Music

There were many reasons Moby was never going to make it as a DJ and musician in the New York club scene of the late 1980s and early 90s. This was the New York of Palladium, of Mars, Limelight, and Twilo, an era when dance music was still a largely underground phenomenon, popular chiefly among working-class African Americans and Latinos. And then there was Moby-not just a poor, skinny white kid from deepest Connecticut, but a devout Christian, a vegan, and a teetotaler, in a scene that was known for its unchecked drug-fueled hedonism. He would learn what it was to be spat on, literally and figuratively. And to live on almost nothing. But it was perhaps the last good time for an artist to live on nothing in New York City ... And so by the end of the decade, Moby contemplated the end of things, in his career and elsewhere in his life, and he put that emotion into what he assumed would be his swan song, his good-bye to all that, the album that would be in fact the beginning of an astonishing new phase in his life, the multimillion-selling Play.

Porcelain is about making it, losing it, loving it, and hating it. It's about finding your people, and your place, thinking you've lost them both, and then, finally, somehow, creating a masterpiece. As a portrait of the young artist, Porcelain is a masterpiece in its own right, fit for the short shelf of musicians' memoirs that capture not just a scene but an age and something timeless about the human condition. Push play.

Goodnight and Good Riddance: How Thirty-Five Years of John Peel Helped to Shape Modern Britain is a social history, a diary of a nation's changing culture, and an in-depth appraisal of one of our greatest broadcasters, a man who can legitimately be called the most influential figure in post-war British popular music.

Without the support of John Peel, it's unlikely that innumerable artists - from David Bowie to Dizzee Rascal, Jethro Tull to Joy Division - would have received national radio exposure. But Peel's influence goes much deeper than this. Whether he was championing punk, reggae, jungle or grime, he had a unique relationship with his audience that was part taste-maker, part trusted friend.

The book focuses on some 300 shows between 1967 and 2004, giving a thorough overview of Peel's broadcasting career and placing it in its cultural and social contexts. Peel comes alive for the reader, as do the key developments that kept him at the cutting edge - the changes in his tastes; the changes in his thinking. Just like a Peel show, Goodnight and Good Riddance is warm, informative and insightful, and wears its enthusiasm proudly.

The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise is the extraordinary story, in her own words, of Brix Smith Start. Best known for her work in The Fall at the time when they were perhaps the most powerful and influential anti-authoritarian postpunk band in the world -- This Nation's Saving Grace, The Wonderful and Frightening World Of ... -- Brix spent ten years in the band before a violent disintegration led to her exit and the end of her marriage with Mark E Smith.

But Brix's story is much more than rock 'n' roll highs and lows in one of the most radically dysfunctional bands around. Growing up in the Hollywood Hills in the '60s in a dilapidated pink mansion her life has taken her from luxury to destitution, from the cover of the NME to waitressing in California, via the industrial wasteland of Manchester in the 1980s.

What emerges is a story of constant reinvention, jubilant highs and depressive ebbs; a singular journey of a teenage American girl on a collision course with English radicalism on her way to mid-life success on TV and in fashion.

Too bizarre, extreme and unlikely to exist in the pages of fiction, The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise could only exist in the pages of a memoir.

Web Exclusive Signed Edition

The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise is the extraordinary story, in her own words, of Brix Smith Start.

Best known for her work in The Fall at the time when they were perhaps the most powerful and influential anti-authoritarian postpunk band in the world – This Nation's Saving Grace, The Wonderful and Frightening World Of ... – Brix spent ten years in the band before a violent disintegration led to her exit and the end of her marriage with Mark E. Smith.

But Brix's story is much more than rock 'n' roll highs and lows in one of the most radically dysfunctional bands around. Growing up in the Hollywood Hills in the '60s in a dilapidated pink mansion her life has taken her from luxury to destitution, from the cover of the NME to waitressing in California, via the industrial wasteland of Manchester in the 1980s.

What emerges is a story of constant reinvention, jubilant highs and depressive ebbs; a singular journey of a teenage American girl on a collision course with English radicalism on her way to mid-life success on TV and in fashion.

Too bizarre, extreme and unlikely to exist in the pages of fiction, The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise could only exist in the pages of a memoir.

Pre-order your exclusive signed copy here. Please note that pre-orders will be dispatched shortly after publication on 5/05/2016.

The long-awaited memoir by 'the most prolific and popular of all contemporary composers' (New York Times)

Rapturous in its ability to depict the creative process, Words Without Music allows readers to experience that sublime moment of creative fusion when life merges with art. Biography lovers will be inspired by the story of a precocious Baltimore boy, the son of a music-shop owner, who entered college at age fifteen, before traveling to Paris to study under the legendary Nadia Boulanger; Glass devotees will be fascinated by the stories behind Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, among so many other works.

Whether recalling his experiences working at Bethlehem Steel, traveling in India, driving a cab in 1970s New York, or his professional collaborations with the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Ravi Shankar, Robert Wilson, Doris Lessing, and Martin Scorsese, Words Without Music affirms the power of music to change the world.

Martin Scorsese on Words Without Music:
'I came to Philip Glass's music very simply, without any critical prodding or guidance. I listened and I was transfixed. The music was dynamic and colorful and mysterious all at once, and it put me in mind of the Zen exercise of sitting before a blank wall and contemplating the question, "What is this?" It's music that seems to go beyond music. It doesn't just stay with you, it infuses and energizes and haunts you, and carries a sense of being alive, a perception of existence itself, the rhythm of living this life. Philip's music has come to mean more and more to me as the years have gone by.
I was excited to work with Philip on Kundun, and he exceeded my wildest expectations by giving us a score that was genuinely transcendent. He's exceeded my expectations again with this rich and beautifully written memoir. Who knew that he was as good a writer as he is a composer?'

Think 'Woodstock' and the mind turns to the seminal 1969 festival that crowned a seismic decade of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. But Woodstock itself was over 60 miles from the site to which the fabled half a million flocked. So why the misnomer? Quite simply, Woodstock was already a key location in the Sixties rock landscape, the tiny Catskills town where Bob Dylan had holed up after his 1966 motorcycle accident.

In Small Town Talk, Barney Hoskyns recreates Woodstock's community of brilliant dysfunctional musicians, opportunistic hippie capitalists and scheming dealers drawn to the area by Dylan and his sidekicks The Band. Central to the book's narrative is the broodingly powerful presence of Albert Grossman, manager of Dylan, The Band, Janis Joplin and Todd Rundgren - and Big Daddy of a personal fiefdom in Bearsville that encompassed studios, restaurants and his own record label. Intertwined in the story are the Woodstock experiences of artists as diverse as Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Paul Butterfield, Tim Hardin, Karen Dalton and Bobby Charles.

Drawing on first-hand interviews with the remaining key players in the scene, and on the period when he lived there himself in the 1990s, Hoskyns has produced an East Coast companion to his bestselling L.A. Canyon classic Hotel California - a richly absorbing study of a vital music scene in a revolutionary time and place.

Jon Savage's Ralph Gleason Award-winning England's Dreaming is the ultimate book on punk, its progenitors, the Sex Pistols, and their time: the late 1970s. Full of anedcote, insight, and exclusive interviews, it tells the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid decline of the last great rock'n'roll band and the cultural moment they came to define.

The critical reputation of England's Dreaming has grown over the past decade and a half, and now it joins the Faber Modern Classics list. This updated edition includes a brand new foreword by Johnny Marr, an account of the Sex Pistols 1996 reunion, and a comprehensively updated discography.

'They are not for you but for a later age!' Ludwig van Beethoven, on the Opus 59 quartets

Beethoven's sixteen string quartets are some of the most extraordinary and challenging pieces of music ever written. They have inspired artists of all kinds - not only musicians - and have been subject to endless reinterpretation. What does it feel like to be a musician taking on these iconic works? And how do the four string players who make up a quartet interact, both musically and personally?

The Takács is one of the world's pre-eminent string quartets. Performances of Beethoven have shaped their work together for over forty years. Using the history of both the Takács Quartet and the Beethoven quartets as the backbone to his story, Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the Takács since 1993, recounts the exhilarating challenge of tackling these pieces. Beethoven for a Later Age takes the reader inside the daily life of a quartet, vividly showing the necessary creative tension between individual and group expression and how four people can enjoy making music together over a long period of time.

The key, the author argues, is in balancing continuity with change and experimentation - a theme that lies at the heart of Beethoven's remarkable compositions. No other composer has posed so many questions about the form and emotional content of a string quartet, and come up with so many different answers. In an accessible style, suitable for novices and chamber music enthusiasts alike, Dusinberre illuminates the variety and inherent contradictions of Beethoven's quartets, composed against the turbulent backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath, and shows that engaging with this radical music continues to be as invigorating now as it was for its first performers and audiences.

Since 2000, when this biography was first published, Menuhin's name has not faded from public attention, as often happens in the decades after the death of a popular performing artist. Far from it: the centenary of his birth, April 22, 1916, is being marked by celebrations around the world.

Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York of Russian Jewish immigrants. Prodigiously gifted, the 'Miracle Boy' gave his first solo recital aged eight and within five years was world-famous.

Menuhin was a visionary individualist, who didn't mind shocking the establishment. His post-war support for the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, and his determination to build bridges with the defeated German nation, brought him into sharp conflict with the Jewish establishment and DPs in Berlin. Later he spoke out against apartheid in South Africa and denounced the Soviet Union's oppressive policy towards writers and dissidents.

Drawing on contemporary sources, unpublished family correspondence and radio interviews, Burton creates a compelling portrait of an extraordinary human being - one of the best-loved classical musicians of the twentieth century.

In Girl in a Band Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth and role model for a generation of women, tells her story. She writes frankly about her route from girl to woman and pioneering icon within the music and art scene of New York City in the 1980s and 90s as well as marriage, motherhood, and independence.

Filled with the sights and sounds of a changing world and a remarkable life, Girl in a Band is a moving, evocative chronicle of an extraordinary artist.

Franz Schubert's Winterreise is at the same time one of the most powerful and one of the most enigmatic masterpieces in Western culture. In his new book, Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession, Ian Bostridge - one of the work's finest interpreters - focusses on the context, resonance and personal significance of a work which is possibly the greatest landmark in the history of Lieder. Drawing equally on his vast experience of performing this work (he has performed it more than a hundred times), on his musical knowledge and on his training as a scholar, Bostridge unpicks the enigmas and subtle meaning of each of the twenty-four songs to explore for us the world Schubert inhabited, bringing the work and its world alive for connoisseurs and new listeners alike. Originally intended to be sung to an intimate gathering, performances ofWinterreise now pack the greatest concert halls around the world.

Though not strictly a biography of Schubert, Schubert's Winter Journey succeeds in offering an unparalleled insight into the mind and work of the great composer.

'Usually great singers cannot explain what they do. Ian Bostridge can. Whether or not you know Schubert's 'Winter Journey', the book is gripping because it explains, in probing, simple words, how a doomed love is transformed into art.' Richard Sennett

I want to give my country a model of perfection... Nothing less. My country needs cheering up. I'm the man to do it.

Nobody can doubt John Christie's passion or his formidable will: his wooing of his opera singer wife has been marked by a determination befitting a man who won the Military Cross at the Battle of Loos. Now, in 1934, this Etonian science teacher's admiration for the works of Wagner has led him to embark on an ambitious project: the construction of an Opera House on his estate in Sussex.

But such is the scale of the enterprise that passion may not be enough. It's only when fog descends on Eastbourne, stranding a famous violinist overnight, that Christie hears word of a group of refugees for whom life in Germany is becoming impossible. Perhaps they can deliver Christie's vision of the sublime - assuming they're willing to cast his wife in the lead.

David Hare's The Moderate Soprano premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in October 2015.

Billy Bragg is one of Britain's most distinctive and accomplished songwriters, whose work has articulated the passions, both personal and political, of Britain during the past five decades. A Lover Sings contains over seventy of his best-known lyrics, selected and annotated by the author.

'Sexuality', 'A New England', 'Levi Stubbs' Tears' - these are unadorned, poetic songs that skilfully interweave everyday observation with much broader concerns: of fairness and outrage, of generosity and love.

A Lover Sings reveals a unique sensibility: principled and proudly of the Left, funny, forthright and tender. It is a remarkable collection.

Goodnight and Good Riddance: How Thirty-Five Years of John Peel Helped to Shape Modern Britain is a social history, a diary of a nation's changing culture, and an in-depth appraisal of one of our greatest broadcasters, a man who can legitimately be called the most influential figure in post-war British popular music.

Without the support of John Peel, it's unlikely that innumerable artists - from David Bowie to Dizzee Rascal, Jethro Tull to Joy Division - would have received national radio exposure. But Peel's influence goes much deeper than this. Whether he was championing punk, reggae, jungle or grime, he had a unique relationship with his audience that was part taste-maker, part trusted friend.

The book focuses on some 300 shows between 1967 and 2004, giving a thorough overview of Peel's broadcasting career and placing it in its cultural and social contexts. Peel comes alive for the reader, as do the key developments that kept him at the cutting edge - the changes in his tastes; the changes in his thinking. Just like a Peel show, Goodnight and Good Riddance is warm, informative and insightful, and wears its enthusiasm proudly.

Jan Swafford's biographies of composers Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music. Swafford mines sources never before used in English-language biographies to reanimate the revolutionary ferment of Enlightenment-era Bonn, where Beethoven grew up and imbibed the ideas that would shape all of his future work. Swafford then tracks his subject to Vienna, capital of European music, where Beethoven built his career in the face of critical incomprehension, crippling ill health, romantic rejection, and 'fate's hammer', his ever-encroaching deafness. At the time of his death he was so widely celebrated that over ten thousand people attended his funeral.

This book is a biography of Beethoven the man and musician, not the myth, and throughout, Swafford - himself a composer - offers insightful readings of Beethoven's key works. More than a decade in the making, this will be the standard Beethoven biography for years to come.