The Moonlight Variations
Title | The Moonlight Variations PDF eBook |
Author | Florence Stevenson |
Publisher | Jove Books |
Pages | 224 |
Release | 1981-02-01 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9780515056556 |
Beethoven: The 'Moonlight' and Other Sonatas, Op. 27 and Op. 31
Title | Beethoven: The 'Moonlight' and Other Sonatas, Op. 27 and Op. 31 PDF eBook |
Author | Timothy Jones |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 164 |
Release | 1999-10-21 |
Genre | Music |
ISBN | 9780521598590 |
Even in Beethoven's day the 'Moonlight' Sonata was a popular favourite. This 1999 book provides an accessible introduction to the Sonatas Opp. 27 and 31 (including The 'Moonlight' and 'The Tempest'), aimed at pianists, students, and music lovers. It begins with the works' historical background - the emergence of a 'piano culture' at the end of the eighteenth century, Beethoven's aristocratic milieu in Vienna, and his oft-quoted intention to follow a new compositional path. An account of the sonatas' genesis is followed by a discussion of their reception history, including a survey of changing performing styles since the mid-nineteenth century. The concept of the Sonata quasi una Fantasia is examined in relation to the cult of artistic sensibility in early-nineteenth-century Vienna. The study concludes with a critical introduction to each sonata.
Structure of the Moon's Surface
Title | Structure of the Moon's Surface PDF eBook |
Author | Gilbert Fielder |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Pages | 287 |
Release | 2016-06-06 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 148315016X |
Structure of the Moon's Surface focuses on the importance of certain features of the Moon's surface that have frequently been disregarded in the past, largely because of lack of knowledge of them. Topics covered include the librations of the Moon; height determinations of the points on the lunar surface; luminous intensity and luminescence of the lunar rocks; the color of moonlight and composition of the Moon's surface; and the Moon's temperature and atmosphere. This book is comprised of 14 chapters and begins with a review of important physical problems associated with the Moon, including its motion and figure as well as the luminous intensity and luminescence of its rocks. The following chapters discuss the polarization of light reflected by the Moon; the problem of the Moon's atmosphere; the probable nature of the Moon's surface; and changes occurring on the Moon. The Moon's ray and grid systems, lattice patterns, rilles and faults, and distribution and frequency of craters are also considered. The final chapter is devoted to the origin of the Moon's surface. This monograph will be of use to both professional and amateur lunar astronomers.
Beethoven Variations
Title | Beethoven Variations PDF eBook |
Author | Ruth Padel |
Publisher | Knopf |
Pages | 125 |
Release | 2021-02-02 |
Genre | Poetry |
ISBN | 0593317734 |
“Padel’s imagery and imagination took me deeper into Beethoven than many biographies I’ve read.” —Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times A fascinating poetic journey into the mind and heart of a musical genius, from the author of the celebrated Darwin: A Life in Poems Ruth Padel's new sequence of poems, in four movements, is a personal voyage through the life and legend of one of the world's greatest composers. She uncovers the man behind the music, charting his private thoughts and feelings through letters, diaries, sketchbooks, and the conversation books he used as his hearing declined. She gives us Beethoven as a battered four-year-old, weeping at the clavier; the young virtuoso pianist agonized by his encroaching deafness; the passionate, heartbroken lover; the clumsy eccentric making coffee with exactly sixty beans. Padel's quest takes her into the heart of Europe and back to her own musical childhood: Her great-grandfather, who studied in Leipzig with a pupil of Beethoven's, became a concert pianist before migrating to Britain; her parents met making music; and Padel grew up playing the viola, Beethoven's instrument as a child. Her book is a poet and string player's intimate connection across the centuries with an artist who, though increasingly isolated, ended even his most harrowing works on a note of hope.
The 18th Variation
Title | The 18th Variation PDF eBook |
Author | John van den Berg |
Publisher | Lulu.com |
Pages | 400 |
Release | 2015-05-09 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 1329126327 |
Based on real events in South Africa... When Anneke Mouton is left for dead after a sadistic sexual assault, her art teacher, Karl Ryneveld, becomes the prime suspect. He's out on bail, after all, awaiting trial for sexually molesting two of Anneke's schoolmates. The people of his town are already suspicious about Karl's free-thinking liberalism, and when the police search his house they find a stash of photos and a painting of Anneke, all of them showing the 18-year old blonde in the nude. Karl manages to evade the police and the following day his abandoned car is found at the Berg River with a suicide note. The police investigation grinds to a halt, but Karl's daughter, Roxana, cannot believe that her father was a murderer. Nor does Sean Dumont, who writes an unfinished memoir about Karl. Years later Sean, Roxy, and the author roll back in town and Karl's infamous painting of Anneke is seen with a fresh set of eyes. Unexpectedly the truth is uncovered.
Birds by Night
Title | Birds by Night PDF eBook |
Author | Graham Martin |
Publisher | A&C Black |
Pages | 238 |
Release | 2010-10-30 |
Genre | Nature |
ISBN | 1408137704 |
This book examines many examples of the nocturnal behaviour of birds. For many people, watching and studying birds is exclusively a day time activity. However, for many birds twilight and night time are not a barrier to useful activity. It is true that very few birds are exclusively nocturnal, but many birds which are active by day also conduct limited, and often crucial, activities after dusk. Examples range from the occasional night feeding of wildfowl and shorebirds to the night singing and night migration of certain passerines, and from the location of nest sites by sea birds to the nocturnal foraging of owls and nightjars. The special cases of flightless nocturnal birds and those birds which dwell in lightless caves are also considered. Throughout, this survey considers not only what it is that birds do at night but also discusses how these nocturnal activities are possible. It brings together studies in field ornithology, sensory science, ecology and physics and involves comparisons of the sensory capacities of other animals, including man. It is shown how the senses of hearing, smell and touch, as well as vision, play a crucial role in many of the night time activities of birds. However, these senses are not always adequate for fully explaining how nocturnal behaviours are executed. To achieve this we must look at the complex of relationships between behavioural and sensory adaptations and the particular environments which birds inhabit from dusk to dawn.
Variations on the Canon
Title | Variations on the Canon PDF eBook |
Author | Robert Curry |
Publisher | University Rochester Press |
Pages | 398 |
Release | 2008 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 9781580462853 |
Masterful essays honoring the great pianist and critic Charles Rosen, on masterpieces from Bach and Beethoven to Chopin, Verdi, and Stockhausen. Charles Rosen, the pianist and man of letters, is perhaps the single most influential writer on music of the past half-century. While Rosen's vast range as a writer and performer is encyclopedic, it has focused particularly on theliving "canonical" repertory extending from Bach to Boulez. Inspired in its liveliness and variety of critical approaches by Charles Rosen's challenging work, Variations on the Canon offers original essays by some of the world's most eminent musical scholars. Contributors address such issues as style and compositional technique, genre, influence and modeling, and reception history; develop insights afforded by close examination of compositional sketches; and consider what language and metaphors might most meaningfully convey insights into music. However diverse the modes of inquiry, each essay sheds new light on the works of those composers posterity has deemed central to the modern Western musical tradition. Contributors: Pierre Boulez, Scott Burnham, Elliott Carter, Robert Curry, Walter Frisch, David Gable, Philip Gossett, Jeffrey Kallberg, Joseph Kerman, Richard Kramer, William Kinderman, Lewis Lockwood, Sir Charles Mackerras, Robert L. Marshall, Robert P. Morgan, Charles Rosen, Julian Rushton, David Schulenberg, László Somfai, Leo Treitler, James Webster, and Robert Winter. Robert Curry is principalof the Conservatorium High School and honorary senior lecturer in the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney; David Gable is Assistant Professor of Music at Clark-Atlanta University; Robert L. Marshall is Louis, Frances, and Jeffrey Sachar Professor Emeritus of Music at Brandeis University.