Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Hans Mersmann (Selected by); M. M. Bozman (Translator)

$12.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: very good

Mozart was a faithful correspondent, and this full and expert collection of more than 100 letters covers his brief and tumultuous life, from the years when the child prodigy astonished the courts of Europe to his final days, when he wrote loving notes to his wife and long, money-seeking letters to frien ds and patrons. The letters abound in both trivial and important events: observations about the people he met; comments on the reactions to his music; satirical remarks about dilettantes and incompetent professionals; and thoughts on other composers, pianoforte and organ playing, singing, and his own methods of composition.Mozart's letters are interspersed in this edition with a generous selection of letters from his father. This two-sided, voluminous correspondence shows the close and sometimes conflicting relationship between father and son. Mozart's letters to his sister are especially playful, exhibiting an impish, lighthearted wit reminiscent of his music, and the letters to his wife are equally revealing. Taken all together, this collection presents an informal and intimately detailed portrait of a genius. ...Show more

Opera in New Zealand - Aspects of History and Performance by Adrienne Simpson (ed.)

$12.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: very good

The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman

$10.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: good-very good

Verdi's Shakespeare: Men of the Theater by Garry Wills

$14.00 NZD

Category: Shakespeare | Reading Level: very good

A dazzling study of the operas Verdi adapted from Shakespeare- and a spellbinding account of their creation. In "Verdi's Shakespeare, " Pulitzer Prize winner and lifelong opera devotee Garry Wills explores the writing and staging of Verdi's three triumphant Shakespearian operas: "Macbeth, Othello, " an d "Falstaff." An Italian composer who couldn't read a word of English but adored Shakespeare, Verdi devoted himself to operatic productions that authentically incorporated the playwright's texts. Wills delves into the fast-paced worlds of these men of the theater, focusing on the intense working relationships both Shakespeare and Verdi had with the performers and producers of their works. We see Verdi study the Shakespearean dramaturgy as he obsessively corresponds with his chosen librettists, handpicks the singers he feels are best- suited to the roles, and coaches them intensely. With fascinating portraits of these artistic giants and their entourages, sharp insights into music and theater, and telling historical details, "Verdi's Shakespeare" re-creates the conditions that allowed Verdi to complete his masterworks and illuminates the very nature of artistic creation. ...Show more

Tikopia Songs - Poetic and Musical Art of a Polynesian People of the Solomon Islands by Raymond Firth; Mervyn McClean

$35.00 NZD

Category: Pacific | Series: Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture Ser. | Reading Level: very good

Sir Raymond Firth is the most distinguished living British anthropologist, and one also internationally acclaimed. His latest work forms part of one of the fullest and most professional ethnographic accounts by any anthropologist of a nonindustrial people, an account which extends over many years. This book is about the songs of a Western Pacific people, the Tikopia, who until recently lived entirely on a small remote island of the Solomons. Their songs vary from lively dance chants to mournful funeral laments. All are novel to western ears. The book provides about 100 examples in text and in translation, discusses the relationship of the songs to the social life of the people, and includes an analysis of the structure of their music by Mervyn McClean, a noted musicologist. A cassette which reproduces about 30 of the songs that appear in the book is also available. ...Show more

Piano Forte: Stories and Soundscapes from Colonial New Zealand by Kristine Moffat

$20.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: very good

The phrase 'colonial New Zealand piano' immediately and inevitably conjures up the image of the grand piano on a deserted beach that is the leitmotif of Jane Campion's 1993 film The Piano: both a powerful symbol of the incongruity of the piano in this context, its status as 'alien' intruder, and a movin g testimony to the personal and cultural value of the instrument that accompanied its owner to the far side of the world. Did nineteenth-century European settlers share the fictional Ada McGrath's passionate attachment to her instrument? Was the instrument particularly valued by middle and upper class women, or did it transcend gender and class divides? How did Maori react to the melodies the piano released? Were the sounds it produced, in terms of both sonority and repertoire, affected by the new environment? What kinds of physical places did pianos occupy? This book attempts to answer these questions and in so doing to thus gain an understanding of the place and significance of the piano in colonial New Zealand culture and society. ...Show more

Hawaiian Music and Musicians - An Illustrated History by George S. Kanahele (Editor)

$30.00 NZD

Category: Pacific | Reading Level: very good

Lennon Legend - An Illustrated Life of John Lennon by James Henke

$30.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: very good

Presented in a handsome slipcase, Lennon Legend is both an illustrated and an interactive biography of the creative genius - songwriter, artist, social activist - who changed his times. Created with the cooperation of Yoko Ono Lennon, who has opened her archives for this project, the book offers insight ful details about every era of John's life, from his early days at art school to the height of Beatlemania to "Imagine." A live recording of that song is included, along with several interviews of John talking about his life and art, on the audio CD contained in this package. Throughout, the book features archival photographs and reproductions of John's handwritten song lyrics, drawings, memorabilia, and personal papers. In all, 40 removable facsimiles can be enjoyed by the reader, several previously unpublished, including an intimate self-portrait in pen and ink and a plea for world peace. It's been said that John Lennon's was the voice of a generation. Lennon Legend celebrates that voice's power to resonate across the generations. ...Show more

Faithfully Mozart - The Fantastical World of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Donovan Bixley

$16.00 NZD

Category: Children Non-fiction | Reading Level: good-very good

In this charming and very personal tribute, artist Donovan Bixley offers a portrait of the composer that will change forever the way he is viewed. Share in his triumphs and his despair, his laughter and his tears, as Mozart and his world are brought to vivid life in nearly one hundred original drawings and paintings, over fifty of them in full colour.<br>The accompanying text is based on the many letters Mozart wrote during his life, beginning with the delightful, if misspelt, letters he wrote as a thirteen-year-old boy travelling in Italy with his father. A CD features excerpts from some of Mozart's most acclaimed works, many of which are referred to in the text.  ...Show more

Roger Steffens & Peter Simon's Reggae Scrapbook by Roger Steffens & Peter Simon

$25.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: good

From its birth in the vibrant Kingston ghettos through it phenomenal popularity in the 1970s to its iconic standing in today's global culture, reggae and its close relations - ska, rock steady, dj, dub, dancehall, and raggamuffin - have taken the world by storm. In The Reggae Scrapbook, scintillating wo rds and images propel our appreciation of Jamaican music into the 21st century. Accomanying us on this journey is one of the men who introduced reggae to America and helped rock the world with its syncopated beat, Roger Steffens. Through lectures, books, magazine articles, radio, and television, Steffens has shared his knowledge of reggae around the globe as the world's premier archivist and collector of reggae memorabilia. Here he traces reggae's history and roots, supplemented by an audio CD featuring interviews with such reggae greats as Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff and "Toots" Hibbert. Divided into chapters on "Roots and Ska," "Rock Steady," "The Golden Age," "Rockers," "Digital and Dance Hall" and "Internationalization," and enhanced by sidebar features on historic figures, styles, and events, The Reggae Scrapbook is all you could wish for in a celebration of the rise of this irresistable musical and social force. The Reggae Scrapbook also conveys reggae culture through a treasure trove of memorabilia, the cream of Steffen's collection of more than 30,000 photographs, 800 T-shirts, 3,000 buttons, 10,000 posters and flyers as well as innumerable, seven-inch singles and album covers, posters, postcards, and tickets. Photographer Peter Simon presents a stunning collection of evocative images, from reggae's rough beginnings to the latest festivals, providing a stunning visual accompaniment. First published 2007. ...Show more

Private Presley - Elvis in Germany- The Missing Years

$14.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: good

The photographic material and extensive research undertaken for this book over an eight-year period by a German private detective, Andreas Shroer, shed light on Elvis Presley's US Army posting to Germany between 1958 and 1960. First-hand accounts of the life-style he enjoyed expose short-lived love affa irs, experiments with drugs, Presley's night-club jaunts in Munich and two visits to Paris. ...Show more

Bernie Taupin - The One Who Writes the Words for Elton John by Bernie Taupin

$16.00 NZD

Category: Music