Music & the Performing Arts



Alexander Pushkin: Master Teacher of Dance
By Gennady Albert. At the great Kirov Ballet of St. Petersburg, Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin (1907-1970) danced many leading roles from 1925 to 1953. However, it was as a teacher at the Leningrad Choreographic School that he became a legend. Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov were his star pupils, but nearly all the leading male dancers of the Kirov Ballet from the 1940s through the 1960s were taught by him. Filled with personal photos, as well as others of his students and classes, this concise, insightful biography reveals to us the life and techniques of a master teacher. For dance enthusiasts as well as for the serious student and teacher, this small volume illuminates the methods and personality of a man little known in the West, but someone who has made significant contributions to the international world of dance. More ...
Read the Foreword by Mikhail Baryshnikov
2001, b/w photographs, 200 pages, hardcover, $27.50, ISBN 0-87104-452-8

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Alto Rhapsody
By Johannes Brahms, introduction by Walter Frisch. A facsimile of the original manuscript of Brahms's great work for contralto, men's chorus, and orchestra, with an introduction documenting its place in the composer's life and work. The original manuscript of this musical setting of a text by Goethe is in the Library's Music Division.
1983, 76 pages (44 facsimile pages), $50.00, ISBN 0-87104-283-5


The Complete Works of Scott Joplin
Edited by Vera Brodsky Lawrence. The first complete works of a black composer to be published, making use of the original illustrated sheet music covers, including rags, songs, and the complete piano-vocal score of the opera Treemonisha.
Vol. I: Works for Piano
1982, 327 pages, $40.00, ISBN 0-87104-275-4
Vol. II: Works for Voice (out of stock indefinitely)
1982, 341 pages, $40.00, ISBN 0-87104-276-2
Two-volume set: $75.00, ISBN 0-87104-274-6


Dance in the Musical Theatre: Jerome Robbins and His Peers, 1934-1965: A Guide
By Christina L. Schlundt.
1989, 248 pages, $46.00, ISBN 0-8240-5547-0
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc.


Democratic Souvenirs: An Historical Anthology of 19th Century American Music
Edited by Richard Jackson, foreword by Virgil Thomson. An anthology presenting a wide range of musical pieces from the early period of American music, edited from the original editions, with a historical and critical introduction and a foreword by one of America's great modern composers.
1988, 336 pages, paperback, $25.00, ISBN 0-938856-03-0


Divas! The Fabulous Photography of Kenn Duncan
Text by Stephen M. Silverman. Foreword by Bette Midler. For more than 20 years, Kenn Duncan's photographs energized such seminal New York arts publications as After Dark, Dance Magazine, and Opera News. Renowned for his ability to capture the distinctive styles and personalities of his subjects, frequently dancers, he gained widespread acclaim for his gift of celebrating a specific type of performer: the woman whose phenomenal talent and charisma make her more than a star, more than an icon; she is a Diva. Duncan adored the glamorous, larger-than-life personalities that defined American popular culture in the 1970s and 1980s, and they, in turn, adored him. Until his untimely death in 1986, Duncan's camera was like a disco ball illuminating the likes of Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Angela Lansbury, Gelsey Kirkland, Joan Rivers, Bette Midler, and other luminaries of stage and screen.

Duncan's collection of more than 250,000 photographs is included in the Billy Rose Theatre Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Divas!--a glittery celebration of Duncan, his muses, and the time in which they lived, loved, posed, and partied--culls the best of these into a dazzling paean to the photographer and his subjects. It includes famous images, such as Anita Morris's controversial body-baring shot from Broadway's Nine, as well as rarely seen photographs of Susan Sarandon, Carrie Fisher, Lily Tomlin, Labelle, and Diane Keaton, and pairs them with page-turning biographies. All of which makes this book a must for prominent display on the coffee table of any Diva--or Diva in training!
2008, 150 illustrations in color and black and white, 228 pages, hardcover, $55.00, ISBN 978-0-7893-1797-1
Published by Universe Publishing, a division of Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., in association with The New York Public Library


Images of the Dance
By Lillian Moore. An elegant commentary by a major dance historian accompanying reproductions of early dance illustrations in the Library's Dance Collection, primarily from its Cia Fornaroli and Lincoln Kirstein collections.
1965, 95 b/w illustrations, 1 color plate, 86 pages, $15.00, ISBN 0-87104-093-X


Letters to Dorothy (1926-1937)
By Richard Rodgers, edited by William W. Appleton, introduction by Dorothy Rodgers. Personal letters to his wife by a leading composer for the American musical theatre offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of some of Rodgers and Hart's most successful musicals for stage and screen. Sketches of friends and collaborators such as Hart and George Gershwin add interest to this look at the theatre of a bygone era. Special limited edition of 250 copies signed by Mrs. Rodgers.
1988, 38 b/w illustrations, 253 pages, $25.00, ISBN 0-87104-405-6


The Mapleson Cylinders
Executive producer David Hall, disc edition produced by David Hamilton and Tom Owen. The first recordings of opera from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, restored on six 33 rpm records from the 1900-1904 cylinders in the Library's Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound; with an illustrated 72-page booklet of musical biographies and texts performed.
1985, $100.00, ISBN 0-87104-287-8
Available from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498 (telephone: (212) 870-1661)


Mielziner: Master of Modern Stage Design
By Mary C. Henderson. Jo Mielziner (1901-1976) was the most highly acclaimed scenic and lighting designer of the American theater of the 20th century. Spanning some five decades, his unusually long career coincided with the flowering of modern theater in the United States, with the result that he designed many of its most famous productions, including Death of a Salesman, Carousel, South Pacific, and Guys and Dolls. Lavishly illustrated with sketches and fully rendered designs never previously published, and featuring a foreword by former New York Times drama critic Frank Rich, this book provides a long-overdue, definitive account of Mielziner's life and work as the preeminent theater artist of his time.
2001, color and b/w illustrations throughout, 288 pages, $45.00, ISBN 0-8230-8823-5
Published by Back Stage Books, an imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications


Les Papillons for Voice and Piano
By Claude Debussy. Debussy's autograph manuscript of Les Papillons, composed most likely in 1881, is now in the collection of the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Drawing upon this unique resource, this beautifully designed publication includes the first Performing Edition of Les Papillons (at left in photograph), transcribed by Marie Rolf, as well as a facsimile of the Debussy manuscript (at right in photograph). An essay by Rolf describes the provenance of the manuscript and the editorial practices followed in the transcription.

This setting of a poem by Théophile Gautier has been virtually unknown since Debussy's time. The song received its world premiere only in 1962, some eighty years after its composition, at New York's Town Hall; on that occasion, conductor Wilfrid Pelletier observed in a program note that "to my knowledge, this song has never been mentioned by any biographer, nor sung in public." More recently, in February 2004, the work received a rare performance--by acclaimed soprano Renée Fleming--as part of the recital "The Art of French Song," at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

In making Les Papillons readily accessible to today's performing artists, this special edition ensures and enhances the reputation of this early song by a master composer.

2004, large portfolio, with insert for facsimile and performing edition; printed four-color on fine cream paper, 26 pp., $65.00, ISBN 0-87104-456-6
Distributed by OMI -- Old Manuscripts & Incunabula

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"Your Isadora": The Love Story of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig Told Through Letters
Edited by Francis Steegmuller. The intriguing love story of two major figures in the performing arts, told through the letters of the great dancer Isadora Duncan to the innovative stage designer Gordon Craig, with interleaved biographical commentary by noted biographer Francis Steegmuller.
1974, b/w illustrations throughout, 399 pages, $25.00, ISBN 0-87104-256-8
(available for sale only in the U.S. and Canada)





B. Bergeron, rev. 9/08