Queen of Bohemia

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Michael Hicks and Christian Asplund

In this first interpretive narrative of the life and work of Christian Wolff, Michael Hicks and Christian Asplund trace the influences and sensibilities of a contemporary composer's atypical career path and restless imagination. Written in full cooperation with Wolff, including access to his papers, this volume is a much-needed introduction to a leading avant-garde composer still living, writing music, and speaking about his own work. Wolff has pioneered various compositional and notational idioms, including overtly political music, indeterminacy, graphic scores, and extreme virtuosity. Trained as a classicist rather than a musician, Wolff has never quite had both feet in the rarefied world of contemporary composition. Yet he's considered a "composer's composer," with a mind ensconced equally in ancient Greek tragedy and experimental music and an eccentric and impulsive compositional approach that eludes a fixed stylistic fingerprint. Hicks and Asplund cover Wolff's family life and formative years, his role as a founder of the New York School of composers, and the context of his life and work as part of the John Cage circle, as well as his departures from it. Critically assessing Wolff's place within the experimental musical field, this volume captures both his eloquence and reticence and provides insights into his broad interests and activities within music and beyond [Publisher description].

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Richard F. Welch

"This is the first full-length account of one of the most aggressive, dynamic, and successful combat leaders produced by either side in the Civil War. Based heavily on primary source material, the work chronicles the transformation of the self-assured son of a broken Bosten Brahmin family from a young, militarily inexperienced lawyer into a formidable warrior.". "Born into the Unitarian-Transcendentalist circle, which dominated New England intellectual and cultural life before the Civil War, Barlow attended the school run by the famous Brook Farm commune. From an early age he was noted for fearlessness in both speech and action - two characteristics that marked his conduct and affected his later careers. Barlow's unquestioning sense of his own intellectual and moral superiority was the source of his success as a combat officer during the war. He trained and drove his men hard, and they became one of the army's elite units in the process. Barlow's steadfast belief in himself led him to command from the front, winning respect of his troops, recognition from his superiors, public acclaim, and, often, success for his cause. Possessing innate self-confidence and almost heedless bravery in equal measure, Barlow rose from private to major general. He was heavily engaged in almost all the major battles of the Army of the Potomac beginning as a regimental colonel on the Peninsula in 1862 and finishing his career as commander of the first division in the vaunted II Corps during Grant's campaigns against Richmond in 1864. Throughout his military career, Barlow carved out a record as a fighting man that few could match and none could excel.". "Twice wounded, first at Antietam and then Gettysburg, Barlow consistently took his men into the hottest spots in most pivotal actions during Grant's bloody campaign against Lee.". "After the war, Barlow alternated a legal career with service in New York State government. As New York's attorney general he initiated suits against the Tweed Ring and other corrupt malefactors. Barlow's unfiltered forthrightness and unyielding ethics placed him at a disadvantage in the rough-and-tumble democratic politics of the late nineteenth century. His candid report exposing corruption involved in the successful Republican campaign to win the White House for Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 cost him whatever hopes he had for a further political career. Barlow returned to private life, pursued a successful legal career, and died relatively unknown in 1896."--BOOK JACKET.

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Richard Hamblyn

"The early years of the nineteenth century saw an intriguing yet little-known scientific advance catapult a shy young Quaker to the dizzy heights of fame. The Invention of Clouds tells the story of an amateur meteorologist Luke Howard and his work to define what had hitherto been random and unknowable structures - clouds."--BOOK JACKET.

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Carol Felsenthal

Citizen Newhouse: Portrait Of A Media Merchant by Carol Felsenthal is a hard-hitting expose of the inner workings of a media empire, from its early days at the Staten Island Advance to the latest shake-up at the New Yorker. This unauthorized investigative biography paints an intriguing portrait of Si Newhouse and his family dynasty by revealing the machinations of these atypically elusive media moguls within the high-stakes world of today's entertainment conglomerates. The book opens in the manner of a classic American family saga, with Si's father, Sam Newhouse, who quit school after the eighth grade, as paterfamilias. Having concocted a formula for creating newspaper monopolies in small metropolitan markets, be built the huge family fortune. Si took over the magazine portion of the vast empire, while his brother, Donald, managed the family's newspaper and cable television holdings. Citizen Newhouse spotlights the life and career of Si Newhouse - one of America's most powerful yet unexamined figures. Felsenthal shows how his quirky behavior as a shy and awkward outsider has had a farreaching impact on the properties he owns, affecting - and in the opinion of some, compromising - the quality of the Newhouse "product."