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Subject Area: Music-Subjects & Themes

Cesar Franck--Composer, Teacher, Organist: A Guide to Research
 Flynn, Timothy
2024 1-4955-1239-8 268 pages
"The materials examined in the present study represent an overview of the scholarship regarding the life and music of Cesar Franck (1822-1890) as well as selected sources associated with nineteenth century French music in general. Studies pertaining to other composers and musical genres connected with Franck have been included to offer the researcher more extensive information regarding the composer's life and times. This monograph is not meant to be an exhaustive collection of material, but rather it consists of a cross section of what has been written about the composer, his music, and the history surrounding him. The purpose of this resource tool is to facilitate further research and deeper inquiry into Franck as a composer, teacher, and organist in addition to his influence upon music history through his works." (Dr. Timothy Flynn, "Preface") [This is a revised version of the book published by Pendragon Press in 2019].

Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites: The Documented History of a Twentieth-Century Opera
 Schmidt, Carl B.
2024 1-4955-1217-7 312 pages
"In 1946, Poulenc wrote that 'inspiration is such a mysterious thing that it is best not to explain it.' Explain it or not, Poulenc reminded us that 'my music is my portrait,' and Dialogues is both his most substantial work and his most inspired creation. Tens of thousands have encountered his music through this opera, and many of them have been brought to tears by its emotionally wrenching last scene. ... It is time that the complex history of this splendid opera, including the many documents surrounding it, be made available together." -Dr. Carl B. Schmidt ("Preface") This book is also available in softcover.

Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites: The Documented History of a Twentieth-Century Opera
 Schmidt, Carl B.
2024 1-4955-1241-X 312 pages
This is a softcover book. "In 1946, Poulenc wrote that 'inspiration is such a mysterious thing that it is best not to explain it.' Explain it or not, Poulenc reminded us that 'my music is my portrait,' and Dialogues is both his most substantial work and his most inspired creation. Tens of thousands have encountered his music through this opera, and many of them have been brought to tears by its emotionally wrenching last scene. ... It is time that the complex history of this splendid opera, including the many documents surrounding it, be made available together." -Dr. Carl B. Schmidt ("Preface")

Messiaen's Contemplations of Covenant and Incarnation: Musical Symbols of Faith in the Two Great Piano Cycles of the 1940s
 Bruhn, Siglind
2023 1-4955-1181-2 296 pages
"Olivier Messiaen, master of sounds, was gifted with an unusual visual sense. While his physical eyes always needed thick glasses, his inner eye saw much that remains hidden to most. Music and Color is the title of the only volume of conversations published under the composer's own name rather than under that of the respective interviewer, thus drawing the readers' attention to the importance Messiaen attached to one of the basic aspects of visual perception. ...Were one to move in the direction of inner perception, one would arrive at the dimension of contemplations and visions. This book aims to direct its readers' interest specifically toward the metaphysical, theological, and sometimes mystical visions manifested in the two piano cycles whose movements are compiled under the titles of 'visions' and 'contemplations' respectively." -Siglind Bruhn (Preface)

Voicing the Ineffable: Musical Representations of Religious Experience
 Bruhn, Siglind
2023 1-4955-1167-7 326 pages
This edited volume focuses on various aspects of the connections between the sacred, religion, or spirituality and music. "Up to the Middle Ages, music employed for ritual expressions of faith in sacred contexts and for evocations ...was contrasted with music presented for entertainment." -Siglind Bruhn [Introduction] This book was originally published by Pendragon Press in 2002.