Author: Wolf Wondratschek
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720274
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 135
Book Description
A legendary literary figure who initiated a one-man Beat Generation in his native Germany, Wolf Wondratschek “is eccentric, monomaniacal, romantic—his texts are imbued with a wonderful, reckless nonchalance.”* Now, he tells a story of a man looking back on his life in an honest Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man. Vienna is an uncanny, magical, and sometimes brutally alienating city. The past lives on in the cafes where lost souls come to kill time and hash over the bygone glories of the twentieth century—or maybe just a recent love affair. Here, in one of these cafes, an anonymous narrator meets a strange character, “like someone out of a novel”: a decrepit old Russian named Suvorin. A Soviet pianist of international renown, Suvorin committed career suicide when he developed a violent distaste for the sound of applause. This eccentric gentleman—sometimes charming, sometimes sulky, sometimes disconcertingly frank—knows the end of his life is approaching, and allows himself to be convinced to tell his life story. Over a series of coffee dates, punctuated by confessions, anecdotes, and rages—and by the narrator’s schemes to keep his quarry talking—a strained friendship develops between the two men, and it soon becomes difficult to tell who is more dependent on whom. Rhapsodic and melancholic, with shades of Vladimir Nabokov, W. G. Sebald, Hans Keilson, and Thomas Bernhard, Wolf Wondratschek's Self-Portrait with Russian Piano is a literary sonata circling the eternal question of whether beauty, music, and passion are worth the sacrifices some people are compelled to make for them. “A romantic in a madhouse. To let Wondratschek’s voice be drowned in the babble of today’s literature would be a colossal mistake.” —*Patrick Süskind, international bestselling author of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Self-Portrait with Russian Piano
Author: Wolf Wondratschek
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720274
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 135
Book Description
A legendary literary figure who initiated a one-man Beat Generation in his native Germany, Wolf Wondratschek “is eccentric, monomaniacal, romantic—his texts are imbued with a wonderful, reckless nonchalance.”* Now, he tells a story of a man looking back on his life in an honest Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man. Vienna is an uncanny, magical, and sometimes brutally alienating city. The past lives on in the cafes where lost souls come to kill time and hash over the bygone glories of the twentieth century—or maybe just a recent love affair. Here, in one of these cafes, an anonymous narrator meets a strange character, “like someone out of a novel”: a decrepit old Russian named Suvorin. A Soviet pianist of international renown, Suvorin committed career suicide when he developed a violent distaste for the sound of applause. This eccentric gentleman—sometimes charming, sometimes sulky, sometimes disconcertingly frank—knows the end of his life is approaching, and allows himself to be convinced to tell his life story. Over a series of coffee dates, punctuated by confessions, anecdotes, and rages—and by the narrator’s schemes to keep his quarry talking—a strained friendship develops between the two men, and it soon becomes difficult to tell who is more dependent on whom. Rhapsodic and melancholic, with shades of Vladimir Nabokov, W. G. Sebald, Hans Keilson, and Thomas Bernhard, Wolf Wondratschek's Self-Portrait with Russian Piano is a literary sonata circling the eternal question of whether beauty, music, and passion are worth the sacrifices some people are compelled to make for them. “A romantic in a madhouse. To let Wondratschek’s voice be drowned in the babble of today’s literature would be a colossal mistake.” —*Patrick Süskind, international bestselling author of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720274
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 135
Book Description
A legendary literary figure who initiated a one-man Beat Generation in his native Germany, Wolf Wondratschek “is eccentric, monomaniacal, romantic—his texts are imbued with a wonderful, reckless nonchalance.”* Now, he tells a story of a man looking back on his life in an honest Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man. Vienna is an uncanny, magical, and sometimes brutally alienating city. The past lives on in the cafes where lost souls come to kill time and hash over the bygone glories of the twentieth century—or maybe just a recent love affair. Here, in one of these cafes, an anonymous narrator meets a strange character, “like someone out of a novel”: a decrepit old Russian named Suvorin. A Soviet pianist of international renown, Suvorin committed career suicide when he developed a violent distaste for the sound of applause. This eccentric gentleman—sometimes charming, sometimes sulky, sometimes disconcertingly frank—knows the end of his life is approaching, and allows himself to be convinced to tell his life story. Over a series of coffee dates, punctuated by confessions, anecdotes, and rages—and by the narrator’s schemes to keep his quarry talking—a strained friendship develops between the two men, and it soon becomes difficult to tell who is more dependent on whom. Rhapsodic and melancholic, with shades of Vladimir Nabokov, W. G. Sebald, Hans Keilson, and Thomas Bernhard, Wolf Wondratschek's Self-Portrait with Russian Piano is a literary sonata circling the eternal question of whether beauty, music, and passion are worth the sacrifices some people are compelled to make for them. “A romantic in a madhouse. To let Wondratschek’s voice be drowned in the babble of today’s literature would be a colossal mistake.” —*Patrick Süskind, international bestselling author of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
The Russian Piano School
Author: Christopher J. Barnes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
An insight into the views on technique and interpretation of several of the twentieth century's greatest Russian teachers and performers.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
An insight into the views on technique and interpretation of several of the twentieth century's greatest Russian teachers and performers.
The Weight of a Piano
Author: Chris Cander
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525654682
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
USA TODAY BESTSELLER In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, on which she discovers an enrichening passion for music. Yet after she marries, her husband insists the family emigrate to America—and loses her piano in the process. In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, twenty-six-year-old Clara Lundy is burdened by the last gift her father gave her before he and her mother died in a terrible house fire: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. Now a talented and independent auto mechanic, Clara’s career is put on hold when she breaks her hand trying to move the piano, and in sudden frustration she decides to sell it. Only in discovering the identity of the buyer—and the secret history of her piano—will Clara be set free to live the life of her choosing.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525654682
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
USA TODAY BESTSELLER In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, on which she discovers an enrichening passion for music. Yet after she marries, her husband insists the family emigrate to America—and loses her piano in the process. In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, twenty-six-year-old Clara Lundy is burdened by the last gift her father gave her before he and her mother died in a terrible house fire: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. Now a talented and independent auto mechanic, Clara’s career is put on hold when she breaks her hand trying to move the piano, and in sudden frustration she decides to sell it. Only in discovering the identity of the buyer—and the secret history of her piano—will Clara be set free to live the life of her choosing.
Stravinsky's Piano
Author: Graham Griffiths
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521191785
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Book Description
An unprecedented exploration of Stravinsky's use of the piano as the genesis of all his music - Russian, neoclassical and serial.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521191785
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Book Description
An unprecedented exploration of Stravinsky's use of the piano as the genesis of all his music - Russian, neoclassical and serial.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia
Author: Sophy Roberts
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802149308
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 443
Book Description
This “melodious” mix of music, history, and travelogue “reveals a story inextricably linked to the drama of Russia itself . . . These pages sing like a symphony.” —The Wall Street Journal Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies, and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos traveled into this snowbound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle. The Lost Pianos of Siberia follows Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos. “An elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia. I loved this book.” —Paul Theroux
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802149308
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 443
Book Description
This “melodious” mix of music, history, and travelogue “reveals a story inextricably linked to the drama of Russia itself . . . These pages sing like a symphony.” —The Wall Street Journal Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies, and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos traveled into this snowbound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle. The Lost Pianos of Siberia follows Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos. “An elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia. I loved this book.” —Paul Theroux
Piano Lessons
Author: Anna Goldsworthy
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459609085
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
In this remarkable memoir, Anna Goldsworthy recalls her first steps towards a life in music, from childhood piano lessons with a local jazz muso to international success as a concert pianist. As she discovers passion and ambition, and confronts doubt and disappointment, she learns about much more than tone and technique. This is a story of the getting of wisdom, tender and bittersweet. With wit and affection, Goldsworthy captures the hopes and uncertainties of youth, the fear and exhilaration of performing, and the complex bonds between teacher and student. An unforgettable cast of characters joins her: her family; her friends and rivals; and her teacher, Mrs Sivan, who inspires and challenges her in equal measure, and who transforms what seems an impossible dream into something real and sustaining.
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459609085
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
In this remarkable memoir, Anna Goldsworthy recalls her first steps towards a life in music, from childhood piano lessons with a local jazz muso to international success as a concert pianist. As she discovers passion and ambition, and confronts doubt and disappointment, she learns about much more than tone and technique. This is a story of the getting of wisdom, tender and bittersweet. With wit and affection, Goldsworthy captures the hopes and uncertainties of youth, the fear and exhilaration of performing, and the complex bonds between teacher and student. An unforgettable cast of characters joins her: her family; her friends and rivals; and her teacher, Mrs Sivan, who inspires and challenges her in equal measure, and who transforms what seems an impossible dream into something real and sustaining.
Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger
Author: Malcolm Gillies
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199719419
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Book Description
Shortly before his death, Percy Grainger (1882-1961) lodged over twenty unpublished sketches in his Australian Museum. Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger draws exclusively from these sketches, revealing for the first time an illuminating portrait of the composer's life. With such titles as "The Aldridge-Grainger-Strom Saga," "Thunks," "Ere-I-Forget," "The Love-Life of Helen and Paris," and "Anecdotes," these manuscripts were intended as precursors to Grainger's autobiography, My Wretched Tone-Life, which he only commenced in his final years. Expertly shaping these sketches, the editors have created a "self-portrait" along the lines that Grainger himself had intended. The volume first introduces Grainger's forebears, parents, friends, wife, and himself before moving on to his views on composition, performance, and the musical world. In these sketches, Grainger addresses such topics as racial and national identity, the meaning of work, physical culture, language reform, sexual practice, and artistic patronage. Grainger also probes the nature of musical genius, discussing a broad range of composers including Igor Stravinsky, Thomas Beecham, Frederick Delius, Edvard Grieg, Charles Stanford, Cyril Scott, Fritz Kreisler, Donald Tovey, Ferruccio Busoni, and Balfour Gardiner. Among the works of his own that Grainger most featured are his The Warriors --Music for an Imaginary Ballet, Colonial Song, the Lincolnshire Posy series of band pieces, his greatest "hit" Country Gardens, and his many settings of English folk-music. Written in Grainger's own self-created "Nordic English" as well as translated from Danish, the language of his most intimate confessions, Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger sheds light on some of the most revealing details of the composer's life. The sketches trace Grainger's changing self-perception, from the romantically tinged, even lustful, views of his forties and fifties, through a period of wistfulness in his sixties, to the bitterness and self-loathing of his old age. The volume also includes several of Grainger's own drawings as well as both public and private photographs. A fascinating and revealing collection of vignettes, this extraordinary book will appeal to instructors, students, and enthusiasts in musicology, music history, cultural studies, and Australian, British, and American history.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199719419
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Book Description
Shortly before his death, Percy Grainger (1882-1961) lodged over twenty unpublished sketches in his Australian Museum. Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger draws exclusively from these sketches, revealing for the first time an illuminating portrait of the composer's life. With such titles as "The Aldridge-Grainger-Strom Saga," "Thunks," "Ere-I-Forget," "The Love-Life of Helen and Paris," and "Anecdotes," these manuscripts were intended as precursors to Grainger's autobiography, My Wretched Tone-Life, which he only commenced in his final years. Expertly shaping these sketches, the editors have created a "self-portrait" along the lines that Grainger himself had intended. The volume first introduces Grainger's forebears, parents, friends, wife, and himself before moving on to his views on composition, performance, and the musical world. In these sketches, Grainger addresses such topics as racial and national identity, the meaning of work, physical culture, language reform, sexual practice, and artistic patronage. Grainger also probes the nature of musical genius, discussing a broad range of composers including Igor Stravinsky, Thomas Beecham, Frederick Delius, Edvard Grieg, Charles Stanford, Cyril Scott, Fritz Kreisler, Donald Tovey, Ferruccio Busoni, and Balfour Gardiner. Among the works of his own that Grainger most featured are his The Warriors --Music for an Imaginary Ballet, Colonial Song, the Lincolnshire Posy series of band pieces, his greatest "hit" Country Gardens, and his many settings of English folk-music. Written in Grainger's own self-created "Nordic English" as well as translated from Danish, the language of his most intimate confessions, Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger sheds light on some of the most revealing details of the composer's life. The sketches trace Grainger's changing self-perception, from the romantically tinged, even lustful, views of his forties and fifties, through a period of wistfulness in his sixties, to the bitterness and self-loathing of his old age. The volume also includes several of Grainger's own drawings as well as both public and private photographs. A fascinating and revealing collection of vignettes, this extraordinary book will appeal to instructors, students, and enthusiasts in musicology, music history, cultural studies, and Australian, British, and American history.
Russian Painting
Author: Peter Leek
Publisher: Parkstone International
ISBN: 1780429754
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
From the 18th century to the 20th, this book gives a panorama of Russian painting not equalled anywhere else. Russian culture developed in contact with the wider European influence, but retained strong native intonations. It is a culture between East and West, and both influences in together. The book begins with Icons, and it is precisely Icon-painting which gave Russian artist their peculiar preoccupation with ethical questions and a certain kind of palette. It goes on the expound the duality of their art, and point out the originality of their contribution to world art. The illustrations cover all genres and styles of painting in astonishing variety. Such figures as Borovokovsky, Rokotov, Levitsky, Brullov, Fedatov, Repin, Shishkin and Levitan and many more are in these pages.
Publisher: Parkstone International
ISBN: 1780429754
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
From the 18th century to the 20th, this book gives a panorama of Russian painting not equalled anywhere else. Russian culture developed in contact with the wider European influence, but retained strong native intonations. It is a culture between East and West, and both influences in together. The book begins with Icons, and it is precisely Icon-painting which gave Russian artist their peculiar preoccupation with ethical questions and a certain kind of palette. It goes on the expound the duality of their art, and point out the originality of their contribution to world art. The illustrations cover all genres and styles of painting in astonishing variety. Such figures as Borovokovsky, Rokotov, Levitsky, Brullov, Fedatov, Repin, Shishkin and Levitan and many more are in these pages.
Chopin with Cherries
Author: Maja Trochimczyk
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0981969305
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
This anthology of contemporary poetry celebrates the 200th birth anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849). The volume presents 123 poems by 92 poets, including: Sharon Chmielarz, T. S. Eliot, Charles Ades Fishman, Linda Nemec Foster, Emily Fragos, John Z. Guzlowski, Lola Haskins, Oriana Ivy, Lois P. Jones, Leonard Kress, Emma Lazarus, Marie Lecrivain, Jeffrey Levine, Amy Lowell, Rick Lupert, Mira N. Mataric, Elisabeth Murawski, Ruth Nolan, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, William Pillin, Russell Salamon, Katrin Talbot, Mark Tardi, Devi Walders, Kath Abela Wilson, and others. The book is illustrated with vintage Chopin postcards and includes one translation - of "Chopin's Piano" by Norwid. The editor, Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, is a Polish-American poet, music historian, photographer, and translator. She published four books on music, two books of poetry, and hundreds of articles and poems.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0981969305
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
This anthology of contemporary poetry celebrates the 200th birth anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849). The volume presents 123 poems by 92 poets, including: Sharon Chmielarz, T. S. Eliot, Charles Ades Fishman, Linda Nemec Foster, Emily Fragos, John Z. Guzlowski, Lola Haskins, Oriana Ivy, Lois P. Jones, Leonard Kress, Emma Lazarus, Marie Lecrivain, Jeffrey Levine, Amy Lowell, Rick Lupert, Mira N. Mataric, Elisabeth Murawski, Ruth Nolan, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, William Pillin, Russell Salamon, Katrin Talbot, Mark Tardi, Devi Walders, Kath Abela Wilson, and others. The book is illustrated with vintage Chopin postcards and includes one translation - of "Chopin's Piano" by Norwid. The editor, Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, is a Polish-American poet, music historian, photographer, and translator. She published four books on music, two books of poetry, and hundreds of articles and poems.
Underground Music from the Former USSR
Author: Valeria Tsenova
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134371659
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
What happened to contemporary music in the Soviet Union after Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev? This book is a valuable source of information on the composers of the generations following these three great innovators. It is a document of the hidden period of Russian music, of what happened after the denunciation of Shostakovich and Prokofiev by the Composers' Union. It contains profiles of the most interesting and innovative composers from Russia and the former Soviet republics, written by leading musicologists. Featured composers include Andrei Volkonsky, Philip Gershkovich, Sergei Slonimsky, Boris Tishchenko, Valentin Silvestrov, Leonid Grabovsky , Nikolai Karetnikov , Alemdar Karamanov, Roman Ledenyov , Vyacheslav Artyomov , Faraj Karayev , Alexander Knaifel , Vladislav Shoot Alexander Vustin, Victor Ekimovksy , Alexander Raskatov , Sergei Pavlenko, Vladimir Tarnopolsy.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134371659
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
What happened to contemporary music in the Soviet Union after Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev? This book is a valuable source of information on the composers of the generations following these three great innovators. It is a document of the hidden period of Russian music, of what happened after the denunciation of Shostakovich and Prokofiev by the Composers' Union. It contains profiles of the most interesting and innovative composers from Russia and the former Soviet republics, written by leading musicologists. Featured composers include Andrei Volkonsky, Philip Gershkovich, Sergei Slonimsky, Boris Tishchenko, Valentin Silvestrov, Leonid Grabovsky , Nikolai Karetnikov , Alemdar Karamanov, Roman Ledenyov , Vyacheslav Artyomov , Faraj Karayev , Alexander Knaifel , Vladislav Shoot Alexander Vustin, Victor Ekimovksy , Alexander Raskatov , Sergei Pavlenko, Vladimir Tarnopolsy.