Variations on a Haunting Theme


Book Description

What begins as a seemingly innocent invitation to dinner from a relative stranger turns into something more sinister. Persuaded to stay for three days in the stranger’s isolated house, the guest hears six bizarre stories of people known to the host. The last of these chilling tales concerns the host himself and has an alarming ending. When the guest returns to his own home, the tales he’s heard continue to haunt him and where they lead makes his own story the strangest of all.




The Ghost Variations


Book Description

Ghost stories tap into our most primal emotions as they encourage us to confront the timeless question: What comes after death? Here, in tales that are by turn scary, funny, philosophic, and touching, you’ll find that question sharpened, split, reconsidered—and met with a multitude of answers. A spirit who is fated to spend eternity reliving the exact moment she lost her chance at love, ghostly trees that haunt the occupant of a wooden house, specters that snatch anyone who steps into the shadows, and parakeets that serve as mouthpieces for the dead: these are just a few of the characters in this extraordinary compendium of one hundred ghost stories. Kevin Brockmeier’s fiction has always explored the space between the fantastical and the everyday with profundity and poignancy. As in his previous books, The Ghost Variations discovers new ways of looking at who we are and what matters to us, exploring how mysterious, sad, strange, and comical it is to be alive—or, as it happens, not to be.




Themes and Variations in Shakespeare's Sonnets


Book Description

First published in 1961. This study analyses Shakespeare's treatment of the universal themes of Beauty, Love and Time. He compares Shakespeare with other great poets and sonnet writers - Pindar, Horace and Ovid, with Petrarch, Tasso and Ronsart, with Shakespeare's own English predecessors and contemporaries, notably Spenser, Daniel and Drayton and with John Donne. By discussing their resemblances and differences, a not altogether orthodox picture of Shakespeare's attitude to life is presented, which suggests that he was not as phlegmatic and equable a person as critics have often supposed.




Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven, 1781-1802


Book Description

A vivid portrait of Mozart and Haydn's greatest achievements and young Beethoven's works under their influence.




Voices in the Wilderness


Book Description

Despite the Modernist search for new and innovative aesthetics and rejection of traditional tonality, several twentieth century composers have found their own voice while steadfastly relying on the aesthetics and techniques of Romanticism and 19th century composition principles. Musicological and reference texts have regarded these composers as isolated exceptions to modern thoughts of composition—exceptions of little importance, treated simplistically and superficially. Music critic and scholar Walter Simmons, however, believes these composers and their works should be taken seriously. They are worthy of more scholarly consideration, and deserve proper analysis, assessment, and discussion in their own regard. In Voices in the Wilderness, the first in a series of books celebrating the "Twentieth-Century Traditionalist," Simmons looks at six Neo-Romantic composers: Ernest Bloch Howard Hanson Vittorio Giannini Paul Creston Samuel Barber Nicolas Flagello Through biographical overviews and a comprehensive assessment of musical works, Simmons provides readers with a clear understanding of the significance of the composers, their bodies of work, and their placement in musicological history. The chapters delve deeply and objectively into each composer's oeuvre, addressing their origins, stylistic traits and consistencies, phases of development, strengths and weaknesses, and affinities with other composers. The composers' most representative works are identified, and each chapter concludes with a discography of essential recordings. Visit the author's website to read samples from the book and to listen to representative excerpts of each composer's work.




Musical News


Book Description




Six Days Till Sunday


Book Description

AARON THE WAYSHOWER is the author's spokesman who appears in each of a series of novels to combat some form of subhuman behavior. The first novel, SIX DAYS TILL SUNDAY, centers upon the enslavement of one racial group by another racial group and brings Aaron for a visit to America's antebellum South (1855 - 1857) to oppose the institution of human bondage. In the Kingdom of Verde on Earth's sister planet of Aumni, sixty million blacks enslave twenty million whites, creating an economic imbalance between Verde and the other seven kingdoms (the Allies) who have NO slave labor to bolster THEIR economies. Verde has built up an enormous military power to protect its "way of life," the institution of slavery within its borders. At great cost to their economies, the Allies have countered by building an equivalent military force to protect the freedom of whites living within THEIR borders. Both sides are fully armed with nuclear weapons, and no one doubts that an all-out war would terminate human life on this beautiful two-mooned planet of Aumni. Aaron seeks to convert Prince Vada (soon to be King of Verde) from pro-slave to abolitionist. To achieve this crucial goal, he convinces Vada to translate to Earth and experience life as a bondsman in America's Southland of 1855. ... What will be the outcome? Most readers should easily become interested in what Aaron says and does. He's not just another great teacher (Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad). He is the procreator of a Life-Stream which includes Earthlings as a tiny fraction of his total Progeny. Even more important, the TOTALITY of his responsibilities is similar in scope to that which each of US must one day assume! ULTIMATE QUESTION:LIFE AFTER DEATH? ANSWER: www.beyondanydoubt.com OTHER BIG QUESTIONS: Why are we here? What's it all about? Where are we going? Why? How long will it take? What happens when we get there? (Many other questions of similar scope.) ASSUMPTIONS MADE: A well-ordered infinite universe. A meaningful placement of mankind within it. THE ANSWERS: ANSWERS to these BIG QUESTIONS are found in a series of novels written by Fred Gaertner, Writer, Philosopher, Metaphysician, Etc., and in the related music composed by Marie and Fred Gaertner. PURPOSE OF THIS WEB SITE The purpose of this site is to provide a summary of Gaertnerian novels and their related music, musicals, and screen dramas currently available for ordering through Xlibris. In each story the principal characters seek ANSWERS to some of our BIG QUESTIONS. When the author supplies ANSWERS for these characters, he is, of course, supplying them for his readers as well. DO ENJOY THE PERSONAL UPLIFTMENT THAT ONLY AN EXPANDED VIEW OF THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE CAN PROVIDE! (Web site) SITE MAP HOME PAGE 1 SITE MAP 2 ITEMS FOR ORDERING 3 BACKGROUND FOR THE NOVELS 4 NOVEL 1 - SIX DAYS TILL SUNDAY 5,6,7 ORDERING FROM XLIBRIS 8 ITEMS FOR ORDERING At present only the first novel is available for ordering. As soon as other items: additional novels, CDs of the related music, and videos of the derived screenplays are completed, they will be described (sampled) in these pages and made available through Xlibris. Why not "bookmark" this site for on-going literary, musical, and dramatic additions to THE ANSWERS? Thank you for your interest in our work! BACKGROUND FOR THE NOVELS © Fred Gaertner Throughout our boundless cosmos humanity manifests by way of an infinite number of Life-Streams, each literally fathered by its own Wayshower. Each mature Life-Stream presently occupies a sequence of nonillions of Higher-Order Universes. The Stream to which Earthlings belong is a mere "child" among such structures,




Themes on a Variation


Book Description




All Music Guide to Classical Music


Book Description

Offering comprehensive coverage of classical music, this guide surveys more than eleven thousand albums and presents biographies of five hundred composers and eight hundred performers, as well as twenty-three essays on forms, eras, and genres of classical music. Original.




Music by Max Steiner


Book Description

In this biography the author interweaves the dramatic incidents of Steiner's personal life with an accessible exploration of his composing methods and experiences