"A cat book with class, this sumptuously produced, highlyliterate collection of felinity as represented in art, literature,and photography is sure to elicit purrs, " raved Publishers Weeklywhen this BOMC Selection was published in 1982. Long out of print,this cat-lovers dream book is now reissued in paperback. 70full-color reproductions. --Ce texte fait référence à uneédition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

What's the secret to writing a hit song? It's as simple as1-2-3-4-5-6 Innovative, practical, and inspiring, "Six Steps toSongwriting Success" presents a surefire step-by-step approach tomastering the elements consistently found in hit songs. AuthorJason Blume, a songwriter with the rare distinction of having hadsongs on the Country, Pop, and RandB charts simultaneously, haspacked this book with such key aids as the three-step lyric writingtechnique used by the pros; lyric, melody, and demo checklists; andtools for self-evaluation-plus many other exercises that work.Blume's warm, humorous style features motivational anecdotes andentertaining stories of how hit songs came to be written andrecorded. Get "Six Steps to Songwriting Success," and get on thecharts

A basic primer for anyone without musical training who wishesto learn to read musical scores when singing or taking up aninstrument, this accessible and complete book covers classical,popular, jazz, and folk music. Well-known pieces are accompanied bya muscial dictionary, a note directory, and a guide to musicalsigns.

Antonio Stradivari (1644—1737) was a perfectionist whosesingle-minded pursuit of excellence changed the world of music. Inthe course of his long career in the northern Italian city ofCremona, he created more than a thousand stringed instruments;approximately six hundred survive, their quality unequalled by anysubsequent violin-maker. In this fascinating book, Toby Fabertraces the rich, multilayered stories of six of these peerlesscreations–five violins and a cello–and the one towering artist whobrought them into being. Blending history, biography, meticulousdetective work, and an abiding passion for music, Faber takes usfrom the salons of Vienna to the concert halls of New York, andfrom the breakthroughs of Beethoven’s last quartets to the firstphonographic recordings. This magnificent narrative invites us toshare the life, the intrigue, and the incomparable beauty of theworld’s most marvelous stringed instruments.

In this compulsively readable, fascinating, and provocativeguide to classical music, Norman Lebrecht, one of the world's mostwidely read cultural commentators tells the story of the rise ofthe classical recording industry from Caruso's first notes to theheyday of Bernstein, Glenn Gould, Callas, and von Karajan. Lebrechtcompellingly demonstrates that classical recording has reached itsend point-but this is not simply an expos? of decline and fall. Itis, for the first time, the full story of a minor art form,analyzing the cultural revolution wrought by Schnabel, Toscanini,Callas, Rattle, the Three Tenors, and Charlotte Church. It is thestory of how stars were made and broken by the record business; howa war criminal conspired with a concentration-camp victim to createa record empire; and how advancing technology, boardroom wars,public credulity and unscrupulous exploitation shaped the musicalbackdrop to our modern lives. The book ends with a suitable shrineto classical recording: the author's critical selectio

Vintage presents the paperback edition of the wild andbrilliant writings of Lester Bangs--the most outrageous and popularrock critic of the 1970s--edited and with an introduction by thereigning dean of rack critics, Greil Marcus. Advertising in RollingStone and other major publications.

Preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christianscholars, Aristotle’s works have shaped Western thought, science,and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s TheBasic Works of Aristotle –constituted out of the definitiveOxford translation and in print as a Random House hardcover forsixty years–has long been considered the best available one-volumeAristotle. Appearing in paperback at long last, this editionincludes selections from the Organon, On the Heavens, The ShortPhysical Treatises, Rhetoric, among others, and On the Soul, OnGeneration and Corruption, Physics, Metaphysics, NicomacheanEthics, Politics, and Poetics in their entirety.

From its ancient status as the jewel of an empire to itsmodern incarnation as a troubled, yet culturally vibrant Europeancapital, Rome has compelled the imagination of artists for over twothousand years. Now, in "The History of Rome in Painting", that

These free-wheeling, often exhilarating dialogues—which grewout of the acclaimed Carnegie Hall Talks—are an exchange betweentwo of the most prominent figures in contemporary culture: DanielBarenboim, internationally renowned conductor and pianist, andEdward W. Said, eminent literary critic and impassioned commentatoron the Middle East. Barenboim is an Argentinian-Israeli and Said aPalestinian-American; they are also close friends. As they range across music, literature, and society, they openup many fields of inquiry: the importance of a sense of place;music as a defiance of silence; the legacies of artists from Mozartand Beethoven to Dickens and Adorno; Wagner’s anti-Semitism; andthe need for “artistic solutions” to the predicament of the MiddleEast—something they both witnessed when they brought young Arab andIsraeli musicians together. Erudite, intimate, thoughtful andspontaneous, Parallels and Paradoxes is a virtuosiccollaboration.

Whether Gould's subject is Boulez, Stokowski, Streisand, orhis own highly individual thoughts on performance and creation ofmusic, the reader will be caught up in his intensity, intelligence,passion and devotion.

What do you getwhen you cross a snail with the Indianapolis 500? If you’reDreamWorks, then the result is Turbo, an uplifting—andgear-shifting—story about the ultimate underdog, delivered with thedigital mastery, storytelling skill, and spellbinding imagery we’vecome to expect from the studio behind the Shrek and Madagascar.

Few music lovers realize that the arrangement of notes ontoday’s pianos was once regarded as a crime against God and nature,or that such legendary thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, da Vinci,Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and Rousseau played a role inthe controversy. Indeed, from the time of the Ancient Greeksthrough the eras of Renaissance scientists and Enlightenmentphilosophers, the relationship between the notes of the musicalscale was seen as a key to the very nature of the universe. In this engaging and accessible account, Stuart Isacoff leads usthrough the battles over that scale, placing them in the context ofquarrels in the worlds of art, philosophy, religion, politics andscience. The contentious adoption of the modern tuning system knownas equal temperament called into question beliefs that hadlasted nearly two millenia–and also made possible the music ofBeethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, and all who followed. Filledwith original insights, fascinating anecdotes, and portraits ofsome of th

Situated between Western Europe and the civilizations ofByzantium and the Islamic world, Renaissance Venice was uniquelypositioned at the crossroads of East and West. In the beautifulAdriatic city, ideas and aesthetics were exchanged and developed ina remarkable age of cultural fusion. Venice’s distinctivearchitecture is already well known for integrating divergentcultural influences, but the impact of this synthesis on Venetianpainting has not been fully explored. This gorgeous book focuses onthe work of the remarkable Bellini family of painters—Jacopo andhis sons Gentile and Giovanni—who transformed Venetianpainting in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The authors examine the influence of Venetian trade with the Easton Bellini paintings; the Byzantine influence on Venetian art; theimpact of a visit to Mehmed II’s court in 1479 on Gentile Bellini,as well as his effect on Eastern-trained artists there; and muchmore. The book is abundantly illustrated with the Bellini family’

One of Victorian Englands most charismatic characters, DanteGabriel Rossetti painted and wrote with equal passion. He wassimilarly passionate in his personal life: his etherealartist-wife, his earthy blond mistress, and the ravishing JaneMorris are al

Desde queen 1890 en Estados Unidos se utilizara el terminorascacielos para designar al edificio de oficinas en altura, esteha suscitado diversidad de reflexiones --entre el entornoarquitectonico y la opi-nion pOblica- acerca de sus limites ydisefio. El ras-cacielos es un producto genuinamenteestadouniden-se, fruto del siglo xx, cuya presencia y evoluci6n essin6nimo de progreso tecnologico, la sociedad de consumo y lapolftica liberal. Este volumen propone una revision de los rascacielos queinauguran el nuevo milenio, con la seleccion de edificios de laultima decada del siglo xx y principios del xxi de algunos de losarquitectos mas relevantes de la actualidad. Asf, se muestranedificios que forman parte del debate arquitect6nico actual y quemuestran como sus autores afrontan la arquitectura en relacion conla sociedad y la ciudad.

A huge gathering of the finest American and British song lyricsfrom 1910 to 1975. Robert Kimball, editor of the complete lyrics ofCole Porter, Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart and next year's IrvingBerlin, and Robert Gottlieb, editor of the recent Reading Jazz,have collaborated to choose the 800 or more most distinguishedlyrics of the century, from early P.G. Wodehouse and the IrvingBerlin of Alexander's Ragtime Band through the greats of Broadwayand Hollywood -- Gershwin, Hart, Porter, Berlin, Oscar Hammerstein,Yip Harbourg, Dorothy Fields, Frank Loesser, Noel Coward -- to theearly triumphs of Stephen Sondheim. Plus many writers who arebarely remembered today -- Don Raye ("Mr. Five by Five", "I'llRemember April"), Bobby Troup ("Route 66", "Daddy") -- withsurprises like Ogden Nash, Maxwell Anderson, Dorothy Parker, andTruman Capote. Over 100 lyricists in all, each one introduced witha brief biography and commentary, and presented chronologically, sothat this big volume not only presents the core of an entireliterat

Breaking up is hard to do - and when a relationship turnssour, nothing provides more comfort than the cheesy pop hits of the'70s and '80s. Just as Quirk's I Can't Fight This Feeling was ananthology of classic love poetry, You Give Love a Bad Name featurespoetic writings on breaking up - and moving on - from The Bee Gees,Michael Bolton, Pat Benatar, Hall and Oates, and many others.Packaged in an elegant hardcover volume with a deluxe ribbonmarker, it's the perfect gift for anyone seeking to mend a brokenheart. Includes these timeless classics: - Is She Really Going Out with Him? - Joe Jackson - She's Gone - Hall and Oates - Cold Hearted - Paula Abdul - Alone - Heart - Goodbye to You - Scandal

二胡作为我国优秀的民族乐器，其真正科学化、规范化的发展虽然只是近一百年内斩事，但由于历代作曲家和演奏家们的不懈努力，其发展速度却是惊人的，二胡曲目的积累不止成百上千首，其演春技巧更是令世人瞩目。西方曾把小提琴称为“乐器之后”，而现在已有人把二胡称为“ChineseViolin”，二胡当之无愧。她那富有物色的优美抒情的音色和辉煌耀眼的不亚于小提琴的演奏技巧已深深撼动人们的心灵，中外二胡爱好者已越来越多。 本书包括了自刘天华年代直到近几年来创作并公开发表的、为广大二胡爱好者喜爱却又散见于各种不同版本的优秀二胡独奏曲共44首，既有广泛的代表性，又较为集中地体现了二胡演奏的最高水平，省却了人们到处寻找曲谱的烦恼。可以说是较为实用的二胡曲谱资料库。

“My mother prophesied years ago that my voice would take meplaces. She was certain that there was a reason I was able to sing.I am still discovering what that reason is, what it is that Godwants to happen.” –CLAY AIKEN, from Learning to Sing When he was a kid singing in his church choir, Clay Aiken neverdreamed of becoming a pop music star. His ambition was to be ateacher, maybe even a high school principal. But Clay’s mother wasright, and the music that was Clay’s joy in life was destined tolead him to unexpected triumphs. In Learning to Sing, Clay details what his astonishing successhas meant to him. He writes from the heart about his life beforeand since his instant stardom on American Idol, how he has changed,and how he struggles to adapt to life in the public eye. He speakscandidly about his lonely childhood: the father who abandoned him,the school bullies who tormented him, the mother who taught him tobe strong, and the friends and teachers who–more than they everkne