50 Maestros 50 Recordings

From Begum Akhtar to Bhimsen Joshi, Enayat Khan to Ravi Shankar, Bismillah Khan to Shiv Kumar Sharma, Indian classical music is as varied as it can be, from the pure traditional gharanas to more recent blends and fusions. Young sarod players Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan have grown up surrounded by music and musicians. In this tribute to the masters of Indian classical music, both instrumental and vocal, they take us through their encounters with fifty musicians from the twentieth century, exploring the world of both Hindustani and Carnatic music. Filled with personal anecdotes and musical appraisals, this book takes you through the best of Indian classical music. Interspersed with some rare photographs from the authors personal collection as well as descriptions and details of every recording they have discussed, this book is a keepsake for the connoisseur and a comprehensive introduction to the beginner.

From Begum Akhtar to Bhimsen Joshi, Enayat Khan to Ravi Shankar, Bismillah Khan to Shiv Kumar Sharma, Indian classical music is as varied as it can be, from the pure traditional gharanas to more recent blends and fusions. Young sarod players Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan have grown up surrounded by music and musicians. In this tribute to the masters of Indian classical music, both instrumental and vocal, they take us through their encounters with fifty musicians from the twentieth century, exploring the world of both Hindustani and Carnatic music. Filled with personal anecdotes and musical appraisals, and accompanied by a CD selection of some of the finest recorded performances, this book takes you through the best of Indian classical music. Interspersed with some rare photographs from the authors personal collection as well as descriptions and details of every recording they have discussed, this book is a keepsake for the connoisseur and a comprehensive introduction to the beginner.

In the middle of the nineteenth century a new family of hereditary musicians emerged in the royal court of Lucknow and subsequently rose to the heights of renown throughout North India. Today this musical lineage, or ghar n, lives on in the music and memories of only a small handful of descendants and players of the family instrument, the sarod. Drawing on six years of ethnographic and archival research, and fifteen years of musical apprenticeship, Max Katz explores the oral history and written record of the Lucknow ghar n ,tracing its displacement, loss of prestige, and erasure from the collective memory. In doing so he illuminates a hidden history of ideological and social struggle in North Indian music culture, intervenes in ongoing debates over the anti-Muslim agenda of Hindustani music's reform movement, and reanimates a lost vision in which Muslim scholar-artists defined the music of the nation. An interdisciplinary, postmodern counter-history, Lineage of Loss offers a new and unsettling narrative of Hindustani music's encounter with modernity.

An Introduction to Hindustani Classical Music: A Guidebook for Beginners is Vijay Singha's comprehensive guide to savour and appreciate classical music. Written in a simple and easy-to-comprehend style, this book delves into the understanding of raga sangeet, semi-classical and fusion music, raga sangeet in Hindi films, as well as the future of classical music in India.

John Mauceri, who has stood on podiums before storied symphonies, operas, and ballets around the world, brings a lifetime of experience to bear in this informative, brilliantly entertaining exploration of his profession. As Mauceri traces the lineage of his craft, from Felix Mendelssohn (the first to use a baton) to the present day, he shows us how conducting is itself a composition: of legacy and tradition, of techniques handed down—and more than a trace of ineffable magic. Weaving clear musical explanations together with memorable accounts of working alongside masters like Bernstein and Stokowski, Mauceri reveals how conductors approach a piece with a combination of personal interpretation, imagination, and insight into the composer’s intent; what it takes to communicate solely through gesture, with sometimes hundreds of performers at once; and the occasionally glamorous, often challenging life of the itinerant maestro. Illuminating and instructive, inflected with candor, humor, and grace, Maestros and Their Music is the perfect guide to the allure and theater, passion and drudgery, rivalries and relationships of the conducting life.

This volume presents biographical and critical essays of the leading orchestral conductors of US nationality, or of non-US citizens holding permanent appointments in the US, during the twenty-first century.

Much has been written about Leonard Bernstein, a musician of extraordinary talent who was legendary for his passionate love of life and many relationships. In this work, Mari Yoshihara reveals the deeply emotional connections Bernstein formed with two little-known Japanese individuals, which she narrates through their personal letters that have never been seen before. Dearest Lenny interweaves an intimate story of love and art with a history of Bernstein's transformation from an American icon to a world maestro during the second half of the twentieth century. The articulate, moving letters of Kazuko Amano--a woman who began writing fan letters to Bernstein in 1947 and became a close family friend--and Kunihiko Hashimoto--a young man who fell in love with the maestro in 1979 and later became his business representative--convey the meaning Bernstein and his music had at various stages of their lives. The letters also shed light on how Bernstein's compositions, recordings, and performances touched his audiences around the world. The book further traces the making of a global Bernstein amidst the shifting landscape of classical music that made this American celebrity turn increasingly to Europe and Japan. The dramatic change in Japan's place in the world and its relationship to the United States during the postwar decades shaped Bernstein's connection to the country. Ultimately, Dearest Lenny is a story of relationships--between the two individuals and Bernstein, the United States and the world, art and commerce, artists and the state, private and public, conventions and transgressions, dreams and realities--that were at the core of Bernstein's greatest achievements and challenges and that made him truly a maestro of the world. Dearest Lenny paints a poignant portrait of individuals connected across cultures, languages, age, and status through correspondence and music--and the world that shaped their relationships.

A collection of interviews with major orchestra conductors which explores the impact of recording technology on contemporary musical culture. This work discusses the digital revolution and progress of the compact disc along with the listening public's changing perception of music.