How are conductors' silent gestures magicked into sound by a group of more than a hundred brilliant but belligerent musicians? The mute choreography of great conductors has fascinated and frustrated musicians and music-lovers for centuries. Orchestras can be inspired to the heights of musical and expressive possibility by their maestros, or flabbergasted that someone who doesn't even make a sound should be elevated to demigod-like status by the public.This is the first book to go in...

Based on his critically-acclaimed BBC Radio 3 programme The Listening Service, in which Tom Service takes an idea on an ear-opening and mind-expanding walk through the musical landscape every week, this book is a celebration of music's multi-dimensional power in our lives. With 101 short chapters based on the programmes and grouped thematically the book will open ears and imaginations to find answers to the questions we all have about why and how music - from Toots and the Maytals and J S ...

Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium.Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral tradition, musical notation and recordings in a chain of connection that spans the globe, across the millennia. A History of the World in 50 Pieces follows that chain, collating 50 pieces of c...

Thomas Adès is fêted from Los Angeles to London, from New York to Berlin, as the musician who has done more than any other living composer to connect contemporary music with wider audiences. His operas, orchestral pieces and chamber works have already stood the test of repeated performances, productions and continued critical acclaim.But this celebrated composer, conductor and pianist is notoriously secretive about his creative process, about what lies behind his compositional impu...

**Brought to you by Penguin.Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium.**Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral tradition, musical notation and recordings in a chain of connection that spans the globe, across the millennia. A History of the World in 50 Pieces follows that chain, col...

Combining poignant memoir and historical research, a son of Holocaust survivors grapples with the dream of Zionism and its consequences.Israel: A Personal History takes off where Göran Rosenberg's internationally acclaimed and award-winning childhood memoir, A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz, ends. After his father's suicide in 1960 in a small industrial town in Sweden, the remainder of the family, a single mother with two children, emigrate...

Brought to you by Penguin.We tend to think that everything important comes from the centre: from big cities, from established orthodoxies in the sciences and the arts, from the Establishment in all its forms. We think this because the centre tells us it is so, but it's a lie. It is only at the edges that we think, innovate and thrive.This book travels to the frontiers of human culture and consciousness; to the edges of continents, of evolution, of artistic ...

**Brought to you by Penguin.From the high-octane, high stakes world of F1, these are the key lessons learned at the top level of the sport – and how to take them out of the pitlane and make them work for youForeword by JAKE HUMPHREY, author of HIGH PERFORMANCE**F1 teams operate at the highest level of competitive sport. With huge sums of money, global prestige and even lives on the line, they work under constant pressure to survive and succeed.Drawing on his...

Join acclaimed travel writer and incurably curious hiker Tom Chesshyre in this celebration of the Peak District, Britain’s first National Park, on its 75th anniversary'Funny, fair and honest, and effortlessly readable' Matthew ParrisIn the heart of England lies a fascinating landscape of rugged dark gritstone plateaus and gentle green limestone valleys: the Peak District. But this national treasure hasn’t always been open to all.On ...

From Peter the Great to Putin, a biography of the city Hitler tried - and failed - to wipe off the mapThe siege of Saint Petersburg – then known as Leningrad – stands as a testament to human endurance. Intended by the Nazis as civilian extermination, the numbers who perished in this 900-day ordeal almost outweighed the entire total of British and American troop deaths in the Second World War.The city’s 2.5 million residents began to starve as rations shrank...

**Brought to you by Penguin.The fascinating new history of the British Aristocracy since the Second World War**There are fewer than 5000 people who can genuinely claim to be members of the British aristocracy, and yet they loom large in the popular consciousness. We're fascinated by their houses and estates, their lives and loves, their foibles and eccentricities. And we entertain the strong suspicion that, while they may be fellow citizens, they are very far from being Peo...

**Brought to you by Penguin.How the world's best actors communicate with gravitas - and how you can, too.**Every time you deliver a speech, give a presentation, or simply tell a good story, you are taking centre stage. Here, one of the world’s leading voice coaches introduces the simple exercises that great actors use to hold people’s attention – and reveals how anyone speaking in public can use them.Drawing on 25 years working at London’s National Theatre, Jeannett...