From Israel's most celebrated musician and outspoken critic comes an examination of the power of music to transform society.

In this eloquent book, Daniel Barenboim draws on his profound and uniquely influential engagement with music to argue for its central importance in our everyday lives. While we may sometimes think of personal, social and political issues as existing independently of each other, Barenboim shows how music teaches that this is impossible. Turning to his intense involvement with Palestine, he examines the transformative power of music in the world, from his own performances of Wagner in Israel and his foundation, with Edward Said, of the internationally acclaimed West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Music Quickens Time reveals how the sheer power and eloquence of music offers us a way to explore and shed light on the way in which we live, and to illuminate and resolve some of the most intractable issues of our time.

A memoir by the master pianist, conductor and internationalist Daniel Barenboim - 'the closest thing that classical music can offer to Nelson Mandela' [THE TIMES] 'The power of music lies in is its ability to speak to all aspects of the human being-the animal, the emotional, the intellectual, and the spiritual. Music teaches us, in short, that everything is connected' Daniel Barenboim's new book vividly describes his lifelong pursuit of knowledge and understanding, not only of music and of life, but of one through the other.

A Stanford University Press classic.

A Life in Music reviews five decades of the rich and uniquely varied musical life of Daniel Barenboim. A child prodigy as a pianist and a virtuoso conductor of symphonies and opera, he has known and worked with many of the most distinguished and exciting musicians of the 20th century, not least his own wife Jacqueline du Pré. With memories of music heard and performed, and thoughtful examinations of global influences and professional inspiration, A Life in Music offers a profound window to the mind of one of the twentieth century’s greatest musicians. In this definitive edition, Barenboim discusses his work in Bayreuth, where he has been the most important artistic influence on the annual Wagner Festival; his involvement with the rebirth of the Berlin State Opera House in post-wall Berlin, and as conductor of two great orchestras in Berlin and Chicago; his thoughts on the state of Israel and his work with young Israeli and Arab musicians in Germany; his worldwide travels, his discovery of young talent and his insights into the changing world of music.

“A remarkably entertaining and thought-provoking look at the human voice and all of its myriad functions and sounds . . . Wonderful” (Library Journal, starred review). From Farinelli, the eighteenth-century castrato who brought down opera houses with his high C, to the recording of Johnny B. Goode affixed to the Voyager spacecraft, Let Me Clear My Throat dissects the whys and hows of popular voices, making them hum with significance and emotion. There are murders of punk rock crows, impressionists, and rebel yells; Howard Dean’s “BYAH!” and Marlon Brando’s “Stellaaaaa!” and a stock film yawp that has made cameos in movies from A Star is Born to Spaceballs. The voice is thought’s incarnating instrument and Elena Passarello’s essays are a riotous deconstruction of the ways the sounds we make both express and shape who we are—the annotated soundtrack of us giving voice to ourselves. “Standout pieces include a biography of the most famous scream in Hollywood history; a breakdown of the relationship between song and birdsong; and an analysis of the sounds of disgust. Akin to: A dinner party at which David Sedaris, Mary Roach and Marlon Brando are trying to out-monologue one another.” —Philadelphia Weekly “The beauty of Ellen Passarello’s voice is that it’s so confidently its own . . . I began randomly with her essay wondering what the space aliens will make of ‘Johnny B. Goode’ on the Voyager gold record and couldn’t stop after that.” —John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

In the first two volumes of this work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing, fiction and theories of literature. This final volume, a comprehensive reexamination and synthesis of the ideas developed in volumes 1 and 2, stands as Ricoeur's most complete and satisfying presentation of his own philosophy.

A kaleidoscopic tribute to San Francisco by a life-long Bay Area resident and co-founder of Salon explores specific city sites including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Land's End sea cliffs while tying his visits to key historical events. By the author of Shadow Knights. 30,000 first printing.

How does literature illuminate the way we live? Maurice Natanson, a prominent champion of phenomenology, draws upon this method's unique power to show how fiction can highlight aspects of experience that are normally left unexamined. By exploring the structure of the everyday world, Natanson reveals the "uncanny" that lies at the core of the ordinary. Phenomenology--which involves the questioning of that which we usually take for granted--is for Natanson the essence of philosophy. Drawing upon his philosophical predecessors Edmund Husserl, Alfred Schutz, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Natanson paves his own way with stories and examples that themselves bear witness to how phenomenology occurs in literature. In considering such works as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Natanson shows how literature opens us to the domain of possibility and how metaphor offers philosophical power when we think about freedom and change. This book, written by one of the twentieth century's leading phenomenologists, will interest students in philosophy and in literature. They will value the work particularly for its clarification of concepts and terms that frequently emerge in the contemporary intellectual climate.

Mathematics and Music: Composition, Perception, and Performance, Second Edition includes many new sections and more consistent expectations of a student’s experience. The new edition of this popular text is more accessible for students with limited musical backgrounds and only high school mathematics is required. The new edition includes more illustrations than the previous one and the added sections deal with the XronoMorph rhythm generator, musical composition, and analyzing personal performance. The text teaches the basics of reading music, explaining how various patterns in music can be described with mathematics, providing mathematical explanations for musical scales, harmony, and rhythm. The book gives students a deeper appreciation showing how music is informed by both its mathematical and aesthetic structures. Highlights of the Second Edition: Now updated for more consistent expectations of students’ backgrounds More accessible for students with limited musical backgrounds Full-color presentation Includes more thorough coverage of spectrograms for analyzing recorded music Provides a basic introduction to reading music Features new coverage of building and evaluating rhythms