Biography & Autobiography : Composers & Musicians

When Warren Zevon died in 2003, he left behind both a fanatical cult following and a rich catalog of dark, witty rock-n-roll classics that includes ''Lawyers, Guns, and Money,'' ''Excitable Boy,'' and the immortal ''Werewolves of London.'' He also left a trove of misadventures and anecdotes, a veritable rock opera of drugs, women, celebrity, high times, and hard ways. As Warren once said, ''I got to be Jim Morrison a lot longer than he did.''. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead is an intimate and unusual oral history of one of our most original and distinctive rock-and-roll antiheroes. Narrated by his former wife and longtime co-conspirator, Crystal Zevon, the book draws on over eighty interviews with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Stephen King, Billy Bob Thornton, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and countless others who came under his mischievous spell. The result is a raucous and moving tale of love and obsession, creative genius and epic bad behavior. Told in the words and images of the friends, lovers, and legends who knew him best, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead captures Warren Zevon in all his turbulent glory. more...

Price: $19.95

This key text will be the first full-length research tool on Adrian Willaert, the Renaissance composer of motets and madrigals who came to prominence in the first part of the sixteenth century, and should prove invaluable to researchers and students of Renaissance music. It includes annotated entries on all published literature and a biography section with information on all well-known primary source material. Willaert was a key teacher and administrator in Renaissance Venice who helped establish Venice, and especially St. Marks, as a key centre for musical composition and performance. more...

Price: $180.00

In this compelling book, Robert Coles, the celebrated Harvard professor and Pulitzer Prize–winning author, turns his attention to popular music legend Bruce Springsteen, and to the powerful impact Springsteen’s work has had both on the lives of his audience and on this country’s literary tradition. more...

Price: $16.95

Frédéric Chopin (Polish: March 1, 1810 – October 17, 1849) was a Polish virtuoso pianist and piano composer of the Romantic period. He is widely regarded as the greatest Polish composer, and one of the most influential composers for piano in the 19th century. Chopin was born in the village of Zelazowa Wola, in the Duchy of Warsaw, to a Polish mother and French-expatriate father, and came to be regarded as a child-prodigy pianist. In November 1830, at the age of twenty, Chopin went abroad. After the suppression of the Polish 1830–31 Uprising, he became one of the many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration. In Paris he made a comfortable living as composer and piano teacher, while giving few public performances. A great Polish patriot, in France he used the French version of his given name and, to avoid having to rely on Imperial Russian documents, eventually became a French citizen. From 1837 to 1847 he conducted a turbulent relationship with the French writer George Sand (Aurore Dudevant). Always in frail health, at 39 in Paris he succumbed to pulmonary tuberculosis. Chopin's extant compositions all include the piano, predominantly alone or as a solo instrument among others. Though his music is technically demanding, its style emphasizes nuance and expressive depth rather than technical virtuosity. Chopin invented new musical forms such as the ballade, and made major innovations in existing forms such as the piano sonata, waltz, nocturne, étude, impromptu, and prelude. His works are mainstays of Romanticism in 19th-century classical music. His mazurkas and polonaises remain the cornerstone of Polish national classical music. [Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin under the terms of the GNU-FDL] more...

Price: $6.99

This classic in music biography and criticism reflects the intimate, thorough knowledge of Chopin's music Huneker acquired while studying to be a concert pianist and his unusually keen insight into the character of the composer. Part One deals with Chopin's life; the second offers brilliant piece-by-piece analysis of the entire body of his music. more...

Price: $6.99