A student of the world-renowned violinist Leopold Auer, Maia Bang acted as the maestro's teaching assistant and preserved his acclaimed methods of instruction in a series of manuals. The seven-volume collection covers every aspect of teaching and learning the instrument, from the beginning to the highest level. This first volume focuses on elementary aspects: the basics of holding the violin, tuning, reading music, scales, and bowing. Clear and simple in its presentation, the book abounds in Auer's original exercises and suggestions, including helpful notes for fingering, achieving proper intonation, legato playing, and other essentials. Bang's presentation continues Auer's tradition of combining technical exercises with fun-to-play melodies, including duets for teachers and students.

Carl F. Flesch grew up in Berlin surrounded by some of the most famous musicians of the day. This is his account of the men and women behind the famous names. Carl F. Flesch is the son of the famous German violinist Carl Flesch [1873-1944] and grew up in the Berlin of the 1920s and `30s. He thus came into almost daily contact with some of the foremost musicians of the century - Furtwängler, Kreisler, Schnabel, Heifetz, Thibaud - including, of course, his father's pupils - Rostal, Haendel, Neveu, and many others. `And do you also play the violin?' was a question he was frequently asked as he grew up, and it explains his intention in writing this book: he had, in his words, `a ringside seat' to observe these musicians from close quarters and writes about the men and women behind the famous names; examining, often with some humour, the relationship between teacher and pupil, the pressure on public performers, life as the child of a famous parent, and the effect on German musical life of the Nazis' accession to power.

In the grand manner of Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice's new novel moves across time and the continents, from nineteenth-century Vienna to a St. Charles Greek Revival mansion in present-day New Orleans to dazzling capitals of the modern-day world, telling a story of two charismatic figures bound to each other by a passionate commitment to music as a means of rapture, seduction, and liberation.