- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press (16 Oct 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 069104399X
- ISBN-13: 978-0691043999
- Product Dimensions: 26.2 x 18.6 x 3.3 cm
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
206,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #99 in Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Styles > Classical Music > Biographies
- #99 in Books > Biography > Film, Television & Music > Music > Classical Music
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
He brings the technique to bear on American popular ballads of the 'Golden Age.'... The book is brilliantly planned and ... elegantly written. -- "The Times Literary Supplement
Product Description
In this pathbreaking book, Allen Forte uses modern analytical procedures to explore the large repertoire of beautiful love songs written during the heyday of American musical theater, the Big Bands, and Tin Pan Alley. Covering the work of such songwriters as Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and Harold Arlen, he seeks to illuminate this extraordinary music indigenous to America by revealing its deeper organizational characteristics. In so doing, he aims to establish it as a unique corpus of music that deserves more intensive study and appreciation by scholars and connoisseurs in the broader fields of American popular music and jazz.
Expressing much of the traditional tonality associated with European music in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the love songs of the Golden Age are shown to draw on a rich variety of elements--popular harmony, idiomatic lyric-writing, and Afro-American dance rhythms. His analyses of such songs as "Embraceable You" or "Yesterdays" in particular exemplify his ability to convey the sublime, unpretentious simplicity of this great music.
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First Sentence
The popular music with which this book is concerned enjoys an international reputation as an American cultural artifact of the highest quality. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The popular music with which this book is concerned enjoys an international reputation as an American cultural artifact of the highest quality. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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5 reviews
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Much too academic in tone and substance
17 May 1999
Format:Hardcover
The author is a professor of the theory of music at Yale. As such, he's on to something here, but in his hands American popular music becomes little more than an academic subject. Missing in his heavyhanded academese is the accessability that has made these songs so popular in the first place. As a pianist who plays these songs over and over and who takes them seriously as a pre-eminent American contribution to world culture, I learned little except some biographical facts (inexplicably, though he has a gender-oriented chapter on women in this genre, he leaves out Dorothy Fields, one of the best in either sex). Additionally, the book is not inexpensive and no discount is offered. My thanks to Amazon for its liberal return policy. Note: There's an enthusiastic five-star review of this book which I suspect was written by the author or a close friend. It's undeserved. Alex Wilder's American Popular Music is much the better book, and much cheaper, too!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A great reference, but you probably need Wilder, as well.
23 Feb 1999
Format:Hardcover
More analytical than Wilder's similar reference, but Wilder covers a few more composers. Anybody who is serious about the subject will need both sources.
Popular music analysis
8 July 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Allen Forte does a great job of explaining, and giving example after example, of how Schenkarian analysis is applied to the popular ballad. For students of tonal harmony, especially those who have studied Allen's Tonal Harmony in Concept and Practice, it fills a void in how to use the technique to understand the underlying structure of tonal music both popular and classical. A bit expensive - but buy it!
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