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  The Ring of Truth - The Wisdom...

  Roger Scruton

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  “Nothing in opera is grander than The Ring, no work more suited to the deep reading the writer gives here.” —Opera News   Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung is one of the greatest works of art created in modern times, and has fascinated both critics and devotees for over a century and a half. No recent study has examined the meaning of Wagner’s masterpiece with the attention to detail and intellectual power that Roger Scruton brings to it in this inspiring account.  The Ring of Truth is an exploration of the drama, music, symbolism, and philosophy of The Ring from a writer whose knowledge and understanding of the Western musical tradition are the equal of his capacities as a philosopher. Scruton shows how, through musical connections and brilliant dramatic strokes, Wagner is able to express truths about the human condition which few other creative artists have been able to convey so convincingly. For Wagner, writes Scruton, the task of art is to “show us freedom in its immediate, contingent, human form, reminding us of what it means to us. Even if we live in a world from which gods and heroes have disappeared we can, by imagining them, dramatize the deep truths of our condition and renew our faith in what we are.”   Love, death, sacrifice and the liberation that we win through sacrifice—these are the great themes of The Ring, as they are of this book. Scruton’s passionate and moving interpretation allows us to understand more fully than ever how Wagner conveys his ideas about who we are, and why TheRing continues to be such a hypnotically absorbing work.   “Scruton’s presentation is grounded throughout in a deep understanding of the culture of Wagner’s era . . . the writing is clear and persuasive.” —Library Journal (starred review)   “A fascinating and valuable study.” —Sunday Times

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  Treasures in the Shadow

  Connie Zweig, Jeremiah Abrams

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  What treasures and dangers lie in the depths of our psyches? The hidden and denied aspects of ourselves that make up our "shadow" include not only "evil" or shameful demons and desires but a wellspring of latent, undiscovered joy and creativity.

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  Beethoven in Words and Music

  Davinia Caddy

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  When we think of Ludwig van Beethoven images of a stormy and passionate but tortured genius are brought to mind, alongside the transformative effect of his work on musical history. All of these things are true, but no artist lives in a vacuum, and even music that opens a portal onto 'the infinite realm of the spirit' has its wider context. Illustrated with music from each period, this enlightening life history tells us about Beethoven's place in society from his earlier career as a fine pianist, his life on the edge of the Napoleonic war, his professional triumphs and many romantic misfortunes, and that famous defiance of deafness and declaration that he would 'seize Fate by the throat'. The musical excerpts included the 'Pathétique' and 'Moonlight' Sonatas, 'Diabelli' Variations, Symphonies Nos. 2,3,6 and 9, 'Emperor' Concerto, Missa solemnis and Fidelio, among many others.

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  Breaking Time's Arrow -...

  Matthew McDonald

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  A critical look at the work of and philosophical influences upon the American Modernist composer. 
   
  Charles Ives (1874–1954) moved traditional compositional practice in new directions by incorporating modern and innovative techniques with nostalgic borrowings of 19th century American popular music and Protestant hymns. Matthew McDonald argues that the influence of Emerson and Thoreau on Ives’s compositional style freed the composer from ordinary ideas of time and chronology, allowing him to recuperate the past as he reached for the musical unknown. McDonald links this concept of the multi-temporal in Ives’s works to Transcendentalist understandings of eternity. His approach to Ives opens new avenues for inquiry into the composer’s eclectic and complex style. 
   
  “A trenchant and intellectually expansive reading of Ives’s relationship to time by connecting several compositions?and indeed, the composer’s larger conceptualization of the past, present, and future?to the Emersonian concept of the “everlasting Now.” This book is a wonderfully written, important contribution to scholarship on the music of Charles Ives.” —Gayle Sherwood Magee, author of Charles Ives Reconsidered 
   
  “McDonald investigates both the temporal and spatial effects of multidirectional motion, as well as its ramifications for understanding some of the larger philosophical issues that are raised in Ives’s music.” —Music & Letters, May 2015 
   
  “McDonald brings together analytic and personal factors to sharpen the image of the composer in convincing ways. . . . This book . . . deserves a close reading. The bibliography provides a select list of scores and recordings as well as articles, books, catalogues, and unpublished commentaries. This book is recommended for college and university libraries and for readers with a music theory background.” —Music Reference Services Quarterly

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  The Private Lives of the...

  Sue Roe

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  New York Times Bestseller“Anyone who has ever lost themselves in Monet’s color-saturated gardens or swooned over Degas’s dancers will enjoy this revealing group portrait of the artists who founded the Impressionist movement. . . . For the armchair dilettante, as well as the art-history student, this is lively, required reading.” — PeopleThe first book to offer an intimate and lively biography of the world’s most popular group of artists, including Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Berthe Morisot, and Mary Cassatt. Though they were often ridiculed or ignored by their contemporaries, today astonishing sums are paid for their paintings. Their dazzling works are familiar to even the most casual art lovers—but how well does the world know the Impressionists as people?Sue Roe's colorful, lively, poignant, and superbly researched biography, The Private Lives of the Impressionists, follows an extraordinary group of artists into their Paris studios, down the rural lanes of Montmartre, and into the rowdy riverside bars of a city undergoing monumental change. Vivid and unforgettable, it casts a brilliant, revealing light on this unparalleled society of genius colleagues who lived and worked together for twenty years and transformed the art world forever with their breathtaking depictions of ordinary life.

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  Bill Hicks: The Essential...

  Bill Hicks

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  The Essential Collection encompasses Bill Hicks’ short but powerful career as a satirist, social critic, and stand-up comedian. It features over two hours of Bill’s best stand up material spanning his entire career including never-before-released bits from a San Ramon, CA performance, a collection of 11 original songs entitled “Lo-Fi Troubadour”, and two digital exclusives- a song called “Ice Cold Macaroni”, and “The Adventure”, a 30 minute travelogue of Hicks talking into a tape recorder on a car trip from New York City to Little Rock, Arkansas.

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