For old rockers and die-hards who simply refuse to gather moss... and, no doubt, for hipsters: an illustrated history of contemporary culture, through the prism of Rolling Stone magazine's c... read more
The latest in Yale's Musical Instrument series winds from ancient animal horns to the lurs of Bronze Age Denmark - and thence eventually to its modern brassy descendants.
"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb - and I'm not blonde either." Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actress, author, business... read more
The role of surrealism and the cultural milieu of Paris in the 1940s helped inspire Boulez's emotional and radical music. CP's last book - on Eric Satie - was excellent.
Wolf set the works of thirty-six poets to music. Here the genial professor of lieder at the Royal College of Music translates the poems, introduces the poets and Wolf's connections with them... read more
The 1970s NME critic got bored with pop and discovered that the most radical music of all was classical. This is a personal and entertainingly idiosyncratic history of music.
Published by Yale, this is a fascinating and original exploration of the influence of the newly popular guitar on the Romantics and on culture in the early C19th.
A massive work tracing Wagner's immense influence, not only through his adoption by the Nazis but through a gallery of others, from Baudelaire and Woolf to Philip K Dick and 'Apocalypse Now'... read more
A companion volume to his Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (pbk £25), tracing Bach's evolution as a composer and looking deeply into his creative process.
It's only six years since his magisterial biography of Beethoven, which seemed a lifetime's work. To do the same so quickly for Mozart seems nothing short of miraculous. NB due for publicati... read more
Shinichi Suzuki was a violinist who became more famous as an educator and philosopher; his ideas of language acquisition revolutionised musical training. He also did much to erode occidental... read more