Spring 2012 - University of California Press

academic trade
Joseph Horowitz
Moral Fire
Musical Portraits from
America’s Fin de Siècle
Joseph Horowitz writes in Moral Fire: “If
the Met’s screaming Wagnerites standing
on chairs (in the 1890s) are unthinkable
today, it is partly because we mistrust high
feeling. Our children avidly specialize in
vicarious forms of electronic interpersonal
diversion. Our laptops and televisions
ensnare us in a surrogate world that shuns
all but facile passions; only Jon Stewart and
Bill Maher share moments of moral outrage
disguised as comedy.”
Arguing that the past can prove
instructive and inspirational, Horowitz
revisits four astonishing personalities—
Henry Higginson, Laura Langford, Henry
Krehbiel and Charles Ives—whose missionary
work in the realm of culture signaled a
belief in the fundamental decency of civilized
human nature, in the universality of
moral values, and in progress toward a
kingdom of peace and love.
Joseph Horowitz is the author of Understanding
Toscanini, Wagner Nights (UC Press), Classical
Music in America, and Artists in Exile. Previously
a New York Times music critic, he is currently
Artistic Director of Washington DC’s Post-Classical
Ensemble.
A Roth Family Foundation Music in America Book
APRIL
256 pages, 6 x 9”, 12 b/w photographs
American Music/US History
World
cloth 978-0-520-26744-2 $39.95sc/£27.95
David Schiff
The Ellington Century
Breaking down walls between genres that
are usually discussed separately—classical,
jazz, and popular—this highly engaging
book offers a compelling new integrated
view of twentieth-century music. Placing
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) at the center
of the story, David Schiff explores music
written during the composer’s lifetime in
terms of broad ideas such as rhythm, melody,
and harmony. He shows how composers
and performers across genres shared
the common pursuit of representing the
rapidly changing conditions of modern life.
The Ellington Century demonstrates how
Duke Ellington’s music is as vital to musical
modernism as anything by Stravinsky,
more influential than anything by
Schoenberg, and has had a lasting impact
on jazz and pop that reaches from
Gershwin to contemporary R&B.
David Schiff is R.P. Wollenberg Professor of
Music at Reed College. He is the author of George
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and The Music of
Elliot Carter.
A Roth Family Foundation Music in America Book
FEBRUARY
320 pages, 6 x 9”
Music/Jazz/Classical Music
World
cloth 978-0-520-24587-7 $34.95sc/£24.95
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