Originally published in 1906, this book is essentially a how to guide on music appreciation. Includes sections on the pianoforte, orchestral, and vocal music. Good for anyone who wishes for a greater appreciation of the wonders of music.

This book is "not written for professional musicians, but for untaught lovers of the art". It gives broad instruction on composers, styles, instruments, venues - and when to believe the critics.

Verses, Popular and Humorous was the second collection of poems by Australian poet Henry Lawson. It features some of the poet's earlier major works, including "The Lights of Cobb and Co", "Saint Peter" and "The Grog-An'-Grumble-Steeplechase". Most of the poems in the volume had been written after the publication of In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses in 1896. The original collection includes 66 poems by the author that are reprinted from various sources. Later publications split the collection into two separate volumes: Popular Verses and Humorous Verses, though the contents differed from the original list...

Mozart’s earthly career was so poignantly short yet so filled with incalculable achievement that the author of this booklet finds himself confronted with an impossible task. He has, consequently, preferred to outline as best he could in the space at his disposal a few successive details of a life that was amazingly crowded with incident, early triumphs, and subsequent crushing tragedies, rather than to consider (let alone evaluate) the staggering creative abundances the master bequeathed mankind.

This is a short introduction to Franz Schubert’s life and works. “…to give the casual radio listener a slight idea of Schubert’s inundating fecundity and inspiration. Like Bach, like Haydn, like Mozart, Schubert’s capacity for creative labor staggers the imagination… Volumes would not exhaust the wonder of his myriad creations. If this tiny book serves to heighten even a little the reader’s interest in such songs, symphonies, piano or chamber works of Schubert as come to his attention over the air it will have achieved the most that can be asked of it.” This book was published by The Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York.

Haydn, barring a few hardships in his youth, lived an extraordinarily fortunate life and had abundant reason for the optimism which marked every step of his progress.... Haydn was a master by the grace of Heaven and a servant only by the artificial conventions of a temporary social order... About the vast number of symphonies, the magnificent string quartets, the clavier works, the songs there can here be no question. - Summary by Author's Foreword

Handel’s long career resembles a gigantic tapestry, so bewilderingly crowded with detail, so filled with turmoil and vicissitude, with vast achievements, extremes of good and ill fortune, and unending comings and goings that any attempt to force even a small part of it into the frame of a tiny, unpretentious booklet of the present sort is as hopeless as it is presumptuous.... Handel was time and again a composer of exquisitely delicate colorations, and sensuous style, not to say a largely unsuspected master of many subtle intricacies of rhythm...

In the compass of the present pamphlet it is impossible to give more than a cursory survey of Mendelssohn’s happy but extraordinarily crowded life. He was only slightly less prolific a composer than such masters as Bach, Mozart or Schubert, even if he did not reach the altitude of their supreme heights. But irrespective of the quality of much of his output, the sheer mass of it is astounding, the more so when we consider the extent of his travels and the unceasing continuity of his professional and social activities, which immensely exceeded anything of the kind in the career of Schubert or Bach. - Summary by Author's Foreword

There was not much truly spectacular about the course of [Strauss's] life, which was most happily free from the material troubles which bedeviled the existence of so many great masters... If “Salome” and “Elektra”, “Ein Heldenleben” and “Till Eulenspiegel” were in their day scandalously “sensational” did not the whirligig of time reveal them as incontestable products of genius, irrespective of inequalities and flaws? However Richard Strauss compares in the last analysis with this or that master he contributed to the language of music idioms, procedures and technical accomplishments typical of the confused years and conflicting ideals out of which they were born...

[This is] the sketchiest outline of Robert Schumann’s short life but amazingly rich achievement. Together with Haydn and Schubert he was, perhaps, the most completely lovable of the great masters. It is hard, moreover, to think of a composer more strategically placed in his epoch or more perfectly timed in his coming. Tone poet, fantast, critic, visionary, prophet—he was all of these! And he passed through every phase, it seemed, of romantic experience. The great and even the semi-great of a fabulous period of music were his intimates—personages like Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Moscheles, Ferdinand David, Hiller, Joachim, Brahms...

Horatio Alger, better known for his juvenile fiction, also penned some great poetry. His Ballads, including the 8 war poems and his odes, are collected in this volume.

A biography of the Polish composer and virtuoso pianist Frédéric Chopin and a critical analysis of his work by American music writer and critic James Huneker.

May Wedderburn is a quiet provincial girl, living in small and seemingly boring Skernford. Underneath the dull exterior, there is mystery, suspicion and fear in this little town, surrounding the austere local wealthy landowner who is very interested in marrying poor May. It looks as though she will have to marry him whether she likes it or not until an unsuspected alliance is formed between her and a respected old lady. They both escape to Germany where music and excitement await them.

Bearing a striking resemblance to Aesop of Aesop's Fables fame, American author Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus is also a former slave who loves to tell simple and pithy stories. Uncle Remus or to give it its original title, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings was published in late 1880 and received instant acclaim. The book was reviewed in hundreds of journals and newspapers across the country, leading to its immense success, both critical and financial. “Remus” was originally a fictional character in a newspaper column...

Trust Scrici for a tell all, no holds barred exposé of the modern opera . . . well, modern as of . . . er . . . say, 1852.

John Hall Wheelock is an American poet who during his student years at Harvard University was editor-in-chief of The Harvard Monthly, and began to publish his first poems. He later worked for publisher Charles Sribner and Sons finally becoming senior editor. He received many awards for his poetry including the Golden Rose in 1936 for the most distinguished contribution to American poetry of that year. The poems in The Black Panther reveal a deep spirituality but also a strong humanistic reach, sometimes dark and sometimes celebratory and full of joy...

This book is a collection of English translations of medieval Latin hymns. It contains interesting historical and/or liguistic facts about each hymn, some of which are still used in one form or other in the modern Christian church.Note: An asterisk implies a belief that the piece so marked has not previously appeared in an English translation. - Summary by Devorah Allen

The Lost Stradivarius (1895), by J. Meade Falkner, is a short novel of ghosts and the evil that can be invested in an object, in this case an extremely fine Stradivarius violin. After finding the violin of the title in a hidden compartment in his college rooms, the protagonist, a wealthy young heir, becomes increasingly secretive as well as obsessed by a particular piece of music, which seems to have the power to call up the ghost of its previous owner. Roaming from England to Italy, the story involves family love, lordly depravity, and the tragedy of obsession

The celebrated German-British composer G.F. Handel premiered his now famous oratorio "Messiah" in 1742. In 1785 there was a celebration at Westminster Abbey of Handel's birth 100 years before. It was on this occasion that John Newton decided to preach 50 sermons from the Bible passages that form the libretto of Messiah. The sermons were preached over two years in the Parish Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard-Street - 3 miles from Westminster Abbey. - Summary by InTheDesert

Two narrative ballads, based on local lore, by the Cumberland poet John Stagg. In 'The Hermit of Rockcliffe', a young fugitive takes refuge with a hermit, hears a bizarre and cautionary tale of what might befall a lusty young man at a masked ball, and learns surprising news about himself. In 'The Rose of Corby' a young maid's elopement with her lover, on the day of her betrothal to a local lord, has an unexpected outcome.

Recollections of the life of Axel Heyst, one-time manager of the liquidated Tropical Belt Coal Company in a fictitious island in the Pacific. After retreating from society in response to his professional failures, the misanthrope is drawn back by a romantic affair. (Introduction by S. Kovalchik)

Josephine Preston Peabody was an American poet and dramatist. She was born in New York and educated at the Girls’ Latin School, Boston, and at Radcliffe College.

Until relatively recently, music students at all levels of study—from the conservatories to public schools—had few resources available for the formal study of musical notation and terminology in the classroom. In fact, it was not until 1914, when Professor Karl Gehrkens at the Oberlin School of Music published this compilation of class notes and sources he collected over the years, that a uniform text became available for schools and universities everywhere. Since the publication of this monumental work, similar textbooks have emerged, but Dr...

Katherine Hale is the pen name of Amelia Beers Warnock Garvin, a Canadian poet and literary critic. This volume is one of her collections with the background of World War I as a theme, but full of faith and hope. - Summary by Larry Wilson

Laurence Hope was the nom de plume of Adela Florence Nicolson, a British poet who wrote verses inspired by India, where she lived. This collection, her first, was originally published in 1901.

'A guide to the meaning of important symphonies, overtures and tone-poems from Beethoven to the present day'. Gilman became notorious for scathing reviews of compositions later to become classics. Here he analyzes the stories behind some famous and not so famous works. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

Lilli Lehmann, born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, was a German operatic soprano of phenomenal versatility. She was also a voice teacher.She wrote: "Every serious artist has a sincere desire to help others reach the goal—the goal toward which all singers are striving: to sing well and beautifully." This is the 1915 second (expanded) edition of her book and includes many illustrations and diagrams, both physiological and musical, which the listener will find useful.Much of Lilli Lehmann's advice is complex and demanding - the standards which she set for herself were beyond the highest aspirations of most professional singers...

Included in this little book are analyses and backgrounds of most of Tschaikowsky’s standard concert music. A short sketch of Tschaikowsky’s life precedes the section devoted to the orchestral music. Yet, the personal outlook and moods of Russia’s great composer are so inextricably bound up with his music, that actually the whole booklet is an account of his strangely tormented life. In the story of Tschaikowsky, life and art weave into one closely knit fabric. It is hoped that this simple narrative will aid music lovers to glimpse the great pathos and struggle behind the music of this sad and lonely man. - Summary by Author's Foreword

This 1898 book is the result of a survey of 107 hymn-books. The thirty-two hymns are ranked in order of popularity. The texts in this recording are said only, not sung, along with a few explanatory notes for each hymn . The texts are preceded by two essays concerning hymns and their standards. Benson was an American Presbyterian minister who edited several hymnals. - Summary by David Wales

A selection of Beethoven’s letters from the compilation by Dr. Ludwig Nohl and translated by Lady Grace Wallace.

Five Little Peppers Grown Up continues the story of Ben, Polly, Joel, David, and Phronsie Pepper. Together with the Kings, the Whitneys, and other friends old and new, the Peppers learn and teach about life and love as they grow into adulthood.

Maria Letitia Stockett was a highly respected English teacher in Baltimore, Maryland, but also well-known as an author. In addition to her poetry she wrote Baltimore: A Not Too Serious History in 1928, and America, First, Fast & Furious . This is a collection of her short lyrical poems of nature, sentient and spirit. - Summary by Larry Wilson