Kokoschka and Music


Book Description

The link between painting and music in the works of Oscar Kokoschka is explored in this original volume.




Kokoschka


Book Description

The Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980) achieved global fame with his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes. In this first English-language biography, Rüdiger Görner depicts the artist in all his fascinating and contradictory complexity. He traces Kokoschka’s path from bête noire of the bourgeoisie and “hunger artist” who had to flee the Nazis to a wealthy and cosmopolitan political and critical artist who played a significant role in shaping the European art scene of the twentieth century and whose relevance is undiminished to this day. In Kokoschka: A Life in Art, Görner emphasizes the artist’s versatility. Kokoschka, although best known for his expressionistic portraits and landscapes, was more than a mere visual artist: his achievements as a playwright, essayist, and poet bear witness to a remarkable literary talent. Music, too, played a central role in his work, and a passion for teaching led him to establish in 1953 the School of Seeing, an unconventional art school intended to revive humanist ideals in the horrific aftermath of war. This biography shows brilliantly how all the pieces of Kokoschka’s disparate interests and achievements cohered in the richly creative life of a singular artist.




Forbidden Music


Book Description

DIV With National Socialism's arrival in Germany in 1933, Jews dominated music more than virtually any other sector, making it the most important cultural front in the Nazi fight for German identity. This groundbreaking book looks at the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich and the consequences for music throughout the rest of the twentieth century. Because Jewish musicians and composers were, by 1933, the principal conveyors of Germany’s historic traditions and the ideals of German culture, the isolation, exile and persecution of Jewish musicians by the Nazis became an act of musical self-mutilation. Michael Haas looks at the actual contribution of Jewish composers in Germany and Austria before 1933, at their increasingly precarious position in Nazi Europe, their forced emigration before and during the war, their ambivalent relationships with their countries of refuge, such as Britain and the United States and their contributions within the radically changed post-war music environment. /div




The Astaires


Book Description

This is the first book about the theatre career of Fred and Adele Astaire, detailing their years in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in London, their impact culturally, and the essence of their partnership on and off the stage.




Oskar Kokoschka, a Life


Book Description




Constructive Dissonance


Book Description

"There cannot ever be too many good books about Schoenberg, and so it is a special pleasure to welcome Constructive Dissonance, which is far beyond just 'good.' These essays cover a generous range in style and idea. Many of them also are deeply moving, and nothing could be more appropriate for the composer of our century's most fiercely intense music."--Michael Steinberg, author of The Symphony: A Listener's Guide "Although much has been written about Schoenberg, no group of essays examines his life and work in such a broad context. Here we find Schoenberg's matrix: the social, cultural, political, and artistic currents that helped shape him, and to which he made his own extraordinary contribution."--Robert P. Morgan, author of Twentieth-Century Music "As we approach the turn of this century, it is clear that Arnold Schoenberg must becounted as one of the most important figures in Western art music during the last one hundred years. Schoenberg's influence on art-music culture has not only worked its effects through his music, but also through his thinking and writing about music. This collection makes a fitting tribute to Schoenberg and does an admirable job of presenting the many facets of Schoenberg the composer, music theorist, and thinker. These thought-provoking essays present a broad range of approaches to a rich variety of topics within Schoenberg scholarship, and readers will find both familiar and not-so-familiar issues arising during the course of the volume. Constructive Dissonance is certain to become an important book for those interested in twentieth-century art music and culture, and seminal reading for anyone interested in Arnold Schoenberg and his work."--John Covach, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill




My Life


Book Description




Modernism and Music


Book Description

If in earlier eras music may have seemed slow to respond to advances in other artistic media, during the modernist age it asserted itself in the vanguard. Modernism and Music provides a rich selection of texts on this moment, some translated into English for the first time. It offers not only important statements by composers and critics, but also musical speculations by poets, novelists, philosophers, and others-all of which combine with Daniel Albright's extensive, interlinked commentary to place modernist music in the full context of intellectual and cultural history.




The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg, 1908-1923


Book Description

Between 1908 and 1923, Arnold Schoenberg began writing music that went against many of the accepted concepts and practices of this art. Largely following his intuition during these years, he composed some of the masterpieces of the modern repertoire--including Pierrot lunaire and Erwartung--works that have since provoked a large, though fragmented, body of critical and analytical writing. In this book, Bryan Simms combines a historical study with a close analytical reading of the music to give us a new and richer understanding of Schoenberg's seminal work during this period.




Oskar Kokoschka, Works on Paper


Book Description

It was during this period that he made his first professional works, charming postcards and fans for the influential Wiener Werkstatte. These decorative works soon gave way to his more mature style, characterized by a masterly command of draughtsmanship and an often-violent subject matter that plumbs the depths of the human psyche, instinct, and myth. This volume includes a broad selection of works from the years when Kokoschka was at the height of his artistic powers, creating deeply charged portraits, figure studies, and dramatic illustrations based on the literary works he authored.




Recent Books