Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Abba's Abba Gold

  Elizabeth Vincentelli

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  Starting a song with the chorus is the equivalent of drawing your gun too early in a shoot-out, of revealing your hand too hastily in a poker game: Once you’ve given everything you have, where’s the pay off? And yet “Dancing Queen” doesn’t flag after its flamboyant beginning: The chorus acts as both teaser and pay off. Ironically for a band that was supposed to be a bunch of control freaks with a solution to every technical or musical conundrum, it later surfaced that “Dancing Queen” starts with the chorus because Abba just couldn’t figure out how to make it work any other way.Perhaps more than any other Greatest Hits compilation, Abba Gold has come to define a band’s career on one disk. More than that, its release in 1992 heralded the critical rehabilitation of a group which had, since its demise a decade earlier, become little more than a memory of trashy costumes and cheesy tunes to many people. Here, Elisabeth Vincentelli charts the circumstances surrounding the birth of Abba Gold, looks at the impact it had on the music world, and tells the stories behind some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.

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  The Science of Music - How...

  Andrew May

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  Music is shaped by the science of sound.
  
  How can music - an artform - have anything to do with science? Yet there are myriad ways in which the two are intertwined, from the basics of music theory and the design of instruments to hi-fi systems and how the brain processes music.
  
  Science writer Andrew May traces the surprising connections between science and music, from the theory of sound waves to the way musicians use mathematical algorithms to create music.
  
  The most obvious impact of science on music can be seen in the way electronic technology has revolutionised how we create, record and listen to music. Technology has also provided new insights into the effects that different music has on the brain, to the extent that some algorithms can now predict our reactions with uncanny accuracy, which raises a worrying question: how long will it be before AI can create music on a par with humans?

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  Ludwig van Beethoven: The Life...

  Editors Charles River

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  Among all of history’s greatest musicians, few have been as admired or influential as Ludwig van Beethoven, whose name remains synonymous with composing. Works like his Fifth and Ninth symphonies remain instantly recognizable over 200 years after they were composed, and their sweeping and grandiose nature are made all the more amazing by the fact that their author was gradually going deaf and couldn’t hear music very well by the time he was composing them. Similarly, the “Moonlight Sonata” and "Für Elise" are renowned across the world and are some of the most famous piano pieces of all time. 
  At the same time, Beethoven’s work ushered in a new era in art, helping the transition from the Classical era to the Romantic era. In the 180 years since his death, Beethoven has been enshrined by modern society as one of the most esteemed classical composers in the history of civilization, but he had a profound and immediate influence on the German musical lineage that would pass through Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss all the way to composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. At a time when music was very much viewed as science, Beethoven was a giant in the field, and as such he was viewed as a genius. As Beethoven himself once put it, “Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.” 
  In terms of assessing the essence of Beethoven’s era, character or musical output, no unqualified categorization is possible, for he straddled a titanic shifting of social ideologies, performance and compositional practices, intra-continental upheavals and an emergence of the championed self in all forms of civic and artistic expressions. The ideals of the Enlightenment, an intellectual tide that swept throughout the late 18th century and opened the door to a new individualism, did not remain static through his lifetime.

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  The Van Morrison Quiz Book -...

  Mart Matthews

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  How much do you really know about Van The Man? You can find out by exploring the 1,000 questions set out in 100 categories that make up the Van Morrison Quiz Book.
  How many books on Van Morrison include references to the Volkswagen Beetle, Muhammad Ali, Robin Hood, Francis Ford Coppola, the Derby, Private Eye, Charlie Parker, WC Fields and Picasso? This one does!
  Try these for size:
  1. Moonshine whiskey is illegal in many countries, but which two legal drinks can also be found in the lyrics of the song of that title?
  2. Which group of women who made an appearance on the first Leonard Cohen album reappeared on Van Morrison's Veedon Fleece?
  3. Of which honour bestowed upon Van Morrison in 2013 did some people want him stripped in 2020 because of his views on measures used by the UK government during the Covid pandemic?4. What was the first Van Morrison album to have a number in its title?

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  A Musical Tribute to Dr Martin...

  Raymond Sturgis

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  There is no audiobook on the market today that gives such a beautiful tribute to the lives of Dr. King and his wife Coretta Scott King. Raymond Sturgis is known for his artistry and music selling across the world where many authors have no such fans, this is a masterpiece. This book reminds the world that freedom is still in need of fighting for, due to the political hate from Republicans trying their best to strip Americans of their freedoms. Therefore, enjoy the message in this enormous tribute to civil rights and those who died and fought for civil liberties.

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  Our Lady of the World's Fair -...

  Ruth D. Nelson

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  Driven by different motives, Robert Moses and Francis Cardinal Spellman had the same vision: to display Michelangelo's masterpiece, the Pietà, in the Vatican's pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. 
   
   
   
  As Ruth D. Nelson gracefully showcases, Moses believed this blockbuster would guarantee the fair's financial success. At the same time, Spellman, Archbishop of New York and the spiritual leader of Cold War America's Catholic community, hoped that at a time of domestic strife and global conflict, the Pietà's presence would have a positive spiritual impact on the nation. Although the fair did not turn out to be the financial bonanza that Moses expected, the Pietà drew record crowds of the faithful, art lovers, and the curious. 
   
   
   
  Nelson's fascinating uncovering of the intensive planning that went into designing the pavilion, transporting the art piece across the Atlantic, and coordinating Pope Paul VI's visit to New York in 1965—the first papal visit to the Western Hemisphere—demonstrates the sheer scale and opportunity of the two men's endeavors. Our Lady of the World's Fair depicts the skepticism and fierce criticism that faced the two New York power brokers. Rather than letting the negative weigh them down, they united and called on every resource at their disposal to make this unlikely cultural coup possible.

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