Random House New Releases - Music - Between May 20, 2012 and June 19, 2013.

Rod by Rod Stewart

2013-05-07T00:30:00-05:00

Rod The Autobiography
Written by Rod Stewart

Trade Paperback, 400 pages | Three Rivers Press | Biography & Autobiography - Composers & Musicians; Biography & Autobiography - Rich & Famous; Music - Rock | $16.00 | May 7, 2013 | 978-0-307-98732-7 (0-307-98732-9)

The extraordinary life and career of music legend Rod Stewart, in his own words for the first time.

With his soulful and singular voice, narrative songwriting, and passionate live performances Rod Stewart has paved one of the most iconic and successful music careers of all time. He was the charismatic lead singer for the trailblazing rock and roll bands The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces, and as a solo artist, the author of such beloved songs as "Maggie May," "Tonight’s the Night," "Hot Legs," "Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?," "Young Turks," "Forever Young," and "You Wear It Well." Now after more than five decades in the spotlight, he is finally ready to take a candid and romping look back at his life both on and off the stage. From his humble British roots to his hell-raising years on tour with his bandmates, not forgetting his great loves (including three marriages and eight children) and decades touring the world, Rod delivers a riveting ride through one of rock's most remarkable lives.

From the Hardcover edition.

THE BASS SAXOPHONE by Josef Skvorecky

2013-05-01T00:30:00-05:00

THE BASS SAXOPHONE
Written by Josef Skvorecky

eBook | Knopf | Music - Jazz; Literary Criticism & Collections - Eastern European; Fiction - Literary | $14.99 | May 1, 2013 | 978-0-307-83212-2 (0-307-83212-0)

The two haunting, poetic novellas that comprise The Bass Saxophonebrilliantly evoke the comedy and sadness of life under the Nazi and Soviet dictatorships. They are prefaced by a remarkable memoir of Skvorecky's jazz-obsessed youth. Jazz is a symbol of freedom in both these novellas.

In Emoke, which is set in the shadow of the Communist regime, jazz becomes the means by which a jaded young man plots the seduction of a mysterious girl enmeshed in superstition and the occult. Spurned, but fascinated, he is drawn into her tortured existence until catapulted into the final bitter comedy.

In The Bass Saxophone a young Czechoslovakian student living under the rule of the Nazis is lured by his love of jazz - the "forbidden music" - into secretly and dangerously playing in a German band, with bizarre and unexpected results.

Written with the lyrical intensity of a great jazz performance, these two extraordinary novellas are among Skvorecky's finest works.

Seventeen Famous Operas by Ernest Newman

2013-05-01T00:30:00-05:00

Seventeen Famous Operas
Written by Ernest Newman

eBook | Knopf | Music - Opera; Music - Reference; Biography & Autobiography - Composers & Musicians | $18.99 | May 1, 2013 | 978-0-307-83083-8 (0-307-83083-7)

Musical Motley by Ernest Newman

2013-04-10T00:30:00-05:00

Musical Motley
Written by Ernest Newman

On Music and Musicians by Paul Rosenfeld

2013-04-03T00:30:00-05:00

On Music and Musicians
Written by Robert Schumann
Edited by Konrad Wolff
Translated by Paul Rosenfeld

Edited by Konraad Wolff
Translated by Paul Rosenfeld
With twenty black-and-white illustrations

Schumann’s literary gifts and interests almost equaled his musical ones. From boyhood on he was drawn to literary expression, and his writings on music belong to the best among the romantic literature of the 19th century. The same fire, poetry, directness of expression, the same inventiveness we love in his compositions, also animated his prose.

This edition for the first time groups his articles and observations according to subject matter and individual composers. It is complete as far as Schumann’s writings on the great composers are concerned. All his reviews of the works by the masters, from Beethoven to Brahms, are included, some of them translated for the first time into English.

From the Hardcover edition.

This Business of Global Music Marketing by Tad Lathrop

2013-04-03T00:30:00-05:00

This Business of Global Music Marketing Global Strategies for Maximizing Your Music's Popularity and Profits
Written by Tad Lathrop

Think BIG—capture the global music market.

Worldwide tours, internet downloads, international album distribution–the global market for music is expanding with lightning speed, and that means big opportunities for everyone in the music business. The main obstacle? Lack of knowledge. The world market is packed with opportunity, but it's also full of cultural, regulatory, administrative, legal, political, and logistical pitfalls. This Business of™ Global Music Marketing offers a map of the world, with full information on how to break into the global market, how to distribute records abroad, how to find an audience, how to package records to appeal to local markets, how to establish partnerships with foreign businesses, how to deal with different rules of trade, and much more. A companion volume to author Tad Lathrop's top-selling This Business of™ Music Marketing and Promotion, This Business of™ Global Music Marketing offers everyone in the music business a chance to go global.

Franz Liszt, Volume 1 by Alan Walker

2013-03-20T00:30:00-05:00

Franz Liszt, Volume 1 The Virtuoso Years: 1811-1847
Written by Alan Walker

Franz Liszt--child prodigy, virtuoso pianist, co-founder with Chopin and Schumann of the Romantic movement in music--has been the subject of literally hundreds of biographies, but it is only in the last few decades that the importance of Liszt the composer, as opposed to Liszt the Romantic hero, has been recognized. This new perspective has created the need for a fresh, full-scale approach, biographical and critical, to the evaluation of the man and his music.

For more than ten years Alan Walker, a leading authority on nineteenth-century music and the author of important studies of Chopin and Schumann, has traveled throughout Europe discovering unpublished material in museums and private collections, in the parish registries of tiny villages in Austria and Hungary, and in major archives in Weimar and Budapest, seeking out new information and corroborating or correcting the old. He has left virtually no source unexamined--from the hundreds of contemporary biographies (many of them more fiction than fact) to the scores of memoirs, reminisces, and diaries of his pupils and disciples (the list of his students from his Weimar masterclasses reads like a Burke's Peerage of pianists). Dr. Walker's efforts have culminated in a study that will stand as definitive for years to come. A feat of impeccable scholarship, it also displays a strong and compelling narrative impulse and a profound understanding of the complicated man Liszt was.

In this, the first of three volumes, Dr. Walker examines in greater detail than has ever before been amassed Liszt's family background and his early years. We see "Franzi," a deeply religious and mystical child, whose extraordinary musical gifts lead to studies with the great Carl Czerny in Vienna and propel him into overnight fame in Paris--his youthful opera,Don Sanche, performed when he is fourteen--and in a disorderly and impulsive way of life by the time he is sixteen . . . We see Liszt drifting into obscurity after a nervous breakdown at the age of seventeen, then hearing Paganini for the first time and being so fired by the violinist's amazing technique that he sets for himself a titanic program of work, his aim no less than to create an entirely new repertoire for the piano....We see him, after years if successful touring, returning triumphantly to Hungary, his homeland, and publishing in the same year his "Transcendental" and "Paganini" studies. the signposts of his astonishing technical breakthrough....Finally, we see Liszt at the height of his artistic powers, giving well over a thousand concerts across Europe and Russia during the years 1839-47: "inventing" the modern piano recital, playing entire programs from memory, performing the complete contemporary piano repertoire, breaking down the barriers that had traditionally separated performing artists from their "social superiors," fostering the Romantic view of the artist as superior bring, because divinely gifted . . . until--his colossal career virtually impossible to sustain--he gives his last paid performance at the age of thirty-five . . .

Unparalleled in its completeness, its soundness of documentation, and in the quality of its writing, The Virtuoso Years is the first volume of what will unquestionably be the most important biography of Franz Liszt in English or any other language.

Franz Liszt, Volume 2 by Alan Walker

2013-03-20T00:30:00-05:00

Franz Liszt, Volume 2 The Weimar Years: 1848-1861
Written by Alan Walker

The second volume in Alan Walker's magisterial biography of Franz Liszt.

"You can't help but keep turning the pages, wondering how it will all turn out: and Walker's accumulated readings of Liszt's music have to be taken seriously indeed."-D. Kern Holoman, New York Review of Books

"A conscientious scholar passionate about his subject. Mr. Walker makes the man and his age come to life. These three volumes will be the definitive work to which all subsequent Liszt biographies will aspire."-Harold C. Schonberg, Wall Street Journal

"What distinguishes Walker from Liszt's dozens of earlier biographers is that he is equally strong on the music and the life. A formidable musicologist with a lively polemical style, he discusses the composer's works with greater understanding and clarity than any previous biographer. And whereas many have recycled the same erroneous, often damaging information, Walker has relied on his own prodigious, globe-trotting research, a project spanning twenty-five years. The result is a textured portrait of Liszt and his times without rival."-Elliot Ravetz, Time

"The prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative. . . . This three-part work . . . is now the definitive work on Liszt in English and belongs in all music collections."-Library Journal

The Baroness by Hannah Rothschild

2013-03-19T00:30:00-05:00

The Baroness The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild
Written by Hannah Rothschild

Beautiful, romantic and spirited, Pannonica, known as Nica, named after her father’s favorite moth, was born in 1913 to extraordinary, eccentric privilege and a storied history. The Rothschild family had, in only five generations, risen from the ghetto in Frankfurt to stately homes in England. As a child, Nica took her daily walks, dressed in white, with her two sisters and governess around the parkland of the vast house at Tring, Hertfordshire, among kangaroos, giant tortoises, emus and zebras, all part of the exotic menagerie collected by her uncle Walter. As a debutante, she was taught to fly by a saxophonist and introduced to jazz by her brother Victor; she married Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, settled in a château in France and had five children. When World War II broke out, Nica and her five children narrowly escaped back to England, but soon after, she set out to find her husband who was fighting with the Free French Army in Africa, where she helped the war effort by being a decoder, a driver and organizing supplies and equipment.

In the early 1950s Nica heard “’Round Midnight” by the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and, as if under a powerful spell, abandoned her marriage and moved to New York to find him. She devoted herself to helping Monk and other musicians: she bailed them out of jail, paid their bills, took them to the hospital, even drove them to their gigs, and her convertible Bentley could always be seen parked outside downtown clubs or up in Harlem. Charlie Parker would notoriously die in her apartment in the Stanhope Hotel. But it was Monk who was the love of her life and whom she cared for until his death in 1982.

Hannah Rothschild has drawn on archival material and her own interviews in this quest to find out who her great-aunt really was and how she fit into a family that, although passionate about music and entomology, was reactionary in always favoring men over women. Part musical odyssey, part love story, The Baroness is a fascinating portrait of a modern figure ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted, finally, at the very center of New York’s jazz scene.

The Baroness by Hannah Rothschild

2013-03-19T00:30:00-05:00

The Baroness The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild
Written by Hannah Rothschild

QUARTET PLAYING,ART OF by David Blum

2013-03-13T00:30:00-05:00

QUARTET PLAYING,ART OF
Written by David Blum

How do four instrumentalists with strong individual tastes and temperaments manage to forge a distinctive approach to the music they play? This extraordinary book ushers readers into the workshop of one of the world's most accomplished string quartets. In rich and probing conversations with their longtime friend and musicologist and conductor David Blum, the members of the Guarneri String Quartet, both individually as a group, tell what it is like to play together.

Swissted by Mike Joyce

2013-03-05T00:30:00-05:00

Swissted Vintage Rock Posters Remixed and Reimagined
Written by Mike Joyce

“Fine art for font nerds.”—New York Magazine

“One of the most engaging homages I have ever seen.”—Steven Heller

Swissted takes rock concert posters of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s and remixes and reimagines them through a Swiss modernist lens. The result is some of the coolest images you’ve ever seen! The book features 200 posters, all microperforated and ready to frame. Or keep them bound in one collection as an art book. The foreword is written by legendary designer Steven Heller.

Posters are from legendary indie, alternative, and punk bands such as Jane’s Addiction, Blondie, the Beastie Boys, the Clash, the Pixies, Green Day, the Ramones, Devo, the Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Public Image Ltd., Sonic Youth, the Cure, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hüsker Dü, Danzig, the Replacements, Fugazi, the Lemonheads, Pearl Jam, Pavement, Superchunk, They Might Be Giants, Guided by Voices, Sugar, Sleater Kinney, Violent Femmes, Iggy Pop, Fishbone, Nirvana, and many, many more!

Swissted by Mike Joyce

2013-03-05T00:30:00-05:00

Swissted Vintage Rock Posters Remixed and Reimagined
Written by Mike Joyce

Days That I'll Remember by Jonathan Cott

2013-02-12T00:30:00-05:00

Days That I'll Remember Spending Time with John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Written by Jonathan Cott

Jonathan Cott met John Lennon in 1968 and was friends with him and Yoko Ono until John's death in 1980. He has kept in touch with Yoko since that time, and is one of the small group of writers who understands her profoundly positive influence on Lennon. This deeply personal book recounts the course of those friendships over the decades and provides an intimate look at two of the most astonishing cultural figures of our time. And what Jonathan Cott has to say and tell will be found nowhere else.

Days That I'll Remember by Jonathan Cott

2013-02-12T00:30:00-05:00

Days That I'll Remember Spending Time with John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Written by Jonathan Cott

Come As You Are by Michael Azerrad

2013-01-23T00:30:00-05:00

Come As You Are The Story of Nirvana
Written by Michael Azerrad

Nirvana came out of nowhere in 1991 to sell nearly five million copies of their landmark album Nevermind, whose thunderous sound and indelible melodies embodied all the confusion, frustration, and passion of the emerging Generation X. Come As You Are is the close-up, intimate story of Nirvana -- the only book with exclusive in-depth interviews with bandmembers Kurt Cobain, Krist Noveselic, and Dave Grohl, as well as friends, relatives, former bandmembers, and associates -- now updated to include a new final chapter detailing the last year of Kurt Cobain's life, before his tragic suicide in April 1994.

Tiger Rag by Nicholas Christopher

2013-01-01T00:30:00-05:00

Tiger Rag A Novel
Written by Nicholas Christopher

The acclaimed author of Veronica and A Trip to the Stars returns with a dazzling new novel based on one of the great legends of musical history.

New Orleans, 1900. The virtuoso cornet player Charles “Buddy” Bolden invents jazz, but after a life consumed by tragedy, the groundbreaking sound of his horn vanishes with him. Rumors persist, though, that Bolden recorded a phonograph cylinder, and over the course of a century it evolves into the elusive holy grail of jazz.

Florida, the present day. Dr. Ruby Cardillo’s life is falling apart. Her husband, a prominent cardiologist, has left her for a twenty-six-year-old. Her daughter, Devon, a once promising jazz pianist, has recently finished an enforced stint picking up trash along the interstate after a drug conviction. Ruby’s estranged mother has just died, but not before conjuring up ghosts that Ruby thought she had put behind her long ago. After a long career as a well-respected anesthesiologist, Ruby suddenly jumps the tracks, forgetting to eat and sleep, indulging her every whim, wearing only purple, consuming only bottles of 1988 Château Latour.

Then Ruby enlists Devon to accompany her on an impulsive road trip to New York, and both mother and daughter get more than they bargained for, discovering that their own shrouded family history is connected to the tantalizing search for Buddy Bolden’s long-lost cylinder.

Ranging from turn-of-the-century Louisiana to Roaring Twenties Chicago to contemporary Manhattan, Tiger Rag is at once a moving story of loss and redemption and an intricate historical mystery from one of our most brilliant storytellers.

Praise for Tiger Rag

“The structure here is like a long and complex jazz arrangement. There is a comparatively simple theme set up against what might be thought of as distinctive chord changes. And then, against this main story, the author sets up what might be seen as highly individualistic solos. The themes of the male performers and the female audiences come together, separate, then come together again. If you love the world of jazz, if it’s a little like a religion to you, you’ll love this ambitious, thoughtful novel.” —The Washington Post

“Describing music in a book is a bit like trying to describe color to a blind person; it rarely goes well. The opening stretch of Nicholas Christopher’s latest novel Tiger Rag, however, paints a picture of a jazz recording session so vividly that the reader might want to keep a towel handy for mopping his brow James Brown-style.” —GQ.com

“Nicholas Christopher's new novel, Tiger Rag, is a New Year's treat that lovers of good music and good writing should not deny themselves. . . . Nicholas is a master at building a rich story populated with vivid characters on the bare foundation of historical record. Although no recording of Bolden and his band has yet surfaced, his sideman Willy Cornish, a trombone player, died claiming a recording session took place. Nicholas has imagined a satisfying and engrossing tale about what might have happened. He has fleshed out the lives touched by the wax cylinders that stored three versions of “Tiger Rag.” From the musicians who played with or followed Bolden, to the recording engineer and his assistant at the fateful recording session, Nicholas has created a colourful cast whose stories draw readers into their lives. . . . Nicholas is a poet as well as a novelist, and the book sings, thanks to his compelling descriptions and use of imagery. . . . [C]ompulsively readable.” —The Toronto Star

Tiger Rag by Nicholas Christopher

2013-01-01T00:30:00-05:00

Tiger Rag A Novel
Written by Nicholas Christopher

The Essential Classical Recordings by Rick Phillips

2012-12-18T00:30:00-05:00

The Essential Classical Recordings 100 CDs for Today's Listener
Written by Rick Phillips

Most guides to classical recordings on CD comprise thousands of brief listings. In their attempt to be comprehensive, they end up being heavy and intimidating. Phillips knows better. He sticks to what he considers to be the 101 essential CDs, and tells readers not only why each one is the best recording in his opinion, but also why this piece of music belongs in their collection and where thecomposer fits into the evolution of classical music. Read consecutively, the recommendations — from medieval Gregorian chant to Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, written in 1977 — form a dazzling and concise history of classical music.

Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart are here, of course, along with other beloved but lesser-known composers, such as Josquin Desprez, Anton Bruckner, and Gabriel Fauré. And popular pieces, such as Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Handel’s The Water Music, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations, are complemented by such less-familiar but outstanding compositions as the Turangalila Symphony by Olivier Messiaen.

Connoisseurs and die-hard listeners to “Sound Advice” will appreciate having Phillips’s recommendations of specific recordings (and their catalogue numbers) between two covers at long last. And those who are just starting to explore the rich world of classical music will soon discover that Phillips is a guide they can trust.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Random House New Releases - Music - Between May 20, 2012 and June 19, 2013.

More Stories of Famous Operas by Ernest Newman

More Stories of Famous Operas Written by Ernest Newman

Rod by Rod Stewart

Rod The AutobiographyWritten by Rod Stewart

THE BASS SAXOPHONE by Josef Skvorecky

THE BASS SAXOPHONE Written by Josef Skvorecky

Seventeen Famous Operas by Ernest Newman

Seventeen Famous Operas Written by Ernest Newman

Musical Motley by Ernest Newman

Musical Motley Written by Ernest Newman

On Music and Musicians by Paul Rosenfeld

On Music and Musicians Written by Robert Schumann Edited by Konrad Wolff Translated by Paul Rosenfeld

This Business of Global Music Marketing by Tad Lathrop

This Business of Global Music Marketing Global Strategies for Maximizing Your Music's Popularity and ProfitsWritten by Tad Lathrop

Franz Liszt, Volume 1 by Alan Walker

Franz Liszt, Volume 1 The Virtuoso Years: 1811-1847Written by Alan Walker

Franz Liszt, Volume 2 by Alan Walker

Franz Liszt, Volume 2 The Weimar Years: 1848-1861Written by Alan Walker

The Baroness by Hannah Rothschild

The Baroness The Search for Nica, the Rebellious RothschildWritten by Hannah Rothschild

The Baroness by Hannah Rothschild

The Baroness The Search for Nica, the Rebellious RothschildWritten by Hannah Rothschild

QUARTET PLAYING,ART OF by David Blum

QUARTET PLAYING,ART OF Written by David Blum

Swissted by Mike Joyce

Swissted Vintage Rock Posters Remixed and ReimaginedWritten by Mike Joyce

Swissted by Mike Joyce

Swissted Vintage Rock Posters Remixed and ReimaginedWritten by Mike Joyce

Days That I'll Remember by Jonathan Cott

Days That I'll Remember Spending Time with John Lennon and Yoko OnoWritten by Jonathan Cott

Days That I'll Remember by Jonathan Cott

Days That I'll Remember Spending Time with John Lennon and Yoko OnoWritten by Jonathan Cott

Come As You Are by Michael Azerrad

Come As You Are The Story of NirvanaWritten by Michael Azerrad

Tiger Rag by Nicholas Christopher

Tiger Rag A NovelWritten by Nicholas Christopher

Tiger Rag by Nicholas Christopher

Tiger Rag A NovelWritten by Nicholas Christopher

The Essential Classical Recordings by Rick Phillips

The Essential Classical Recordings 100 CDs for Today's ListenerWritten by Rick Phillips

More Stories of Famous Operas
Written by Ernest Newman

Rod The Autobiography
Written by Rod Stewart

THE BASS SAXOPHONE
Written by Josef Skvorecky

Seventeen Famous Operas
Written by Ernest Newman

Musical Motley
Written by Ernest Newman

On Music and Musicians
Written by Robert Schumann
Edited by Konrad Wolff
Translated by Paul Rosenfeld

This Business of Global Music Marketing Global Strategies for Maximizing Your Music's Popularity and Profits
Written by Tad Lathrop

Franz Liszt, Volume 1 The Virtuoso Years: 1811-1847
Written by Alan Walker

Franz Liszt, Volume 2 The Weimar Years: 1848-1861
Written by Alan Walker

The Baroness The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild
Written by Hannah Rothschild

The Baroness The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild
Written by Hannah Rothschild

QUARTET PLAYING,ART OF
Written by David Blum

Swissted Vintage Rock Posters Remixed and Reimagined
Written by Mike Joyce

Swissted Vintage Rock Posters Remixed and Reimagined
Written by Mike Joyce

Days That I'll Remember Spending Time with John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Written by Jonathan Cott

Days That I'll Remember Spending Time with John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Written by Jonathan Cott

Come As You Are The Story of Nirvana
Written by Michael Azerrad

Tiger Rag A Novel
Written by Nicholas Christopher

Tiger Rag A Novel
Written by Nicholas Christopher

The Essential Classical Recordings 100 CDs for Today's Listener
Written by Rick Phillips