Author: Stephen Hough
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374721408
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
A collection of essays on music and life by the famed classical pianist and composer Stephen Hough is one of the world’s leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards, both for his concerts and his recordings. He is also a writer, composer, and painter, and has been described by The Economist as one of “Twenty Living Polymaths.” Hough writes informally and engagingly about music and the life of a musician, from the broader aspects of what it is to walk out onto a stage or to make a recording, to specialist tips from deep inside the practice room: how to trill, how to pedal, how to practice. He also writes vividly about people he’s known, places he’s traveled to, books he’s read, paintings he’s seen; and he touches on more controversial subjects, such as assisted suicide and abortion. Even religion is there—the possibility of the existence of God, problems with some biblical texts, and the challenges involved in being a gay Catholic. Rough Ideas is an illuminating, constantly surprising introduction to the life and mind of one of our great cultural figures.
Rough Ideas
Author: Stephen Hough
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374721408
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
A collection of essays on music and life by the famed classical pianist and composer Stephen Hough is one of the world’s leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards, both for his concerts and his recordings. He is also a writer, composer, and painter, and has been described by The Economist as one of “Twenty Living Polymaths.” Hough writes informally and engagingly about music and the life of a musician, from the broader aspects of what it is to walk out onto a stage or to make a recording, to specialist tips from deep inside the practice room: how to trill, how to pedal, how to practice. He also writes vividly about people he’s known, places he’s traveled to, books he’s read, paintings he’s seen; and he touches on more controversial subjects, such as assisted suicide and abortion. Even religion is there—the possibility of the existence of God, problems with some biblical texts, and the challenges involved in being a gay Catholic. Rough Ideas is an illuminating, constantly surprising introduction to the life and mind of one of our great cultural figures.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374721408
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
A collection of essays on music and life by the famed classical pianist and composer Stephen Hough is one of the world’s leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards, both for his concerts and his recordings. He is also a writer, composer, and painter, and has been described by The Economist as one of “Twenty Living Polymaths.” Hough writes informally and engagingly about music and the life of a musician, from the broader aspects of what it is to walk out onto a stage or to make a recording, to specialist tips from deep inside the practice room: how to trill, how to pedal, how to practice. He also writes vividly about people he’s known, places he’s traveled to, books he’s read, paintings he’s seen; and he touches on more controversial subjects, such as assisted suicide and abortion. Even religion is there—the possibility of the existence of God, problems with some biblical texts, and the challenges involved in being a gay Catholic. Rough Ideas is an illuminating, constantly surprising introduction to the life and mind of one of our great cultural figures.
The Classical Tradition
Author: Anthony Grafton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674035720
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1188
Book Description
The legacy of ancient Greece and Rome has been imitated, resisted, misunderstood, and reworked by every culture that followed. In this volume, some five hundred articles by a wide range of scholars investigate the afterlife of this rich heritage in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, architecture, history, politics, religion, and science.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674035720
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1188
Book Description
The legacy of ancient Greece and Rome has been imitated, resisted, misunderstood, and reworked by every culture that followed. In this volume, some five hundred articles by a wide range of scholars investigate the afterlife of this rich heritage in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, architecture, history, politics, religion, and science.
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music
Author: Jan Swafford
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679728058
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 626
Book Description
The most readable and comprehensive guide to enjoying over five hundred years of classical music -- from Gregorian chants, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, and beyond. The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is a lively -- and opinionated -- musical history and an insider's key to the personalities, epochs, and genres of the Western classical tradition. Among its features: -- chronologically arranged essays on nearly 100 composers, from Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377) to Aaron Copland (1900-1990), that combine biography with detailed analyses of the major works while assessing their role in the social, cultural, and political climate of their times; -- informative sidebars that clarify broader topics such as melody, polyphony, atonality, and the impact of the early-music movement; -- a glossary of musical terms, from a cappella to woodwinds; -- a step-by-step guide to building a great classical music library. Written with wit and a clarity that both musical experts and beginners can appreciate, The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is an invaluable source-book for music lovers everywhere.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679728058
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 626
Book Description
The most readable and comprehensive guide to enjoying over five hundred years of classical music -- from Gregorian chants, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, and beyond. The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is a lively -- and opinionated -- musical history and an insider's key to the personalities, epochs, and genres of the Western classical tradition. Among its features: -- chronologically arranged essays on nearly 100 composers, from Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377) to Aaron Copland (1900-1990), that combine biography with detailed analyses of the major works while assessing their role in the social, cultural, and political climate of their times; -- informative sidebars that clarify broader topics such as melody, polyphony, atonality, and the impact of the early-music movement; -- a glossary of musical terms, from a cappella to woodwinds; -- a step-by-step guide to building a great classical music library. Written with wit and a clarity that both musical experts and beginners can appreciate, The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is an invaluable source-book for music lovers everywhere.
Dvorák's Prophecy
Author: Joseph Horowitz
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0393881245
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 A provocative interpretation of why classical music in America "stayed white"—how it got to be that way and what can be done about it. In 1893 the composer Antonín Dvorák prophesied a “great and noble school” of American classical music based on the “negro melodies” he had excitedly discovered since arriving in the United States a year before. But while Black music would foster popular genres known the world over, it never gained a foothold in the concert hall. Black composers found few opportunities to have their works performed, and white composers mainly rejected Dvorák’s lead. Joseph Horowitz ranges throughout American cultural history, from Frederick Douglass and Huckleberry Finn to George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and the work of Ralph Ellison, searching for explanations. Challenging the standard narrative for American classical music fashioned by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, he looks back to literary figures—Emerson, Melville, and Twain—to ponder how American music can connect with a “usable past.” The result is a new paradigm that makes room for Black composers, including Harry Burleigh, Nathaniel Dett, William Levi Dawson, and Florence Price, while giving increased prominence to Charles Ives and George Gershwin. Dvorák’s Prophecy arrives in the midst of an important conversation about race in America—a conversation that is taking place in music schools and concert halls as well as capitols and boardrooms. As George Shirley writes in his foreword to the book, “We have been left unprepared for the current cultural moment. [Joseph Horowitz] explains how we got there [and] proposes a bigger world of American classical music than what we have known before. It is more diverse and more equitable. And it is more truthful.”
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0393881245
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 A provocative interpretation of why classical music in America "stayed white"—how it got to be that way and what can be done about it. In 1893 the composer Antonín Dvorák prophesied a “great and noble school” of American classical music based on the “negro melodies” he had excitedly discovered since arriving in the United States a year before. But while Black music would foster popular genres known the world over, it never gained a foothold in the concert hall. Black composers found few opportunities to have their works performed, and white composers mainly rejected Dvorák’s lead. Joseph Horowitz ranges throughout American cultural history, from Frederick Douglass and Huckleberry Finn to George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and the work of Ralph Ellison, searching for explanations. Challenging the standard narrative for American classical music fashioned by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, he looks back to literary figures—Emerson, Melville, and Twain—to ponder how American music can connect with a “usable past.” The result is a new paradigm that makes room for Black composers, including Harry Burleigh, Nathaniel Dett, William Levi Dawson, and Florence Price, while giving increased prominence to Charles Ives and George Gershwin. Dvorák’s Prophecy arrives in the midst of an important conversation about race in America—a conversation that is taking place in music schools and concert halls as well as capitols and boardrooms. As George Shirley writes in his foreword to the book, “We have been left unprepared for the current cultural moment. [Joseph Horowitz] explains how we got there [and] proposes a bigger world of American classical music than what we have known before. It is more diverse and more equitable. And it is more truthful.”
Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist
Author: Russell McCormmach
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674624610
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Book Description
It is the end of an historical epoch, but to an old professor of physics, Victor Jakob, sitting in his unlighted study, eating dubious bread with jam made from turnips, it is the end of a way of thinking in his own subject. Younger men have challenged the classical world picture of physics and are looking forward to observational tests of Einstein's new theory of relativity as well as the creation of a quantum mechanics of the atom. It is a time of both apprehension and hope. In this remarkable book, the reader literally inhabits the mind of a scientist while Professor Jakob meditates on the discoveries of the past fifty years and reviews his own life and career--his scientific ambitions and his record of small successes. He recalls the great men who taught or inspired him: Helmholtz, Hertz, Maxwell, Planck, and above all Paul Drude, whose life and mind exemplified the classical virtues of proportion, harmony, and grace that Jakob reveres. In Drude's shocking and unexpected suicide, we see reflected Jakob's own bewilderment and loss of bearings as his once secure world comes to an end in the horrors of the war and in the cultural fragmentation wrought by twentieth-century modernism. His attempt to come to terms with himself, with his life in science, and with his spiritual legacy will affect deeply everyone who cares about the fragile structures of civilization that must fall before the onrush of progress.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674624610
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Book Description
It is the end of an historical epoch, but to an old professor of physics, Victor Jakob, sitting in his unlighted study, eating dubious bread with jam made from turnips, it is the end of a way of thinking in his own subject. Younger men have challenged the classical world picture of physics and are looking forward to observational tests of Einstein's new theory of relativity as well as the creation of a quantum mechanics of the atom. It is a time of both apprehension and hope. In this remarkable book, the reader literally inhabits the mind of a scientist while Professor Jakob meditates on the discoveries of the past fifty years and reviews his own life and career--his scientific ambitions and his record of small successes. He recalls the great men who taught or inspired him: Helmholtz, Hertz, Maxwell, Planck, and above all Paul Drude, whose life and mind exemplified the classical virtues of proportion, harmony, and grace that Jakob reveres. In Drude's shocking and unexpected suicide, we see reflected Jakob's own bewilderment and loss of bearings as his once secure world comes to an end in the horrors of the war and in the cultural fragmentation wrought by twentieth-century modernism. His attempt to come to terms with himself, with his life in science, and with his spiritual legacy will affect deeply everyone who cares about the fragile structures of civilization that must fall before the onrush of progress.
The Classical Guitar Collection
Author: Julian Bream
Publisher: Faber Music Ltd
ISBN: 0571591760
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 103
Book Description
The full eBook version of The Classical Guitar Collection in fixed-layout format. The Classical Guitar Collection contains 48 classical guitar solos from classical greats such as Mozart, Grieg, Purcell and J.S. Bach. This collection features many of Julian Bream's classic arrangements of well-known guitar masterpieces for Intermediate to Advanced level guitar students. Contents: - Valtz Op.7 No.6) (Aguado) - Asturias (Leyenda) (Albeniz) - Spanish Romance (Anon) - Scherzo (Op.107) (Arnold) - Arietta (Op.107) (Arnold) - I (Two Preludes) (J.S. Bach) - Courante (from suite in E minor) (J.S. Bach) - Sarabande (from suite in E minor) (J.S. Bach) - Bouree in E minor (BWV 996) (J.S. Bach) - Aria (Brescianello) - Gavotta (Brescianello) - Allemande (suite in E minor)(Buxtehude) - Courante (from suite in E minor) (Buxtehude) - Sarabande (from suite in E minor) (Buxtehude) - Gigue (from suite in E minor) (Buxtehude) - Sicilienne (Op. 34 No.2) (Carulli) - Sonata 2 (Cimarosa) - La Fille aux Chevaux de Lin (Two Preludes) (Debussy) - Minstrels (Two Preludes) (Debussy) - Andante Sostenuto (from Sonata in F major) (Diabelli) - Ejercicio: Allegretto (Ferrer) - Vals (Ferrer) - Sarabande (suite in A minor) (Froberger) - Gigue (suite in A minor) (Froberger) - Valse (Three Lyric Pieces op.12) (Grieg) - Watchman's Song (Three Lyric Pieces) (Grieg) - Fairy Dance (Three Lyric Pieces) (Grieg) - Etude Allegro Spiritoso (Guiliani) - Lecon (Guiliani) - La Catedral (Mangore) - A Winter Landscape (Little Suite For Guitar) (Maw) - Landler (Op.9 No.4) (Mertz) - Landler (Op.9 No.5) (Mertz) - Gaillarde (Morlaye) - Larghetto and Allegro (Mozart) - Air (Four pieces) (Purcell) - Rondo (Four Pieces) (Purcell) - Minuet (Four Pieces) (Purcell) - Hornpipe (Four Pieces) (Purcell) - Maria Luisa: Mazurka (Sagreras) - Nostalgia: Petite Melodie (Sagreras) - Theme with Variations (Schumann) - Into The Dreaming (Sculthorpe) - Etude (Op.31 No.23) (Sor) - Waltz (Op.7 No.1 (Strauss) - Waltz (Op.7 No.3) (Strauss) - Capricho Arabe (Tarrega) - Recurdos de la Alhambra (Tarrega)
Publisher: Faber Music Ltd
ISBN: 0571591760
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 103
Book Description
The full eBook version of The Classical Guitar Collection in fixed-layout format. The Classical Guitar Collection contains 48 classical guitar solos from classical greats such as Mozart, Grieg, Purcell and J.S. Bach. This collection features many of Julian Bream's classic arrangements of well-known guitar masterpieces for Intermediate to Advanced level guitar students. Contents: - Valtz Op.7 No.6) (Aguado) - Asturias (Leyenda) (Albeniz) - Spanish Romance (Anon) - Scherzo (Op.107) (Arnold) - Arietta (Op.107) (Arnold) - I (Two Preludes) (J.S. Bach) - Courante (from suite in E minor) (J.S. Bach) - Sarabande (from suite in E minor) (J.S. Bach) - Bouree in E minor (BWV 996) (J.S. Bach) - Aria (Brescianello) - Gavotta (Brescianello) - Allemande (suite in E minor)(Buxtehude) - Courante (from suite in E minor) (Buxtehude) - Sarabande (from suite in E minor) (Buxtehude) - Gigue (from suite in E minor) (Buxtehude) - Sicilienne (Op. 34 No.2) (Carulli) - Sonata 2 (Cimarosa) - La Fille aux Chevaux de Lin (Two Preludes) (Debussy) - Minstrels (Two Preludes) (Debussy) - Andante Sostenuto (from Sonata in F major) (Diabelli) - Ejercicio: Allegretto (Ferrer) - Vals (Ferrer) - Sarabande (suite in A minor) (Froberger) - Gigue (suite in A minor) (Froberger) - Valse (Three Lyric Pieces op.12) (Grieg) - Watchman's Song (Three Lyric Pieces) (Grieg) - Fairy Dance (Three Lyric Pieces) (Grieg) - Etude Allegro Spiritoso (Guiliani) - Lecon (Guiliani) - La Catedral (Mangore) - A Winter Landscape (Little Suite For Guitar) (Maw) - Landler (Op.9 No.4) (Mertz) - Landler (Op.9 No.5) (Mertz) - Gaillarde (Morlaye) - Larghetto and Allegro (Mozart) - Air (Four pieces) (Purcell) - Rondo (Four Pieces) (Purcell) - Minuet (Four Pieces) (Purcell) - Hornpipe (Four Pieces) (Purcell) - Maria Luisa: Mazurka (Sagreras) - Nostalgia: Petite Melodie (Sagreras) - Theme with Variations (Schumann) - Into The Dreaming (Sculthorpe) - Etude (Op.31 No.23) (Sor) - Waltz (Op.7 No.1 (Strauss) - Waltz (Op.7 No.3) (Strauss) - Capricho Arabe (Tarrega) - Recurdos de la Alhambra (Tarrega)
Postclassicisms
Author: The Postclassicisms Collective
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022667231X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
Made up of nine prominent scholars, The Postclassicisms Collective aims to map a space for theorizing and reflecting on the values attributed to antiquity. The product of these reflections, Postclassicisms takes up a set of questions about what it means to know and care about Greco-Roman antiquity in our turbulent world and offers suggestions for a discipline in transformation, as new communities are being built around the study of the ancient Greco-Roman world. Structured around three primary concepts—value, time, and responsibility—and nine additional concepts, Postclassicisms asks scholars to reflect upon why they choose to work in classics, to examine how proximity to and distance from antiquity has been—and continues to be—figured, and to consider what they seek to accomplish within their own scholarly practices. Together, the authors argue that a stronger critical self-awareness, an enhanced sense of the intellectual history of the methods of classics, and a greater understanding of the ethical and political implications of the decisions that the discipline makes will lead to a more engaged intellectual life, both for classicists and, ultimately, for society. A timely intervention into the present and future of the discipline, Postclassicisms will be required reading for professional classicists and students alike and a model for collaborative disciplinary intervention by scholars in other fields.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022667231X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
Made up of nine prominent scholars, The Postclassicisms Collective aims to map a space for theorizing and reflecting on the values attributed to antiquity. The product of these reflections, Postclassicisms takes up a set of questions about what it means to know and care about Greco-Roman antiquity in our turbulent world and offers suggestions for a discipline in transformation, as new communities are being built around the study of the ancient Greco-Roman world. Structured around three primary concepts—value, time, and responsibility—and nine additional concepts, Postclassicisms asks scholars to reflect upon why they choose to work in classics, to examine how proximity to and distance from antiquity has been—and continues to be—figured, and to consider what they seek to accomplish within their own scholarly practices. Together, the authors argue that a stronger critical self-awareness, an enhanced sense of the intellectual history of the methods of classics, and a greater understanding of the ethical and political implications of the decisions that the discipline makes will lead to a more engaged intellectual life, both for classicists and, ultimately, for society. A timely intervention into the present and future of the discipline, Postclassicisms will be required reading for professional classicists and students alike and a model for collaborative disciplinary intervention by scholars in other fields.
The Rest Is Noise
Author: Alex Ross
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429932880
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 706
Book Description
Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429932880
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 706
Book Description
Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.
Listen to This
Author: Alex Ross
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429977612
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
One of The Telegraph's Best Music Books 2011 Alex Ross's award-winning international bestseller, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, has become a contemporary classic, establishing Ross as one of our most popular and acclaimed cultural historians. Listen to This, which takes its title from a beloved 2004 essay in which Ross describes his late-blooming discovery of pop music, showcases the best of his writing from more than a decade at The New Yorker. These pieces, dedicated to classical and popular artists alike, are at once erudite and lively. In a previously unpublished essay, Ross brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music history—from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin—through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He vibrantly sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Björk and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark high school and indie-rock hipsters in Beijing. Whether his subject is Mozart or Bob Dylan, Ross shows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition. Witty, passionate, and brimming with insight, Listen to This teaches us how to listen more closely.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429977612
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
One of The Telegraph's Best Music Books 2011 Alex Ross's award-winning international bestseller, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, has become a contemporary classic, establishing Ross as one of our most popular and acclaimed cultural historians. Listen to This, which takes its title from a beloved 2004 essay in which Ross describes his late-blooming discovery of pop music, showcases the best of his writing from more than a decade at The New Yorker. These pieces, dedicated to classical and popular artists alike, are at once erudite and lively. In a previously unpublished essay, Ross brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music history—from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin—through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He vibrantly sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Björk and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark high school and indie-rock hipsters in Beijing. Whether his subject is Mozart or Bob Dylan, Ross shows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition. Witty, passionate, and brimming with insight, Listen to This teaches us how to listen more closely.
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Author: Helen Simonson
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 140880932X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Major Ernest Pettigrew is perfectly content to lead a quiet life in the sleepy village of Edgecombe St Mary, away from the meddling of the locals and his overbearing son. But when his brother dies, the Major finds himself seeking companionship with the village shopkeeper, Mrs Ali. Drawn together by a love of books and the loss of their partners, they are soon forced to contend with irate relatives and gossiping villagers. The perfect gentleman, but the most unlikely hero, the Major must ask himself what matters most: family obligation, tradition or love? Funny, comforting and heart-warming, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand proves that sometimes, against all odds, life does give you a second chance.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 140880932X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Major Ernest Pettigrew is perfectly content to lead a quiet life in the sleepy village of Edgecombe St Mary, away from the meddling of the locals and his overbearing son. But when his brother dies, the Major finds himself seeking companionship with the village shopkeeper, Mrs Ali. Drawn together by a love of books and the loss of their partners, they are soon forced to contend with irate relatives and gossiping villagers. The perfect gentleman, but the most unlikely hero, the Major must ask himself what matters most: family obligation, tradition or love? Funny, comforting and heart-warming, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand proves that sometimes, against all odds, life does give you a second chance.