“An exceptionally fine book: erudite, digressive, urbane and deeply moving.” —Wall Street JournalChopin’s Piano traces the history of Frédéric Chopin’s twenty-four Preludes through the instruments on which they were played, the pianists who interpreted them, and the traditions they came to represent. Yet it begins and ends with Chopin’s Mallorquin pianino, which the great keyboard player Wanda Landowska rescued from an abandoned monastery at Valld...

The New York Times bestselling autobiography by the lead guitarist of Black Sabbath and the architect of heavy metalIron Man chronicles the story of both pioneering guitarist Tony Iommi and legendary band Black Sabbath, dubbed "The Beatles of heavy metal" by Rolling Stone. Iron Man reveals the man behind the icon yet still captures Iommi's humor, intelligence, and warmth. He speaks honestly and unflinchingly about his rough-and-t...

Are you the world’s biggest One Direction fan? Do you know everything there is to know about the world’s best-loved boy band? Then this is the book for you! In this easy-to-digest eBook are 101 facts about your favourite group - do you know all of them?Test yourself and your friends with these handily-packaged facts easily organised into categories for maximum enjoyment. Show everyone that you are the master of One Direction mania!

This classic account of the birth of a legendary group is the truly authentic version of Queen's rise to stardom. Author Mark Hodkinson interviewed over 60 friends and colleagues of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon to piece together a fascinating jigsaw of anecdotes from the days when the future superstars were playing with bands like The Reaction, The Opposition, 1984 and Sour Milk. Intimate, suprising and meticulously researched, Queen: The Early Years is a riveti...

No Direction Home took 20 years to complete and has received widespread critical acclaim. Robert Shelton met Bob Dylan when the young singer arrived in New York; he became Dylan's friend, champion, and critic, and his book has been hailed as the definitive unauthorised biography of this moody, passionate genius and his world. Of more than a thousand books published about Bob Dylan, it is the only one that has been written with Dylan's active cooperation.

The great violinist Viktoria Mullova's story is one of striking contrasts and huge challenges. As a young musician she was a bright star in the Soviet musical firmament, but she stunned the world when she escaped the KGB and fled to the West, leaving behind her family, friends and all she knew. And in her flight from Finland, Viktoria also abandoned on her hotel bed the priceless Stradivarius she'd played during her triumph at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. From Russia to Love ...

Now retired and no longer silenced by a contract, Maggie Cotton presents an honest and long-overdue player's perspective of life inside a professional symphony orchestra, describing how she became the first female percussionist in what was initially a staunchly male-dominated world. Now retired after forty years with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Maggie gives a fascinating and humorous insight into every aspect of her working life, including tours, conductors, composers, soloi...

Gustav Holst was a leading figure in the new age of English music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His most celebrated work, The Planets, is an orchestral tour de force, but he wrote music of startling originality in many forms, drawing inspiration from sources as varied as English folksong, oriental melody, the Apocrypha and Sanskrit literature, as well as from writers such as Keats, Hardy, Bridges and Whitman.This biography, by his daughter Imogen, was...

From the Author's Preface:"I believe that in his greatest music Beethoven was primarily concerned to express his personal vision of life. This vision was, of course, the product of his character and his experience. Beethoven the man and Beethoven the composer are not two unconnected entities, and the known history of the man may be used to throw light upon the character of his music."Clifton Fadiman has said of this classic study:"It is the most interesting book on ...

This 2004 Companion is a collection of specially commissioned essays on one of the most influential opera composers in the repertoire. The volume is divided into four parts, each exploring an important element of Rossini's life, his world, and his works: biography and reception; words and music; representative operas; and performance. Within these sections accessible chapters, written by a team of specialists, examine Rossini's life and career; the reception of his music in the nineteenth ...

THE FIRST AND ONLY BIOGRAPHY TO CHART ONE OF PUNK ROCK'S MOST INFLUENTIAL AND IMPORTANT BANDS.Blink-182 started off as a power-punk trio that gigged relentlessly and goofed about constantly. Yet, over the course of five blistering studio albums, Blink evolved into one of the most influential post-punk outfits in music, which led to sales in excess of 20 million records worldwide.They split up in 2005 amidst tales of barbed acrimony after which the band was replaced by running record labels...

Stan Levey is widely considered to be one of the most influential drummers in the history of modern jazz. During his extraordinary career, the self-taught Levey played alongside a who’s who of twentieth century jazz artists: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, Art Tatum, Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Lester Young, Thelonius Monk, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Ella Fitzgerald-the remarkable list goes on and on, and includes dozens of the most distinguished...