This account of the renowned composer’s neglected wife—including her years in a Soviet prison—is “a story both riveting and wrenching” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Serge Prokofiev was one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant composers yet is an enigma to historians and his fans. Why did he leave the West and move to the Soviet Union despite Stalin’s crimes? Why did his astonishing creativity in the 1930s soon dissolve into a far less inspiring output in his later years? The answers can finally be revealed, thanks to Simon Morrison’s unique and unfettered access to the family’s voluminous papers and his ability to reconstruct the tragic, riveting life of the composer’s wife, Lina. Morrison’s portrait of the marriage of Lina and Serge Prokofiev is the story of a remarkable woman who fought for survival in the face of unbearable betrayal and despair and of the irresistibly talented but heartlessly self-absorbed musician she married. Born to a Spanish father and Russian mother in Madrid at the end of the nineteenth century and raised in Brooklyn, Lina fell in love with a rising-star composer—and defied convention to be with him, courting public censure. She devoted her life to Serge and art, training to be an operatic soprano and following her brilliant husband to Stalin’s Russia. Just as Serge found initial acclaim—before becoming constricted by the harsh doctrine of socialist-realist music—Lina was at first accepted and later scorned, ending her singing career. Serge abandoned her and took up with another woman. Finally, Lina was arrested and shipped off to the gulag in 1948. She would be held in captivity for eight awful years. Meanwhile, Serge found himself the tool of an evil regime to which he was forced to accommodate himself. The contrast between Lina and Serge is one of strength and perseverance versus utter self-absorption, a remarkable human drama that draws on the forces of art, sacrifice, and the struggle against oppression. Readers will never forget the tragic drama of Lina’s life, and never listen to Serge’s music in quite the same way again.

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! • Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world. “I loved The Violin Conspiracy for exactly the same reasons I loved The Queen’s Gambit: a surprising, beautifully rendered underdog hero I cared about deeply and a fascinating, cutthroat world I knew nothing about—in this case, classical music.” —Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and Hour of the Witch Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music. When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he's lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin, but prove to himself—and the world—that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.

As featured in the Telegraph and on Radio 4's Today programme. 'A magnificent treasury . . . a fascinating tour de force.' Observer 'Year of Wonder is an absolute treat - the most enlightening way to be guided through the year.' Eddie Redmayne Classical music for everyone - an inspirational piece of music for every day of the year, celebrating composers from the medieval era to the present day, written by award-winning violinist and BBC Radio 3 presenter Clemency Burton-Hill. Have you ever heard a piece of music so beautiful it stops you in your tracks? Or wanted to discover more about classical music but had no idea where to begin? Year of Wonder is a unique celebration of classical music by an author who wants to share its diverse wonders with others and to encourage a love for this genre in all readers, whether complete novices or lifetime enthusiasts. Clemency chooses one piece of music for each day of the year, with a short explanation about the composer to put it into context, and brings the music alive in a modern and playful way, while also extolling the positive mindfulness element of giving yourself some time every day to listen to something uplifting or beautiful. Thoughtfully curated and expertly researched, this is a book of classical music to keep you company: whoever you are, wherever you're from. 'The only requirements for enjoying classical music are open ears and an open mind.' Clemency Burton-Hill Playlists are available on most streaming music platforms including Apple Music.

The New Bruckner provides a valuable study of Bruckner's music, focusing on the interaction of biography, textual scholarship, reception history and analysis. Dr Dermot Gault conveys a broad chronological narrative of Bruckner's compositional development, interpolating analytical commentaries on the works and critical accounts of the notoriously complex and editorial issues. Gault corrects longstanding misconceptions about the composer's revision process, and its relationship with the early editions and widely-held critical opinions. Bruckner's constantly evolving engagement with symphonic form is traced by taking each revision in due order, rather than by taking each symphony on its own, and by relating the symphonies to other mature works such as the Te Deum, the three great Masses, and the Quintet, and argues that Bruckner's music became more organic and less schematic as the result of his revisions. The book will be essential reading for those studying Bruckner's compositions, the complex history of their reception, and late Romantic music in general.

Central to the repertoire of Western art music since the 1700s, the symphony has come to be regarded as one of the ultimate compositional challenges. In his series The Symphonic Repertoire, the late A. Peter Brown explored the symphony in Europe from its origins into the 20th century. In Volume V, Brown's former students and colleagues continue his vision by turning to the symphony in the Western Hemisphere. It examines the work of numerous symphonists active from the early 1800s to the present day and the unique challenges they faced in contributing to the European symphonic tradition. The research adds to an unmatched compendium of knowledge for the student, teacher, performer, and sophisticated amateur. This much-anticipated fifth volume of The Symphonic Repertoire: The Symphony in the Americas offers a user-friendly, comprehensive history of the symphony genre in the United States and Latin America.

The Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) revised his symphonies many times during his lifetime, and editions are now available for most of those versions, with many distinguishing variants. This book describes in great detail how the listener can easily distinguish them, with many musical examples. There are also 300 associated sound files accessible through quick-recognition codes to assist the reader who is unfamiliar with musical notation.

This discography--a finalist in ARSC's 1992 Awards for Excellence--represents a broad and accurate document of the availability of Bruckner's music on records, tapes and compact discs over the last forty years. An indexed list of writers of liner-notes recognizes the important criticism of many prominent scholars, and a chronology documents trends in the proliferation of recorded performances.