Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Since Gustav Mahler was rediscovered in the early 1960s, his symphonies have become arguably the most popular works in the modern orchestral repertoire. Mahler's Symphonies: An Owner's Manual is the first discussion of the ten completed symphonies (No. 1-9 plus "The Song of the Earth") to offer music lovers and record collectors a comprehensive overview of the music itself, what it sounds like, how it is organized, its form, content, and meaning,...
Author
Series
Elemental masters volume 4
Publisher
Distributed by the Penguin Group (USA)
Pub. Date
c2004
Language
English
Description
Upon the death of her father, Eleanor Robinson falls victim to her stepmother, a cruel Elemental Master of Earth, until heroic pilot Reginald Fenyx returns home, and together these two lost souls must find the courage to overcome evil.
83) Beginner
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
This comprehensive video encompasses all aspects of beginning gymnastics for boys and men. Topics covered include: techniques and progressions for floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars and the horizontal bar. Coach Mark Williams provides all the basic information gymnastics coaches and instructors need to make their coaching experiences successful. This program was designed to help coaches develop basic skills in young gymnasts....
Author
Language
English
Description
Longtime friends Helen Levine and Oonagh Berry decided they missed the tradition of "real" letters. The obvious solution for them was to initiate a correspondence project. Their goal? To write each other a longhand letter every two weeks for a year, and see what, if anything, they were missing in their usual friendship rituals of lunches, visits and telephone chats. The result is a wealth of insights yielded from over 150 years of combined life experience....
Author
Language
English
Description
Frank Denby and Groucho Marx arrive on the set of the new Ty-Gor film, a Tarzan knockoff, expecting to have Groucho do his humorous walk-on. What they find is that Randy Spellman, the star of the picture, has been murdered. Frank's wife, Jane, is only a few weeks away from having their baby and the amateur detective team has promised to lay off on the sleuthing. But when a stuntwoman who has gone missing is suspected of the murder, Jane insists they...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Ordained as a priest, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi became one of Europe s most popular composers during the early part of the eighteenth century. He wrote hundreds of concertos, dozens of operas, and many sacred works before his music fell out of fashion during the latter part of his life. He died in obscurity and his work suffered a similar fate for almost two centuries. His music was rescued from oblivion in the 1930s. His most famous work, The Four Seasons,...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
More than any other musician in the early twentieth century, Duke Ellington brought jazz into nightclubs and later into the living rooms of America. The music he played sprang in part from the blues and gospel rhythms of the plantation slaves living in the mid-nineteenth century, infused with the sounds of ragtime from the turn of the century. Jazz has been called the first musical form created in the United States. It was a type of sharp improvisation...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Many people believed that Hungarian-born Franz Liszt was the greatest piano player of all time. Certainly, he was the first musical superstar. During an eight-year concert tour in the 1840s, he revolutionized the way that pianists performed in public. He had several love affairs before taking Holy Orders in the Catholic Church. One of the most versatile figures in music history, he was also a composer, concert promoter, and conductor. He was a very...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
From an early age, Frederic Chopin displayed natural musical ability. Often compared to Mozart, Chopin was invited to play for members of the aristocracy in small, private concerts. But, unlike Mozart, his parents did not take advantage of his childhood talent. Frederic Chopin left his Polish homeland behind when he was only 20 and lived most of his life in Paris, France, the cultural hub of Europe. His genius as a pianist and composer flowered there...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
George Gershwin couldn't seem to stay out of trouble when he was a boy. He was a tough kid who got in a lot of fights and frequently skipped school. When his family bought a piano, his life was transformed. He quickly mastered the instrument, and then dropped out of school when he was fifteen to become a musician. Within a year, he had sold his first song. When he was 20, he wrote his first big hit. Five years after that, Rhapsody in Blue catapulted...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
What is probably the most famous pairing in musical history began without fanfare in 1871 when writer William S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan teamed up to produce a Christmas entertainment called Thespis. The two men parted ways soon afterward and it took a theatrical promoter named Richard D Oyly Carter to reunite them four years later. Their first big hit came in 1878 with their operetta H.M.S. Pinafore. It reached the United States the...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Giuseppe Verdi was born in obscurity in a tiny Italian village in 1813. When he died in 1901, hundreds of thousands of people turned out to pay their respects to the man whom many people consider as the best opera composer of all time. His career spanned more than half a century and included such successes as Rigoletto, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Otello, Falstaff, and Aida, the most often-performed work at New York s Metropolitan Opera. Yet when he...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
French composer Hector Berlioz believed in love at first sight. When he was 23, he attended a performance of Shakespeare s play Hamlet and fell head over heels in love with Harriet Smithson, an English actress who had a leading role. Harriet didn't show any interest in him. She ignored his letters. When he tried to meet her backstage, she ordered the guard to throw him out.
Berlioz was hurt and angry. He wanted revenge. He got it by murdering Harriet...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Stravinsky was a prolific composer for well over half a century, achieving success in a variety of musical styles. An exile from his native Russia for 48 years, he finally returned in 1962 to a great deal of acclaim. Many people consider him one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, with such great compositions as The Rite of Spring, The Firebird, and Petrushka, which remain his most popular pieces.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
When Leonard Bernstein died in 1990 at the age of 72, one of his admirers said he was actually 288 because he led four separate lives: as a conductor, a composer, a pianist, and a teacher. No other American musician has ever had such a diverse career. A sickly boy, Bernstein discovered music when he was about 10 and pursued a musical career despite his father s objections. He became literally an overnight sensation when he was 25. With only a few...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Nineteenth century German composer Richard Wagner s Ring of the Nibelung consists of four separate operas. Also known as the Ring Cycle, it was the crowning point of Wagner s career. Wagner was somewhat of a late bloomer in music. His first major composition was performed when he was nearly 30, and the Ring Cycle premiered when he was 53. While Wagner was among the world's greatest composers, he was not a particularly good person. He didn't repay...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
As a member of the first generation of African Americans who were born just after the end of slavery, Scott Joplin faced a world of unique challenges. His musical family scraped out a living by sharecropping and cleaning houses-but Scott was exceptionally gifted, and his mother made sure he got piano lessons. Classically trained, he spent several years playing in churches and saloons. While for a time he wanted to compose classical music, he was drawn...
Author
Series
Masters of Horror volume 7
Language
English
Description
Detective Dwight Faraday is a burned-out cop demoted to the "weird calls" desk until a series of bizarre murders suddenly grabs his attention: Several men killed by massive blunt-force trauma while in a state of sexual arousal, all last seen in the company of a sexy Native American woman. But when it's discovered that these corpses were trampled into hamburger by what appear to be hooves, Faraday must hunt a killer who may not be totally human. Will...