I am taking lesson for 3 years and as an adult, my fall back is speed as I don't have flexible fingers like young kids. I have been doing Hanon trying to strengthen and to keep my fingers flexible, but I get so bored with the monotone. I still am at a beginner/intermediate level (4) and this book is just perfect to learn and practice. This book is definitely great until advanced level, as it will be so enjoyable to play and you will never get bored. All 25 pieces have beautiful melodies and so enjoyable to learn and most importantly...the speed. I listened to the CD and it helps so much to feel the speed; and with such lovely melodies, I could not get bored. This book is sooo worth it to have in your collection. I'm so glad I have it in my collection.
Play on :)

This is one tremendous find! THe Gershwins wrote some very memorable tunes, and the piano arrangements (also includes vocals and guitar chords) are lush and exquisite! I have been looking for a book of Gershwin for piano awhile now and this is PERFECT! Lots of fun and pleasure, though it is not "EASY PIANO". Moderate ability is required, but you can always fake it by playing the chords and melody line. I love it!

I am not a musician and so I cannot comment on what is really the heart of this work, the sheet music, its arrangements etc.
I would however say that it is a pleasure to look at the lyrics of the great Gershwin songs. And it is too a great pleasure to hum in mind and heart the tunes which still keep a lot of people humming and hoping in the world.
The Gershwins were the greatest brother team music ever knew.
Ira later on worked with many other first- rate composers and was a master of writing lyrics.
But it is the great George Gershwin taken from us early whose music seems to define not simply a whole era of music, the hope of jazz, and classic combined in a new folk popular swinging
and refined elegance.
The American soul for all time.