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Now Available: "Prophetic Trumpets, Homage, Worship, and Celebration in the Wind Band Music of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner"Franz Liszt’s and Richard Wagner’s works for wind instruments and wind ensembles of various kinds, as well as for winds and voices in various combinations, epitomize much of nineteenth-century musical romanticism. From ceremonial and religious works to compositions for court occasions, from the concert hall to the operatic stage, Wagner’s and Liszt’s wind and wind-voice music offers insights into each composer’s stylistic evolution as well as the emergence of the symphonic poem and music-drama as genres in their own right. 2010-06-02 16:39:20 |
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New Publication: "Aspects of Harpsichord Making in the British Isles"During the four decades since the publication of Frank Hubbard’s classic Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making (1965), with its masterly survey of the Italian, Flemish, French, German, and English schools, most further research has been directed toward the European continent. This volume of The Historical Harpsichord is intended to redress that imbalance. With close attention to technical detail, Darryl Martin examines the extant English harpsichords produced in the critical period of transition between the earlier seventeenth century, best known for virginal making, and the Georgian era in which harpsichord making was dominated by the London firms of Shudi and Kirckman. Jenny Nex and Lance Whitehead describe and place into context the oeuvre of Saxon-born Ferdinand Weber (1715-1784), one of the few Georgian makers who could stand on his own, albeit at some remove from London, in Dublin. 2010-06-02 16:37:20 |
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Newly published: Ballet de la Nuit, ed. Burden & ThorpThis new study brings together visual images and scholarly discussion of Le Ballet de la Nuit, a major ballet de cour organised by Louis de Hesselin and first performed in the Louvre’s Salle du Petit Bourbon in 1653. Le Ballet de la Nuit was notable for many reasons: most prominent among them was the involvement of the young Louis XIV, who danced in five different roles, including his most famous role as the Sun King, accompanied by chosen courtiers and professional dancers, singers and acrobats. The present publication focuses on the exquisitely produced volume presented to de Hesselin (who also performed in the work), which passed into the hands of the Rothschild family at Waddesdon Manor, and is now in the ownership of the National Trust. The contents of the Waddesdon source are reproduced in facsimile, together with the printed vers pour les personages, lists of performers, cues for special effects, and the running order of the entrées. They are accompanied by essays by Michael Burden, Catherine Massip, David Parrott, and Jennifer Thorp which interpret and discuss cultural patronage at the Court of Louis XIV, the musical context, dances and dancers, and the costumes and scenography of this unique and extraordinary ballet, while Lionel Sawkins provides a modern edition of the surviving music. 2010-05-06 12:23:34 |
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New Publication: Bruhn's Images and Ideas in Modern French Piano MusicIn our visually-oriented society, music appears to stand apart from other arts. Yet just as a poet can write a poem whose focus is a painting, so musicians have composed scores based on poems, paintings, and other non-musical art forms. In instrumental music such reinterpretations are especially intriguing as the verbal or visual stimulus does not appear in performance but is rendered in musical form. In this study, Siglind Bruhn investigates how three French composers of the twentieth century, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Olivier Messiaen, express extra-musical subtexts in their piano works. She shows how the relation between the subtexts and the musical works can be broadly catagorized in terms of pictoriality and interiority. In all cases, Bruhn analyzes each musical piece and each source text in its entirety and in depth, drawing on her broad background in both literary and musical interpretation of the twentieth century. For pianists who seek to better understand an individual work, for scholars in the growing field of musical hermeneutics, and for lovers of music in general, this volume explores and makes explicit connections between music and other arts. 2010-05-06 12:10:33 |
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New publication: DeLio's CMS study of Cage's AmoresAsserting that John Cage’s innovations from the late 1930s and 1940s represent much more than a transitional phase in the American composer’s sonic and philosophical journey, composer and theorist Thomas DeLio focuses his analytical energies on Amores, an economical four-movement quartet dating from 1943. This particular chamber work calls attention to Cage’s dedicated expansion of musical resources by his creation of a repertory for percussion instruments as well as one for an instrument of his own invention, the prepared piano. In this study the piece is interpreted by Professor DeLio as a singular moment in music history: the reconciliation of what the author has identified as organic and inorganic approaches to composition central to the evolution of music during the twentieth century. In doing so, he surveys the relevant thoughts of prominent aestheticians and places this piece at a nexus of what some have labeled Modernism and Postmodernism, but which DeLio understands as two branches of Modernism itself. Accompanying the text is a compact disc containing an especially memorable recorded performance of Amores, one first issued in 1961 featuring Cage himself in the two movements conceived exclusively for the prepared piano. Order at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=647 2010-02-19 15:59:27 |
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Xenakis's Arts/Sciences: Alloys in new paperbackIn the new paperback edition
of this fascinating essay Iannis Xenakis succeeds in unraveling the intricate
web between the arts and sciences, thereby demonstrating their interdependency
as in the components of an alloy. In this translation Xenakis explains not
only his musical and theoretical writings but also the role of mathematics
as a philosophical catalyst in both his musical and architectural works.
He discusses in detail his unique use of computers as a graphic tool in
the composition of some of his scores. Unexpected aspects of his character
are gracefully revealed in these highly readable exposés.
Xenakis is responding to a panel of noted French masters from the various
disciplines in which he has worked and cleverly manages to answer specific
questions in one field while simultaneously addressing perhaps less-initiated
exponents from other, seemingly unrelated areas. A complete list of works
and bibliography are included.
Order at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=659 2010-01-15 16:42:16 |
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Bowles's Timpani and Supplement published as a setA unique iconographical and documentary history of the timpani, combining a wealth of pictorial material with extensive written sources, Edmund Bowles's The Timpani offers a rich and comprehensive survey of the instrument's history from the middle ages to the present. An addendum contains 100 new drawings, paintings, and photographs, and many new documents. Please use order no. PP 635 to order both items as a set. 2009-11-30 15:43:23 |
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New Fall Catalogue availablePendragon Press's Fall Catalogue for 2009 is now available. Download your copy here. 2009-11-06 11:45:01 |
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Jander's Beethoven publishedIn this fascinating and controversial book, Owen Jander maintains—echoing the interpretation first suggested by Adolph Berhard Marx in 1859—that the three movements are based on the Classical versions of the Orpheus legend by Virgil and Ovid. Jander tells us the full story—from the opening phrase of the first movement to the last measure of the finale—of how the Orpheus legend informs every note of Beethoven’s music.
Paperback, 228 pages, 75 music examples, 30 plates.
Order at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=614 2009-11-03 21:52:40 |
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New Publication: Schenkerian Jazz AnalysisSteve Larson's Analyzing Jazz: A Schenkerian Approach demonstrates that the theories of Heinrich Schenker can illuminate not only the technical aspects of jazz (such as melody, rhythm, and harmony), but also its artistic content. In considering objections that have been raised to the application of Schenker’s approach to improvised jazz, the book touches upon the content and origin of Schenker’s theories, the role of analysis and the intentional fallacy, the origin and function of dissonance in common-practice harmony and in jazz, the nature of improvisation vs. composition, and the role of simplicity and complexity in popular and art music. And, although it qualifies the applicability of Schenker’s theories to jazz, it also shows that Schenker’s theories offer basic theoretical principles and practical examples for explaining dissonance treatment in jazz and models useful in creating, explaining, and experiencing jazz. The book offers detailed analyses of Larson’s transcriptions into musical notation of five complete recorded performances of Thelonious Monk’s classic jazz composition “ ’Round Midnight”: two recorded by the composer, one by Oscar Peterson, and two by Bill Evans—and is thus the first work to publish complete transcriptions of the same piece as played by different jazz performers.
This item comprises the previously-announced two-volume set composed of Vol. I The Text (PP 606) and II The Music (PP607). Order at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=651 2009-10-30 11:54:05 |
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Pendragon Press now represented by EurospanPendragon Press is pleased to announce that we are now represented the UK, Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, India, the Far East, and South East Asia by Eurospan Group of London. Individuals may order our books directly from the Eurospan Bookstore online. Trade customers may contact Eurospan at Tel: +44 (0) 1767 604972, Fax: +44 (0) 1767 601640, or Email: eurospan@turpin-distribution.com Eurospan coordinates new title displays at numerous scholarly meetings and trade fairs throughout the year. Pendragon authors planning to visit the UK, Continental Europe or the Middle East – perhaps to lecture or speak about their book – should notify us well in advance to receive support from Eurospan's publicity department. 2009-10-06 10:35:37 |
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Burk's Ives Omnibus wins ASRC AwardJames M. Burk's A Charles Ives Omnibus, recently published in the CMS Monographs and Bibliographies in American Music series, has been selected as a winner for the 2009 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in the category Best Research in Recorded Classical Music. The goal of the ARSC Awards program is to recognize and draw attention to the finest work now being published in the field of recorded sound research. More details about ARSC, its awards, and conference may be found on the ARSC website. 2009-09-21 16:49:33 |
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Four new organ paperbacksFour titles in our distinguished series The Complete Organ are now available in paperback editions:
Widely praised as "fascinating", "meticulously researched", "impressive", and "highly recommended" on their first publication, these books provide detailed biographies, histories, technical discussions, and thematic catalogues of the major organ composers and their works, and are now indispensable to every organist's library.
Full series details at
http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/booksinseries.php?SERIES_ID=40
2009-09-18 11:57:35 |
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North American Beethoven Studies now available from Pendragon PressA series of scholarly monographs, collections of essays, and contemporary sources on Beethoven and his music, edited by William Meredith and originally published beginning in 1991 by the University of Nebraska Press and the American Beethoven Society in collaboration with the Center for Beethoven Studies, is now available in its entirety from Pendragon Press. The series listing can be found on the North American Beethoven Studies series page. Its most recent addition is Bathia Churgin's Transcendent Mastery and the next scheduled title will be Owen Jander's Beethoven’s “Orpheus” Concerto, due to appear in a few weeks. 2009-09-08 16:07:27 |
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For Pendragon Authors: Amazon's Author CentralAuthors may be interested in a new promotional tool from Amazon.com: Author Central provides a page where readers canlearn about an author's publications, biography, and special interests. Author pages also provide links to authors' personal blogs, as well as discussion forums for readers. 2009-08-20 17:03:53 |
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New publication: 10-year compilation of TraversoTraverso, the international newsletter of historical flutes and flute-playing, celebrates its twentieth anniversary by reprinting the entire run of back issues in Volumes 11-20. The volume includes forty articles on the renaissance, baroque, classical, and early romantic flute, its repertoire, and performance practice, by expert authors including Maria Bania, Clare Beesley, Rachel Brown, David Lasocki, Gianni Lazzari, Mary Oleskiewicz, Linda Pereksta, Kim Pineda, Ardal Powell, Stephen Preston, Rien de Reede, R.A. Rosenfeld, Matthew Thomas, Susan E. Thompson, Luca Verzulli, and Jed Wentz, as well as a new bibliography of writings on historical flutes and flute-playing published in 1999-2008, compiled by David Lasocki. The book contains a CD with a PDF of the entire publication including high-resolution color images.
More detail at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=648 2009-08-17 15:18:43 |
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New publication: Slottow on RugglesThe American composer Carl Ruggles (1876-1971) wrote a small number of powerful, finely crafted, intensely dissonant, and utterly individual works. Although sometimes viewed as very much an isolated figure—a stubbornly reclusive “ruggedly individualist” New Englander, painstakingly creating his uncompromisingly dissonant music in the wilds of Vermont—Ruggles was in fact an integral member of a close-knit group of composers known as the “ultramoderns,” which included (among others) Charles Seeger, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Henry Cowell, Edgard Varèse, Dane Rudhyar, and Charles Ives (mainly in the role of financier). The ultramoderns were interested in creating a distinctive dissonant American music free of the cultural hegemony of European musical authority and convention. As part of this group, Ruggles formed especially strong ties with Charles Ives—each considered the other the world’s second-best composer—and with Charles Seeger, whose theory of dissonant counterpoint exerted a strong influence on Ruggles’s evolving compositional style. Ruggles’s music is highly distinctive and personal—his works are not easily mistaken for those of any other composer. An individuality so audibly recognizable points to distinctive musical characteristics and compositional procedures. This study examines these in detail, discusses their influences (especially that of Charles Seeger), and places them in the context of Ruggles’s spiritual aesthetic of the transcendent and the sublime.
More detail at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=579 2009-07-31 15:05:28 |
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New publication: the Orpheus MythPendragon Press has just published
The Orpehus Myth and the Powers of Music by Vladimir L. Marchenkov. The book examines the key turning points in the history of the Orpheus myth as factors that shaped, and continues to shape, our conceptions of music's powers. From its beginnings in archaic Antiquity to the latest major opera based on it, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been used by poets, philosophers, and musicians to express an increasingly complex set of ideas about what music can do. The study follows three threads in the myth's history: changes in form, cultural status, and the resulting visions of the powers of song.
More information is available at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=641. 2009-07-03 12:05:53 |
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New publication: Schoenberg's Chamber MusicPendragon Press has just published Schoenberg’s Chamber Music, Schoenberg’s World, a book of essays edited by Alan M. Gillmor
and James K. Wright, with a Foreword by Lawrence Schoenberg. With a list of distinguished contributors from three continents—including Alexander Carpenter, James Deaville, Murray Dineen, Sabine Feisst, Allan Forte, Áine Heneghan, Yoko Hirota, Elaine Keillor, Don McLean, Christian Meyer, Severine Neff, Bryan Proksh, and James Wrightt—the book presents new historical, theoretical, biographical, and semiotic perspectives on Schoenberg’s chamber music, aesthetics, teaching, and persona. The links between his chamber music and earlier traditions, as well as its impact on subsequent generations of composers internationally, are among the areas of focus.
More information is available at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=612 2009-06-02 15:15:58 |
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Ives Omnibus is ARSC award finalistA Charles Ives Omnibus by James Mack Burk, a recent title in the CMS Monographs and Bibliographies in American Music series, has been selected as a finalist in the 2008 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. The goal of the ARSC Awards program is to recognize and draw attention to the finest work now being published in the field of recorded sound research. More details about ARSC, its awards, and conference may be found on the ARSC website. 2009-05-12 15:33:13 |
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American Beethoven Society's Lifetime Achievement Award for Owen JanderOwen Jander, emeritus professor at Wellesley College and author of the forthcoming Beethoven’s “Orpheus” Concerto, has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Creative Scholarship for 2007 at the second biennial convention of the American Beethoven Society , co-sponsored with the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San José State University. Undoubtedly his most influential and widely quoted study has been his analysis of 1985 of the "Orpheus in Hades" middle movement of the Fourth Fortepiano Concerto, a subject he expands on in his forthcoming Pendragon monograph devoted to all three movements. 2009-05-04 11:51:05 |
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Four Organ Series titles in paperbackPendragon Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of four titles in the series The Complete Organ in paperback editions. Playing the Organ Works of César Franck (Paperback), by Rollin Smith, No. 1 Joseph Jongen and his Organ Music (Paperback), by John Scott Whiteley, No. 2 Louis Vierne: Organist of Notre Dame Cathedral (Paperback), by Rollin Smith, No. 3 Saint-Saëns and the Organ (Paperback), by Rollin Smith, No. 7 Praised in their original editions as “meticulously researched, well written, and carefully edited”, “first-rate scholarship that is at the same time accessible and absorbing”, and “truly impressive”, the new editions will be on sale in July from Pendragon Press direct or from the usual outlets. Visit the series page for links to detail pages and onward links to Amazon.com. 2009-04-24 10:32:52 |
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Announcement to Authors on Google Books SettlementPendragon Press has issued an announcement to authors and rightsholders of Pendragon titles regarding the Google Books class action settlement. The announcement has been sent by e-mail or post to all copyright holders of record and may be read here. 2009-04-20 15:12:41 |
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New Publication: Tirro's Miles Davis CoolJazz, from its origins until
World War II, was America’s hot new music of the 20th century, and this
music spread like wildfire to Europe and beyond. Shortly after the war ended
a calming influence manifested itself in jazz and a new genre emerged with
its own soundscape and quickly rose to worldwide popularity and influence—Cool
Jazz. This book traces the history of this music to its roots in French
Impressionism and European Neo-Classicism, describes the key roles played
by Bix Beiderbecke, Lester Young, Lennie Tristano, Claude Thornhill, and
Dave Brubeck in the development of this genre, and focuses on the major
figures associated with a group of landmark recordings and on an ensemble
that felicitously came to be known as The Birth of the Cool. The contributions
of Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, and John Carisi are
considered in detail, and the scores of this music, arranged for Davis’s
nine-piece band, are analyzed and compared.
Contains CD; Nominated for a 2009 Association for Recorded Sound Collections
Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.
Order at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=610 2009-03-27 15:01:45 |
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New publication: Ives Third SymphonyBoyhood in a small Connecticut town, the imprint of a free-thinking father, a formal music education at Yale University, a lucrative career as a New York City insurance executive, and a personal philosophy balancing individuality and idealism: these are the conditions that formed and informed the controversial music of Charles Ives. His works were rescued from obscurity–in many instances, long after their creation–and introduced to the concert world. For some time the accomplishments of this Yankee renegade have been recognized as central to the American musical experience. His Third Symphony, conceived early in the twentieth century and only given its premiere in 1946, was identified by the composer himself as a pivotal effort in his compositional odyssey and, perhaps ironically, earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. In this study Dr. Zobel reviews the complicated narrative of the Symphony's composition, explains why Ives considered it a turning point between the "old ways" and the "new ways," explores the structural implications of its camp-meeting program and the sophisticated manipulation of hymn tunes in its fabric, and places it in the context of Ives's idiosyncratic worldview. In the process he interprets the timing of its first public performance as a means to appreciate evolving attitudes toward modernism in the American musical establishment. The text is enhanced by a sampling of critical commentary dating from the past sixty years.
Order at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=623 2009-03-12 11:51:57 |
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New publication: Music In Terezín, Second editionWhen Adolf Hitler created the model camp at Theresienstadt (Terezín in Czech) for the better-known of Europe's Jewish transportees, he gathered together many of the continent's finest musicians. This examination of the associations, the compositions, the performances, and above all, the people in Terezín accentuates the roles the active musical life played in the struggle for hope in those darkest of times. This second edition of Music in Terezín adds information on the lives of the survivors of the camp and corrects some material from the first edition.
Ordering information at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=534 2009-03-04 17:25:54 |
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New paperback edition of Parrish's Notation of Medieval MusicThis work studies the development of musical notation from the ninth to the fifteenth century, and contains sixty-two fascimiles. Originally published in 1957, this has long been the only concise study of the subject in English. For the Pendragon edition corrigenda and addenda have been incorporated into the text. The new paperback makes the work available at a significantly lower cost than the hardback edition.
Ordering information at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=640 2009-03-04 10:40:57 |
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New publication: Busoni and the PianoMusicologists, pianists, composers and music-lovers in general will welcome the re-issue and second edition of Larry Sitsky’s Busoni and the Piano, which has been out of print for a number of years. The second edition, which brings various aspects of the book up-to-date, will thus once again be available. Since the book was written in the late 1970s, Busoni has re-emerged as an important figure in early 20th-century music, and moreover, one who seems to be exerting an ever-widening influence on current thought and pianism.
Larry Sitsky has spent a lifetime performing, teaching, editing and studying Busoni’s music. He has recently completed an ending to Busoni’s great opera Dr.Faust, which will be heralded in the great opera houses of Europe; as well, he is currently working on another book on Busoni’s instrumental, vocal and operatic music, and must be considered a world authority on this fascinating figure.
Ordering information at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=566 2009-03-04 10:38:36 |
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Vincent H. Duckles Award for Music Theory from Boethius to ZarlinoThe Music Library Association has awarded its prestigious Vincent H. Duckles Award for the best book-length bibliography or other research tool in music to David Williams and C. Matthew Balensuela's Music Theory from Boethius to
Zarlino: A Bibliography and Guide. The award citation reads: "The concluding volume in a decades-long effort to survey the landscape of Western music theory, Williams and Balensuela's Music Theory from Boethius to Zarlino: A Bibliography and Guide gently introduces readers to what might otherwise be unfamiliar and daunting material. The authors summarize the major works of some 120 medieval and renaissance theorists in language that is both clear and precise, and their helpful lists of secondary literature, assembled from an impressively broad array of sources, are coded to highlight introductory readings. As computerized keyword searching increasingly fragments the research process, the context provided by this volume will prove ever more valuable to non-specialists and scholars alike."
Full details and ordering information at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=608.
2009-02-26 12:13:28 |
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Pendragon Press inaugurates new series on musical instruments and performance practiceWith the publication of John Gunn's The Art of Playing the German-Flute on New Principles (c1793) in a facsimile edition introduced by Janice Dockendorff Boland, Pendragon establishes a new series on musical instruments and performance practice entitled Organologia with Ardal Powell as General Editor. The series page lists titles and indeed other series of related publications by Pendragon Press, including many on brass, organ, and vocal performance. 2009-02-12 13:38:23 |
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New paperback edition of Analysis and Value JudgementThis important text by Carl Dahlhaus, translated by Siegmund Levarie, examines the possibility of a reconciliation between a value-free analysis and a subjective aesthetic judgement. The new paperback edition makes this important text available at almost 50% less than the hard cover edition. Ordering information at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=637 2009-02-09 23:56:57 |
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Two Pendragon titles nominated for ARSC awardsThe Birth of The Cool of Miles Davis and His Associates by Frank Tirro and A Charles Ives Omnibus by James M. Burk have been nominated for 2009 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. These awards are presented each year by ARSC to recognize excellence in published research on any subject related to recorded sound to recognize and draw attention to the finest work being published in the field of recorded sound research. Winners will be announced in May, 2009. Watch this space for updates. 2009-01-15 16:07:41 |
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New publication: Latest in North American Beethoven StudiesThe four long chapters in this volume consider widely and deeply four of Beethoven’s most excellent works, each in a different genre and from a different period of Beethoven’s stylistic development. The Piano Sonata, Op. 10, No. 3 (1797-98), represents the early period; the Violin Concerto, Op. 61 (1806), and Violin Sonata, Op. 96 (1812), the middle period (though with several later traits) and the String Quartet, Op. 132 (1825), the late period. As a result, the reader becomes acquainted with the special character of each genre as well as the overall development of Beethoven’s style—including a large range of structural types and unique forms. Each work is given a comprehensive analysis rarely applied to single compositions of Beethoven. In addition to necessary historical background and references to the critical reception, comparisons have been included with other works by Beethoven in the same genre and period. This wider personal context combines with an effort to view Beethoven’s music not only in terms of the heritage of Haydn and Mozart, but also in relation to the long development of Classic style and its procedures from the early Classic period onward, starting in the 1730s.
More details and ordering information at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=590 2008-12-04 15:11:17 |
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New Publication: Music in AmericaDuring the years between the onset of the Civil War and the armistice of World War I music in American life flourished as never before. Some American musicians of the era remained mindful of their European counterparts while others concentrated just as enthusiastically on expanding local traditions.
For this volume Dr. Bill F. Faucett has selected a cogent sampling of the published commentary of participants and observers responding to such developments. His anthology offers readers a fresh opportunity to reconsider a formative era in American music history. No other comparable work on the subject exists.
Full details and ordering information are at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=624. 2008-12-01 10:59:08 |
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New Publication: Sonic Transformations of Literary TextsAmong the possible pairings between two art forms that express themselves in different sign systems (verbal, pictorial, sonic, kinetic, etc.), the relationship between words and images is the one that is most widely explored. And in fact, the most securely established terminology is found in a field that has experienced a significant revival in recent years: ekphrasis. The literary topos through which a poem (or any other text) addresses itself to the visual arts has received much attention in recent years and been subjected to intense scrutiny. Full details and ordering information are at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=622. 2008-11-17 16:04:01 |
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New Publication: Charles Ives OmnibusCentral to the evolution of American music is the legacy of Charles Ives. This grand-scale reference work provides details surrounding the multifarious responses to the achievement of this singular businessman/musician for more than a century. Performances, recordings, journalistic reports, reviews, and scholarly studies of all kinds as well as assorted Ivesiana in the form of literature, art, film, dance, and other expressions of homage are included. Many of the entries are amplified with contextual information or carefully selected excerpts. Professor Burk has been an enthusiastic connoisseur of Ives’s music and a thoughtful student of the Ives literature for many years; his systematic presentation results in much more than a glorified work list or another ambitious bibliography. Full details and ordering information are at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=591. 2008-11-17 16:01:08 |
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New Publication: Fétis Treatise on Harmony (1844)Few theorists have had such in-depth command of the diverse disciplines relating to the history of music theory as François-Joseph Fétis. Superbly lucid and systematic, his Complete Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Harmony is one of the most important and influential documents of the nineteenth century, witness its twenty-one printings between 1844 and 1903. This excellent new translation is based on the ninth edition (1867), the last to be modified by the author, and includes the introduction to the ninth edition, the philosophical preface to the third edition, and Fétis's response to criticisms of his theory in a twenty-page addendum.
Full details and ordering information are at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=584. 2008-10-23 11:15:44 |
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New Publication: Messiaen's Interpretations of Holiness and TrinityOlivier Messiaen’s reception of texts by Thomas Aquinas is one of the principles guiding the interpretations in this study. While Thomas’ theological aesthetics appears as a thread woven through a texture in a way that brings it only periodically to the foreground, the statements from Thomas’s writings provide essential foundations determining the musical content and its musical rendering in La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ, Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité, and Saint François d’Assise.
This book is part of Siglind Bruhn's Messiaen Trilogy:
2008-10-08 10:40:23 |
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New publication: Music and ArchitectureMusic and Architecture: Architectural Projects, Texts, and Realizations by Iannis Xenakis, translated by Sharon Kanach, fills a major lacuna in the literature by bringing together, for the first time, all the texts relating to architecture by the multi-faceted Xenakis, who worked with Le Corbusier for 12 years. Sharon Kanach assisted the composer in gathering the texts for this, his last ambitious project. Her commentary throughout the book seeks to bridge the reciprocal influences between music and architecture in the Xenakis oeuvre.
Pendragon Press is grateful to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Dragan Plamenac Publication Endowment Fund of the American Musicological Society for their support in the publication of this edition.
Full details and ordering information are at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=467. 2008-09-25 10:27:31 |
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Sharon Kanach to deliver Xenakis lecture at Columbia's GSAPPSharon Kanach, Vice President of CCMIX (Centre Creation Musicale Iannis Xenakis), will deliver the Open Seminar Lecture IANNIS XENAKIS: Architecture + Music as part of the ARCHITECTONICS OF MUSIC seminar on Friday, September 12, 2008, 12:00 pm -2:00 pm in Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Composer, engineer and architect Iannis Xenakis designed the Philips Pavilion, La Tourette Convent, etc.. while working for Le Corbusier. Sharon Kanach was Xenakis's assistant for two decades, and edited the new book Music and Architecture by Iannis Xenakis, published this month by Pendragon Press. More details of the book can be found at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=467. 2008-09-09 16:20:02 |
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Armstrong Hot Five wins ARSC AwardGene Anderson's The Original Hot Five Recordings of Louis Armstrong, the latest title in the CMS Sourcebooks in American Music series, has been selected as a winner for the 2007 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in the category Best Research in Recorded Jazz Music. The goal of the ARSC Awards program is to recognize and draw attention to the finest work now being published in the field of recorded sound research. More details about ARSC, its awards, and conference may be found on the ARSC website. 2008-09-04 14:17:15 |
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New publication: Valved Brass: The History of an InventionPendragon Press has just published an English translation by Steven Plank of Christian Ahrens's important monograph, Eine Erfindung und ihre Folgen: Blechblasinstrumente mit Ventilen (1986). The work traces the early use of valved brass instruments in the realms of art music, military music, and Volksmusik. Stressing social and aesthetic issues over the more familiar mechanical aspects, the author draws on a rich body of journalistic source material to detail a compelling reception history.
More details at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=619
2008-08-21 09:51:29 |
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New publication: Elliot Carter: A Centennial CelebrationThis collection of essays, discussions, pictures, and music honors one of America's finest composers on his 100th birthday. It contains articles and reminiscences by Pierre Boulez, Fred Lerdahl, Paul Griffith, Alvin Curran, Louis Karchin, Charles Rosen, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Wilson, John Ashbery, and Walter Zimmerman.
More details at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=617
2008-08-21 09:47:27 |
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AMS Publication Subvention for Xenakis Music and ArchitectureThe forthcoming volume Music and Architecture, the writings of Iannis Xenakis edited by Sharon Kanach, now in the final stages of the pre-publication process, has been awarded a publication subvention by the Dragan Plamenac Publication Endowment Fund of the American Musicological Society. The AMS Publications Committee wrote, "We found this to be a very impressive and important project and we are delighted to be able to support it."
This important work fills a major lacuna in the literature by bringing together for the first time all the texts relating to architecture by the multi-faceted Xenakis, who worked with Le Corbusier for 12 years. Sharon Kanach assisted the composer in gathering the texts for this, his last ambitious project. Her commentary throughout the book seeks to bridge the reciprocal influences between music and architecture in the Xenakis oeuvre.
Pendragon Press expects to have bound books in time for an important Xenakis event scheduled for 12 September 2008 in New York City.
2008-07-03 14:54:56 |
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New publication: Nijinsky's Bloomsbury BalletVaslav Nijinsky's Jeux—to a commissioned score by Claude Debussy—is a daring dance poem about the libertine manners and mores of the Bloomsbury artists he and designer Leon Bakst observed at a nocturnal tennis party in London's Bedford Square. The ambiguous coupling and tripling Nijinsky explored in Jeux startled the public, as did Debussy's music, in which both the tango and turkey trot, as well as pleasure-garden themes inspired by Wagner's Parsifal are quoted. Critics attacked not so much the ethics of Jeux as its post-impressionist aesthetics, influenced by the French painters that Bloomsbury had revealed to England since 1910. Despite contemporary references, athletic moves and pure spatial geometry, Jeux disarmed spectators in 1913 because it still looked like a ballet. Nijinsky had discovered neoclassicism in dance. In 1996 Millicent Hodson, choreographer and graphic artist, together with Kenneth Archer, scenic consultant and art historian, premiered the reconstructed Jeux in Verona at the Teatro Filarmonico. During the spring 2000 restaging in London at the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, Hodson completed the reconstruction dance score. Nijinsky's Bloomsbury Ballet presents the dance score with its verbal and visual documentation of the period, as well as Hodson's choreographic drawings and text collated with music. Archer contributes an essay on Bakst's costumes and décor. The book is a companion volume to Hodson's reconstruction score for Le Sacre du Printemps, Nijinsky's Crime Against Grace, published by Pendragon Press in 1996. More details at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=546 2008-06-05 14:24:32 |
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Armstrong Hot Five a Finalist for ARSC AwardGene Anderson's The Original Hot Five Recordings of Louis Armstrong, the latest title in the CMS Sourcebooks in American Music series, has been selected as a finalist for the 2007 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. The goal of the ARSC Awards program is to recognize and draw attention to the finest work now being published in the field of recorded sound research. More details about ARSC, its awards, and conference may be found on the ARSC website. 2008-05-19 14:14:45 |
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New publication: Messiaen’s Explorations of Love and DeathPendragon Press has just published Messiaen’s Explorations of Love and Death by Siglind Bruhn. The focus of this study is the in-depth analysis and interpretation of six works on love Messiaen composed during the years 1936-1948: five cycles of vocal music to his own texts, and the Turangalîla Symphony, the monumental centerpiece of his “Tristan Trilogy.” Full details at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=618 2008-05-06 09:24:08 |
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New publication: The Era After The BaroquePendragon Press has just published The Era After The Baroque: Music and Fine Arts 1750-1900 by Robert Tallant Laudon. The book advances an expressive ideal that is traced in both vocal and instrumental music during the century and a half after 1750. It stresses that music was not an art unique and set apart but rather participated in the great dissemination of education and artistic opportunity that was then emerging in the context of an increasingly human-centered concept of freedom. Full details at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=567. 2008-04-17 12:49:34 |
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New publication: A Different StoryPendragon Press has just published A Different Story:Aesthetics and the History of Western Music, by Olle K. Edström, translated by Joel Speerstra. Richard Leppert (University of Minnesota) wrote of the book: “Wide-ranging across time and space, written in jargon-free, plain language, Aesthetics and the History of Western Music, simply put, teaches. The spectrum of original sources is impressively broad, and all of the principal “usual suspects” are included. But perhaps more important, Olle Edström likewise incorporates the work of writers outside the mainstream of established aesthetics discourse; and the same holds for the secondary sources that he cites and invariably reads critically. Much of the value of this book develops from Edström’s concern to move aesthetics from an exercise of language to one of musical practices, and to include not only the music of high art but that of the popular as well, both in past times and in our own. His achievement is noteworthy.” Full details at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=548. 2008-03-10 16:16:29 |
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Revised due dates for 12 forthcoming titlesNew due dates have been posted for twelve forthcoming titles. One is now scheduled to appear earlier than previously announced. For details please see Books->In Press in the navigation bar at left. 2008-02-25 09:23:55 |
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New publication: Music Theory from Boethius to ZarlinoMusic Theory from Boethius to Zarlino is a companion volume to Music Theory from Zarlino to Schenker: A Bibliography and Guide by David Damschroder and David Russell Williams (Harmonologia, No. 4, Pendragon Press). Like the previous work, the goal of the volume is to create a logically organized introduction to the major theorists of the time and a thorough review of the scholarly work about these writers. While specialists in the history of music theory may find new materials in these pages, this work is primarily designed for the non-specialist as a practical and basic introduction to the treatises, people, and scholarship of Medieval and Renaissance theory.
Full details at http://www.pendragonpress.com/books/bookdetail.php?PPNo=608 2008-02-05 11:55:01 |
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Pendragon Press database now onlineThe new Pendragon Press website aims to provide accurate and timely information about our publication series, titles, and authors. To stay up-to-date with these constantly changing details please subscribe to our RSS feed and sign up for our Reader Notification Program.
To find a particular publication, enter its Title, Author, ISBN, or Order Number on our Advanced Search page. We will be adding e-commerce capability to our website soon. For the time being titles that are in print and available may be ordered at Amazon.com from the book's detail page, or of course you can order from us directly. Libraries, agencies, and distributors, please see our Ordering page. 2008-01-29 22:35:35 |
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*UPDATED* Louis Armstrong Recordings study nominated for ARSC awardThe Original Hot Five Recordings of Louis Armstrong by Gene H. Anderson has been nominated for a 2007 Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. The annual award recognizes excellence in published research on any subject related to recorded sound.
2008-01-21 12:57:11 |
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Honorary Doctorate for Siglind Bruhn from Växjö University, SwedenVäxjö University in Sweden announces the award of this year’s honorary degree of Dr. phil. honoris causa to one of Pendragon's regular authors, the founder of "musical ekphrasis" and admired scholar of Messiaen and Hindemith, Dr. Siglind Bruhn. Members of the University's Forum for Interarts Studies are particularly proud that the most prestigious award the university has to give goes to one in the field. The brief publicity statement reads:
"The German musicologist and concert pianist Siglind Bruhn has a unique profile in today's musicological and intermedial research as she is both an artist and an academic. She has, in particular, made internationally relevant contributions to the relation between music and other disciplines. Given her unique combination of artistic intelligence, an impressive productivity with about 20 books, and her broadly influential work, we think that Siglind Bruhn constitutes an excellent choice.
"Siglind Bruhn was born in Germany in 1951 and holds a Dr. phil. summa cum laude from the
University of Vienna. She currently works as a lifetime research associate at the University of Michigan's Institute for the Humanities and is at the same time a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Copenhagen's Centre for Christianity and the Arts and at the Sorbonne's Institut d’esthétique des arts contemporains. Moreover, she has lectured at a large number of European, American, and Asian universities and is or has been a leader in a number of important international commissions and organizations." 2008-01-21 12:55:00 |
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