Based on extensive interviews, this illustrated text recounts the lives and music of ragtime pianist-composer Eubie Blake and his partner for 57 years, singer, lyricist and bandleader Noble Sissle.

This beautiful edition is made from the original 1934 2-piano score which is a reduction made by Rachmaninoff himself. The score is very clear and readable, and is configured in 4-staff systems, Piano I and Piano II, so two separate books are required for

The influence of black music on recent American history.

Commentary on and a concise, lucid interpretation of the opera world's most complex masterwork, expanded from the author's popular intermission talks during Met Opera broadcasts. "Anyone, whether knowledgeable or not, will profit by reading it..." - Opera Quarterly

These 301 letters between Giuseppe Verdi and his last, most gifted librettist, Arrigo Boito, document an extraordinary chapter in musical history. Now available for the first time in English, this correspondence records both a unique friendship and its creative legacy.
This new edition of the landmark Carteggio Verdi/Boito is at once a valuable resource for all students, teachers, and scholars of opera and a fascinating glimpse of the daily life of European art and artists during the fertile last decades of the 19th century.
Embarking on a 20-year collaboration, Verdi and Boito produced a successful revision of Simon Boccanegra, and two new operas, Otello and Falstaff. They created what many consider to be Verdi's greatest operas, thanks both to Boito's poetry and to his handling of the composer. Here are the day-to-day tasks of creation: poet and composer debating problems of dramatic structure, words, phrases, and meters; altering dialogue as, at the same time, they converse about the wider worlds of art and music. The give and take of artistic creation is rendered fascinatingly.
This edition features a new introduction by Marcello Conati, improvements and updatings to the original edition, and an appendix of undated correspondence. William Weaver's translation is characteristically pitch-perfect; he also provides a short closing sketch of Boito's life after the death of his beloved maestro. Explanatory "linking texts" between the letters create a narrative.

The listener, to understand the opera fully, should understand the situations, the shades of emotion, the nuances of characterization described in the music. William Weaver's translations of seven of the greatest Verdi operas are designed for maximum fidelity to the immediate word. Eschewing artistic renderings, Mr. Weaver offers, on facing pages, exact translations and the corresponding Italian text. The operas chosen for this edition represent Verdi's major achievements in each of the significant periods of his creative life: the first trio of masterpieces, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata; Un ballo in maschera and Aida from the middle period; Otello and Falstaff, the great late works. The music student as well as the opera buff will find this volume a very useful guide to Verdi's world.

Berlioz. Vaughan Williams. Schubert and Schumann. Mozart after the Jupiter Symphony, Bach beyond the Brandenburg Concertos, opera after The Magic Flute. In his informed and indispensible guide with over 157,000 copies in print, National Public Radio's Ted Libbey takes listeners by the hand through the classical repertory to build a music library. For the second edition, with five years of new performances to consider, five years of new releases to review, and five years of reissues to re-evaluate-the author has completely revised and updated the book.

While sticking to the essential 300 works, there are now one-third new selections and reviews, and a 50% change in discography to keep all suggested CDs up to date. The NPR Guide tp Building a Classical CD Collection will make every music lover's core collection complete.

Renowned for its celebrated slow movement, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 is one of his most popular works. Written in 1812, when the 42-year-old composer was at the peak of his powers, it demonstrates the mastery of a mature artist in complete control of his craft. His command of symphonic form, thematic development, and orchestral texture is everywhere evident in this remarkable composition.
Reprinted here from the authoritative Litolff edition, this work appears in full score with bar-numbered movements for easy reference. Ideal for study in the classroom, at home, or in the concert hall, this affordable, high-quality, conveniently sized volume will be the edition of choice for music students and music lovers alike.

Plot and counterplot lie at the heart of Don Giovanni, Cos fan tutte, and The Marriage of Figaro, the three brilliant libretti that Lorenzo Da Ponte prepared for Mozart. They were also central to Da Ponte's own extraordinary life. His Memoirs record a fantastic variety of romantic, political, and professional intrigues, and tell of meetings with a host of remarkable men. In a life that took him from the canals of Venice to the streets of New York, Da Ponte was at different times priest, professional gambler, proprietor of a bordello, political agitator, court poet, impresario, grocery store owner, and the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia University. His Memoirs, a minor classic of Italian literature, are the picaresque and engrossing story of a man of enormous talent and unsurpassed flair who was, above all, an indefatigable survivor.