The Firebird Song

Debut author Arnée Flores spins an exciting and original tale about hope in even the darkest of places, perfect for fans of Shannon Hale. The Kingdom of Lyrica was once warm and thriving, kept safe by the Firebird, whose feather and song was a blessing of peace and prosperity. But the Firebird disappeared, and Lyrica is now terrorized by the evil Spectress who wields her powers from within a volcano. All that remains is a mysterious message scrawled on the castle wall in the Queen's own hand: Wind. Woman. Thief. Young Prewitt has only known time without the Firebird, a life of constant cold, as his village is afraid to tempt the volcano monsters with even the feeblest fire. But he has heard whispers that the kingdom's princess survived the attack . . . and he is certain that if he can find her, together they can save Lyrica. Princess Calliope has no memories beyond living on her barge on the underground lake. But as she nears her twelfth birthday, she is certain there is more to life than the walls of a cave. When Prewitt finds her, he realizes that she is the missing princess: the only hope for Lyrica. Determined to decipher the meaning of her mother's strange message and find the Firebird, Calliope and Prewitt set off on a quest that puts them in more danger than either of them ever anticipated.

In this fantasy adventure, Fletcher and Scoop are Apprentice Adventurers from the ancient establishment of Blotting's Academy on Fullstop Island. This is the place where all story characters are trained. The trouble is, they can't remember how they got there. It's the first day of term, but the two apprentices soon realise something is wrong. Things are going missing, including their own memories, and Scoop has the unsettling feeling that something is creeping in the shadows. As the children search for answers, they become entangled with the life of the Storyteller, the islands creator and king. They journey to his wedding banquet and find themselves uncovering a hidden past. What is their connection to this mysterious man? And is there more to him than meets the eye? ,

He's Firebird - the biggest star in the world. People everywhere listen to his music and want to dance. Luisa and Carlos love his music and Luisa wants to write about him for a music magazine. But nobody seems to know anything about Firebird, except TV star Hank Fortuna, and Hank tells Luisa that Firebird has a secret - a very dangerous secret.

The time and the place are universal. Metaxaeus, a youthful yet visionary sculptor, will embark on an odyssey in which he will at last meet face to face with Akasha, a talented storyteller from a distant township. Set in a simple landscape of mountains and rivers, Song of the Firebird is a meditation on the possibilities of love, when seen in the light of the spirit. Underscoring a fidelity to the sacred dimension of life, that so often reveals itself to us in the inmost presence of our dreams, and written with the poignancy of a parable, this timeless story is an evocation of the spiritual power, and the lasting truth, inherent in our quest for an enduring love.

The Rake's Progress is Stravinsky's biggest work and one of the few great operas written since the 1920s, rare too for the unusual quality of its libretto, by Auden and Kallman. Its importance is undisputed, but so too are the problems it raises: problems of both performance and understanding, caused by the irony with which it is so thoroughly permeated. In aspects of style and operatic convention it looks back to the eighteenth century, and in particular to the operas of Mozart and da Ponte, while making references also to other periods, to operas from Monteverdi to Verdi. Yet at the same time it is wholly a work of the twentieth-century, and indeed it is centrally concerned with the impossibility of return, artistic, psychological or actual, as well as with the nature and limitation of human free will. The Rake's Progress is not one of unbridled dissipation but rather, more interestingly, one of attachment to naive notions of freedom and choice, and his tragedy is that he can never go back.

Seeking the Firebird's Nest by Edward Schwartz carries the reader on a journey where Past and Present stream by the window of the author's mind. Human frailty is given voice with hope to reach happiness and teach for the Future. Esoteric anecdotes reveal his philosophy of life developed in his personal adventures, trials and accomplishments, all in a fairy tale format. Many years have passed since I was a little boy. Several times in my life the firebird has shown me her face. Did she look like the firebird from the old man's house or does everybody see his or her own firebird? I do not know. But what I do definitely know is the fact that the taste of tears caused by the firebird's appearance is the same for all of us.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived

The most celebrated of Western composers in the twentieth century, Igor Stravinskymay have been the greatest as well. Stretching across forty or so years, the essays in this volume address the dynamics of Igor Stravinsky’s music from a variety of analytical, critical, and aesthetic angles. Underscored are the features of melody, harmony, rhythm, and form that would remain consistently a part of Stravinsky’s oeuvre regardless of the changes in orientation from the Russian period to the neoclassical and the early serial. The Rite of Spring (1913), Les Noces (1917–23), the Symphony of Psalms (1930), and the Symphony in Three Movements (1945) are discussed in detail, as are many of the circumstances attending their conception. Other concerns include the composer’s "formalist" aesthetics and the strict performing style he pursued as an interpreter and conductor of his music.