Art, Music and Recreation Center Books in Demand, late December 2012

Below is a list of the twenty books in the subject areas of the arts, music and recreation that currently have the most holds placed in our system. 

While you will not find any of these books on our shelves at this moment (they're all borrowed or on hold), the list provides a snapshot of what books are in demand in our City. 

Log into your library record to place any of these titles on hold for yourself.  Have them sent to your neighborhood branch.  We own multiple copies of most of these books, so your wait shouldn't be too long.


How Music Works by David Byrne (McSweeneys, 2012) - an alternative approach to music appreciation by this innovative rock musician

The Richard Burton Diaries (Yale University Press, 2012). - diaries of renowned cultured stage and film actor

I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons (Ecco, 2012). - long awaited biography of this beloved singer-songwriter

The Truth About Style by Stacy London (Viking Adult, 2012). - television fashion expert gives sartorial advice

The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down by Andrew McCarthy (Free Press, 2012). - actor's memoir combines travel and self-discovery

Who I Am: A Memoir by Pete Townshend (Harper, 2012). - British rock guitarist lays bare a troubled past

Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream by Neil Young (Blue Rider Press, 2012). - a rock memoir as a collection of fascinating, interrelated tangents

The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle (Bantam Books, 2012) - performance enhancing drugs used by Lance Armstrong and his teammates

Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars by Camille Paglia (Pantheon Books, 2012). - an eclectic cultural survey by this aesthetic provocateur

The Things That Matter by Nate Berkus; photography by Roger Davies (Spiegel & Grau, 2012). - ties interior lives with the interiors spaces they live in

The Year of the San Francisco Giants: Celebrating the 2012 World Series Champions (Fenn-M and S, 2012). - our champions!

Edible Selby by Todd Selby (Abrams, 2012). - a photographic tour of culinary innovators

The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs by Michael Feinstein with Ian Jackman (Simon and Schuster, 2012). - champion of the great American songbook relates his relationship to the music and lyrics of the Gershwins

Lee Miller: A Life by Carolyn Burke (Knopf, 2006). - biography of a fascinating and talented model, photographer and journalist

The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and My Father's Twentieth Century by Margaret Talbot (Riverhead Books, 2012). - traces a history 20th Century entertainment through the life of her actor father

New York Drawings: A Decade of Covers, Comics, Illustrations, and Sketches from the Pages of The New Yorker and Beyond by Adrian Tomine (Drawn and Quarterly, 2012). - works by New Yorker cartoonist Tomine

Ann Getty: Interior Style by Diane Dorrans Saeks; photography by Lisa Romerein (Rizzoli International Publications, 2012). - interiors created by San Francisco designer Ann Getty.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel by Lisa Immordino Vreeland with essays by Judith Clark, Judith Thurman, and Lally Weymouth (Abrams, 2011). - a chronicle of Vreeland's life and the fashion of her time

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk (Museum of Fine Arts [Montreal], 2011). - catalog from the recent DeYoung Museum show of this innovative designer's work

Quilting Modern: Techniques and Projects for Improvisational Quilts by Jacquie Gering and Katie Pedersen (Interweave Press, 2012). - ideas and inspiration for non-traditional quilters

The Music Index Online

We subscribed to the Music Index from its first issue in 1949 through its final printed volumes in 2009.  The Music Index has simultaneously existed as a searchable database since the 1990s.  We are now happy to be able to offer the Music Index online to all San Francisco Public Library library card holders.

The Music Index online is a very comprehensive resource.  It thoroughly indexes nearly 500 music periodicals and partially indexes many more.  The magazines indexed here range from the popular to scholarly.

One important fact to note is that retrospective indexing of the earlier print volumes only goes back to the early 1970s.  For that reason it may still sometimes be necessary to return to the annual printed indexes.  The extent of the details indexed also varies over time.  The more recently indexed articles tend to have fuller description, and are thus more easily searched.

Since this database contains such a vast amount of information, it pays to use the Advanced Search feature.

Here one can limit the search to:

Authors (sometimes by full name, sometimes using only initials for surnames)
Full Text
Title of the article
Subject Terms used by the database (unfortunately these are not the same as those used in the print index)
Abstract Text - the text of an article summary, sometimes written by the authors (note that many indexed articles have no abstract)
Author-Supplied Keywords (names, terms and concepts highlighted by the authors)
Geographic Terms (this may be the country, state, province, or city)
People (the principals discussed in the article) 
Reviews and Products (to search for reviews of books, recordings, musical instruments, television programs, stage productions, etc.)
Company Entry (the manufacturer of a product, an organization or a company)
Publication Name (the name of journal)
ISSN - the International Standard Serial Number (may be useful if a journal has changed names over time)
ISBN - the International Standard Book Number (does not appear to be used in this database)
Accession Number - is the unique number the database assigns to each entry

The resulting information is broken down into a number of fields, many of corresponding to the search limiters. Any of the text in blue is a link that can be followed.  Thus, in the example below, we are one click away from a listing of articles in Fanfare magazine, articles written by Christopher Abbot, and articles discussing John Adams.

The note "This title is held locally" reflects that the Library subscribes to Fanfare.  The Music Index online, however, is still a little buggy.  The result notes that this article is available in full text in another one of our other databases - Academic Search Complete.  Unfortunately, while that database does index and provide full text for many reviews by Christopher Abbot in Fanfare magazine, it omits the above article.   Thankfully, if one follows the blue link for the product "San Francisco Symphony at 100" one sees abbreviated version of this entry that includes a link to a .pdf file of this review.

One important feature of this database is the ability to refine search results.  Methods of refining your results include limiting them to only those with full text articles.  While the number of full text articles in the Music Index online represents only a very small percentage, the total number of full text articles is actually substantial.  (It also pays to check our online catalog to see whether we have full text of an article in non-Ebsco databases, for instance JStor).

This option also provides the opportunity to limit the results to a given range of dates, to the type of publication, to subjects within the wider search, to a given journal, and by place. 

Another important feature of the Music Index is that it is possible to simultaneously search other Ebsco databases.  Following the "Choose Databases" link above the search window, one can include other related databases like the Film and Television Literature Index, the International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance, the Readers' Guide Retrospective, the Art Index Retrospective and the Art Full Text.

For instance, one might find results for a group like the San Francisco Mime Troupe listed in multiple databases.  A cross-database search produces 72 results, while a search of the Music Index alone results in only 6 articles.

Please feel free to call our reference desk if you need any help using this powerful research tool.

Dave Brubeck (1920-2012)

Dave Brubeck on the cover of Time, November 1954 (source: Time) 

We were saddened today to learn of the death of famed composer, pianist and jazz musician Dave Brubeck.  He was an innovative and influential musician who had very strong connections to the San Francisco Bay Area.

He was born in Concord where he grew up on a 45,000 acre cattle ranch.  He attended college at the College of the Pacific in Stockton where he performed in jazz groups.  Later joined the army infantry and went to Europe as a part of Patton's Third Army.  There his musical talent was discovered and he formed a racially integrated band that entertained the troops, often not very far from the fighting. 

After the war, he returned to the Bay Area and performed in a jazz combos at venues like the Geary Cellar (beneath the Geary Theatre), the Bandbox in Palo Alto and Burma Lounge in Oakland.  He soon attended Mills College on the GI Bill where his composition teacher was Darius Milhaud.   Milhaud, an innovative French composer who had long incorporated jazz and ragtime in his own compositions, encouraged Brubeck and some of his classmates to form an jazz ensemble - an octet they called "the eight."  Milhaud encouraged them to perform at an assembly at Mills.  It was such a success that they were invited to many other campuses and achieved an early reputation among the college crowd.

From this time he became a famous exemplar of "West Coast Jazz," a genre thought to be more cool and cerebral than mainstream jazz. Nevertheless, Brubeck felt a deep connection to traditional jazz and its roots.  While his biographers emphasize his accomplishments in nightclubs and concert halls, Brubeck in a 1992 interview wanted to remind people that he had also played at so-called "bad joints," what he called "Dime-a-Dance halls in Oakland" and "strip joints in San Francisco." 

In this interview he went on to speak to his attraction to this music:

That's the great thing about the freedom of jazz.  It can come from a tune with no chord progressions here, or just from the piano and suddenly the vibrations are coming from maybe the piano, or the bass, or from the drums, or even a cymbal, and that'll make everybody click in.  You can't predict anything about jazz from night to night.

While he is best known for his combo work, Brubeck also used his training to compose works for classical music forces.  In response to a 1950 survey used by the Northern California Chapter of the Music Library Association for a never published biographical dictionary of composers, Brubeck wrote of his musical viewpoint:

Since I am first a jazz musician, it is especially challenging to me to attempt to capture the vitality, rhythic drive, and free spirit of an Afro-European improvised music, to write it down as sound composition without losing the spontaneity of improvisation.

The following is brief reading list, plus a listing of Brubeck scores in our collection.

Books:

Dave Brubeck, Improvisations and Compositions: The Idea of Cultural Exchange: With Discography by Ilse Storb and Klaus-G. Fischer; translated by Bert Thompson (P. Lang, c1994).

"Dave Brubeck, Short Talk taken and transcribed by Bill Leikam," Cadence vol. 18, no. 9 (September 1992), pp. 4-5.  From the Art, Music and Recreation Center Newspaper Clipping Files.

It's About Time: The Dave Brubeck Story by Fred M. Hall (University of Arkansas Press, 1996).

Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond by Doug Ramsey, with a foreword by Dave and Iola Brubeck (Parkside Publications, 2005).

West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 by Ted Gioia (University of California Press, 1998).

Why Jazz Happened by Marc Myers (University of California Press, 2013).

Scores:

Brubeck and More: 9 Jazz Standards for Rhythm Section: Piano, Bass and Drumset (Alfred Music Pub. Co., 2010). - includes a companion CD for play-along

Chromatic Fantasy Sonata: Inspired by J.S. Bach by Dave Brubeck (Derry Music, 1994).

Dave Brubeck at the Piano (Alfred Pub. Co., 2008). - transcription and arrangements for piano with fingering.

Dave Brubeck's Two-part Adventures: Original Two-part Arrangements (Warner Bros. Publications, 1999).

La Fiesta de la Posada: A Christmas Choral Pageant / music by Dave Brubeck; text by Iola Brubeck (Shawnee Press, 1976).

The Gates of Justice: A Cantata for Tenor and Baritone Soloists, Mixed Chorus, and Organ, or Brass and Percussion Ensemble with Optional Keyboard Improvisation / music by Dave Brubeck (St. Francis Music Co., 1970) - this work dating from 1969 features a text adapted from the Hebrew Bible, the Union Prayer Book of Reform Judaism and the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the writings of Hillel, and was written to unite African Americans and Jewish people in the interest of Civil Rights

The Light in the Wilderness: An Oratorio for Mixed Chorus, Baritone Solo, and Organ (supplementary string bass and percussion, optional) or Symphony Orchestra with Optional Keyboard Improvisation / music by Dave Brubeck (St. Francis Music Co., 1968).

The Genius of Dave Brubeck: Piano Solos. Book 1; piano solos transcribed by Howard Brubeck (Alfred Pub. Co., 2008).

Glances: Suite for Solo Piano by Dave Brubeck (Warner Bros., 1995).

In Your Own Sweet Way: Play-A-Long Book and CD Set for All Instrumentalists by Dave Brubeck (Jamey Aebersold Jazz, 2003).

Jazz Impressions of New York by Dave Brubeck; arranged by Howard Brubeck for easy piano (E.B. Marks Music Corp., 1964).

Nocturnes: Piano Solos by Dave Brubeck (Warner Bros. Publications, 1997).

Points on Jazz: Jazz Ballet for Two Pianos / Four Hands by Dave Brubeck (CPP/Belwin, 1993).

Time Out / The Dave Brubeck Quartet; Piano Solos (Alfred Music Pub. Co., 2009)

Tritonis by Dave Brubeck (Warner Bros., 1995).

An Afternoon With the Aurora Mandolin Orchestra

This will be the 5th consecutive year that the Aurora Mandolin Orchestra will perform in the Koret Auditorium. The Orchestra will play from their varied repertoire, including traditional and semi-classical Italian, Spanish, Russian, specialty ethnic and contemporary orchestral compositions. Both professional and amateur musicians play mandolin, mandola, mandocello, guitar, string bass, accordion, flute and percussion to create their distinctive sound.

Come enjoy the Aurora Mandolin Orchestra at 2 PM, Saturday, November 24, 2012 in the Koret Auditorium, Lower Level, Main Library.

This program is sponsored by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library

All Library programs are free and open to the public.

Introduction to Western Music: From Mozart to Wagner - Fall 2012, Session 2

 The Art, Music & Recreation Center of the San Francisco Public Library in association with the University of the Commons (uotc.org) presents

INTRO TO WESTERN MUSIC: From Mozart to Wagner - Fall 2012, Session 2

Sundays, November 18 & 25 and December 2, 16 & 23

12:15-2:30 PM

Koret Auditorium

Main Library, Lower Level

Instructor: John Smalley

Recommended Texts:

• Joseph Kerman and Gary Tomlinson, Listen
• Joseph Machlis and Kristine Forney, The Enjoyment of Music
• Don Randel, The New Harvard Dictionary of Music
• Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, Music in the Western World: A History in Documents
• Michael Chanan, Musica Practica: The Social Practice of Western Music from Gregorian Chant to Postmodernism

Online Resources

• Classical Music Library (a database of classical music recordings available through the San Francisco Public Library.Go to www.sfpl.org then eLibrary then eMusic.)
• Oxford Music Online (Go to www.sfpl.org then eLibrary then Articles & Databases.)
• IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music: http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page
• The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Page (lyrics and translations of thousands of song texts): http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/
• SFPL’s blog of music resources: http://www.delicious.com/AMRLibrarian

Course Description and Objectives:  This course examines Western art music in various political, economic, and aesthetic contexts and seeks to teach listening skills, a critical vocabulary for discussing music, and a greater appreciation for the complex roles of music in society. We will look at changing genres and styles of music and discuss composers’ choices and assumptions, as well as those of their patrons and audiences, moving chronologically from the Classical through the Romantic eras. Students’ critical perceptions and responses to the music and the readings are an integral part of the course.

Course Calendar - November–December 2012

11/18   Introduction. Elements of music.

Classical Music. Terms: “string quartet,” “sonata-allegro form,” “minuet/trio.” 

Mozart, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, mvt. 1

Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, mvt. 1

Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, mvt. 2

Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, mvt. 3

Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, mvt. 4

11/25   Classical Symphony.

Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G minor, mvt. 1

           

Pre-Classical Opera.  Classical Opera.

            Rousseau, Le devin du village

Mozart, The Magic Flute, “Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja” 

Mozart, The Magic Flute, “Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön”

12/2     Classical Concerto.  Terms: “theme and variations,” “trill,” “cadenza.”

Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453, mvt. 1

Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453, mvt. 3

            Beethoven

Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, mvt. 1

Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, mvt. 2

Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, mvt. 3

Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, mvt. 4

12/9     NO CLASS

12/16   Romantic Music. Romantic piano music.  The Lied.  Terms: “Lied”

Chopin, Mazurka, Op. 6, no. 2

Schubert, Erlkönig

Schubert, Der Doppelgänger

Robert Schumann, Im wunderschönen Monat Mai 

Clara Schumann, Der Mond kommt still gegangen

12/23   Romantic Program Music.  Nineteenth-century exoticism. 

Anon., Dies Irae

Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, mvt. 5

            Romantic Opera:  Italian and German styles.  Terms: “Leitmotive” 

Verdi, Aida

Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Prelude

Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Philter Scene

The 40th Anniversary of Wimmen's Comix 1972 - 2012

cover of Wimmin's Comix Number 1, November 1972 

(source: Women in Comics Wikia)

In 1972, a group of women cartoonists in San Francisco created Wimmen's Comix, an Anthology of Comics by women, challenging the sexism the faced by the male dominated comic book publishing industry.

The mission of Wimmen's Comix was to publish a comic book drawn by women cartoonists, and to leave fifty-percent of each issue open for new contributors. There was a rotating editor or co-editors and each issue had a theme.

There were seventeen issues of Wimmen's Comix published by Last Gasp Eco-Funnies, Renegade Press, and Rip Off Press between 1972 through 1992, and over a hundred new cartoonists saw their work in print, some for the first time. Many other titles grew out of this groundbreaking anthology, and today we are scattered in all corners of the United States and Europe.

The exhibit includes covers from throughout the series' run and panels of severals of the artists' work.

The 40th Anniversary of Wimmen's Comix will be on display on the 4th floor of the Main Library from November 10, 2012 through February 7, 2013.

November 2012 Thursday Noon Videos

In November the Art, Music and Recreation Center is hosting and programming the Main Library's Thursday Noon Videos in the Koret Auditorium.  This month's theme is “a very dysfunctional Thanksgiving.”

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Pieces of April, 2003, 80 minutes.
Katie Holmes plays the title character in this story of a family reuniting at April’s grotty Manhattan apartment for what may be the mother’s (Patricia Clarkson) final Thanksgiving. We follow April as she tries to put the meal together, only to find out that her oven is broken. Meanwhile the rest of her family is slowly making their way to New York, with the trip punctuated by many stops, including one for a funeral for road kill. With the help of various neighbors, April manages to assemble dinner, while learning to appreciate the importance of family and bonding with her fellow apartment dwellers in the process.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Home for the Holidays, 1995, 103 minutes.
Forty-year old single Chicagoan Claudia Larson, played by Holly Hunter, heads home for Thanksgiving having just been let go from her job at an art museum. In addition, her daughter (Clare Danes) confides on the way to taking Claudia to the airport that she’ll probably experience sex for the first time during the holiday weekend. The family Claudia will be joining includes her overbearing parents, (Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning) a crazy aunt, (Geraldine Chaplin) a humorless sister, (Cynthia Stevenson), and her mischievous brother (Robert Downey, Jr.), bringing his new boyfriend, (Dylan McDermott) home. How could this Thanksgiving not be a great time?

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Hannah and Her Sisters, 1986, 107 minutes.
A Woody Allen Manhattan mosaic, Hannah and Her Sisters concerns the lives, loves, and infidelities among a tightly-knit artistic clan. Hannah (Mia Farrow) regularly meets with her sisters Holly (Dianne Wiest) and Lee (Barbara Hershey) to discuss the week's events. It's what they don't always tell each other that forms the film's various subplots. Hannah is married to accountant and financial planner Elliot (Michael Caine), who carries a torch for Lee, who in turn lives with pompous Soho artist Frederick (Max Von Sydow). Meanwhile, Holly, a neurotic actress and eternal loser in love, dates TV producer Mickey (Allen), who used to be married to Hannah. Yes, it’s complicated - but also very enjoyable - to see how these stories resolve.

There will be no video program on Thursday, November 22 when the Library is closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Each screening begins at noon at the Koret Auditorium, Main Library, Lower Level. All programs at the Library are free and open to the public. This program is supported by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Motion Pictures: Featuring Bay Area Dance Companies

from The Happiness of Pursuit (Post: Ballet) by David Jouris

The San Francisco Public Library presents an exhibition of prints – representing a cross-section of local dance companies – that strive to capture the flowing energy that is unique to dance. To accomplish this, Berkeley artist David Jouris has developed an approach that distills time and motion into a single impressionistic image. In so doing, he is able to reveal a fluidity that would otherwise go unseen and to convey some of the luminous magic of dance.

The photographed dance companies include Axis Dance Company, Company C Contemporary Ballet, Keith Hennessey, Lily Cai Chinese Dance Company, LINES Training Program, Na Lei Hulu, Post: Ballet, Printz Dance Project, Robert Moses' Kin, and Zhukov Dance Theatre.

The exhibit is schedule to be displayed from October 27, 2012 through January 31, 2013 in the Steve Silver Beach Blanket Babylon Music Center on the 4th floor of the Main Library.

Giants Of The Past

image source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection

The Library salutes the San Francisco Giants in the World Series with a small display of photos of the Giants from years past. courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, San Francisco Public Library. Books on baseball are also here on the Fourth Floor.

Stop by the Library before or after attending the Giants Parade on October 31.

The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars

Once you’re dead you’re made for life.

--Jimi Hendrix

Halloween, the Day of the Dead and All Soul’s Day are perfect times to ruminate on death.  It is a time of the year when it is perfectly acceptable, even creditable, to indulge your morbid side by reading the obituaries, necrographies and death trivia of your favorite musicians.  To that end, we irreverently recommend The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars by Jeremy Simmonds.

Are you familiar with the Curse of the Buzzcocks? Do you know which popular singing group has more deceased members than any other pop act?  [The Drifters.]  Or which 1991 accident is considered “the biggest single band wipe-out ever in popular music history?”  [Plane crash, the Reba McEntire Band].

The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars consists of succinct articles arranged chronologically, in order of death date.  Each entry is preceded by symbols indicating cause of death, whether it be natural, heart attack, murder, accident, poisoning, and so on.  Indulge in the multi-icon artists!  Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Jim Morrison, and David McComb of the Triffids have five or more such symbols indicating complicated deaths (as well as lives, apparently).

This book is also peppered with interesting and prophetic quotes, such as:

‘You’re drinking with Number Three.’  

-- Jim Morrison, to friends after hearing of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix’s deaths.

‘I’ll probably be popped off by some loony!’ 

--John Lennon, interviewed during the sixties.

‘You win -- I gain.’ 

--Karen Carpenter’s cryptic crocheted message above her New York hospital bed, 1982.

Reading List:

The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches by Jeremy Simmonds (Chicago Review Press, 2008).  

The Rock and Roll Book of the Dead: The Fatal Journeysof Rock's Seven Immortals by David Comfort (Citadel Press, 2009).  

Better to Burn Out: The Cult of Death in Rock 'n Roll by Dave Thompson (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999).

The Encyclopedia of Rock Obituaries by Nick Talevski (Omnibus Press, 1999).  

Take a Walk on the Dark Side: Rock and Roll Myths, Legends, and Curses by R. Gary Patterson (Fireside, 2004).  

"Rock Death in the 1970s: A Sweepstakes," from In theFascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-1992 by Greil Marcus.

The 2012 San Francisco Giants - World Series Bound Once More

Our San Francisco Giants are National League Champions once again after coming from behind to win two dramatic playoff series against the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals.  Now it's on to Detroit!

The 2012 Giants share several players from the 2010 roster, and they also share a similar tendency to inflict delightful torture upon their fans.  In 2010 we presented a reading list of books covering San Francisco Giants history.  Since then, quite a few books have been published that allow readers to relive that magical season.



Several of these books are written by Bay Area sports journalists.  San Jose Mercury News reporter Andrew Baggarly has written A Band of Misfits: Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants.  In this book, Baggarly brings the season back to life with personal anecdotes about players and the day-to-day experiences of the team.  This Is Our Time!: The 2010 San Francisco Giants World Series Champions, written by Chris Haft, the Giants' beat reporter for Mlb.com, also provides insights from his daily coverage of that team.  



Worth the Wait is a photographic celebration of the season featuring photography by Brad Magin; KNBR sports radio personality Brian Murphy, the author of San Francisco Giants: 50 Years, wrote the accompanying text and player profiles.  San Francisco Giants: Torture to Rapture recounts 2010 campaign through words and images from the San Francisco Chronicle.  Giant Surprise: San Francisco's 2010 World Champions is a richly illustrated summary of the team's playoff and World Series run.  

Two earlier books, Tales From the San Francisco Giants Dugout by Nick Peters and Giants Past And Present by Dan Fost have also been republished in updated editions that include the 2010 championship season.



Another recent title, 100 Things Giants Fans Should Know And Do Before They Die by Bill Chastain, features short chapters about 100 players and events from throughout the team's San Francisco. Finally, San Francisco Giants by Tricia O'Brien is a black and white photo collection spanning the team's history from its arrival in 1958 to 2011.


Let's hope this year's team will continue to give us exciting memories that will captured in future books about our San Francisco Giants.

Let's go Giants!


A Band of Misfits: Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants by Andrew Baggarly (Triumph Books, 2011).

Giant Surprise: San Francisco's 2010 World Champions (Triumph Books, 2010).

Giants Past And Present by Dan Fost (MVP/MBI Pub. LLC, 2011).

100 Things Giants Fans Should Know And Do Before They Die by Bill Chastain (Triumph Books, 2011).

San Francisco Giants by Tricia O'Brien (Arcadia Pub., c2011).

San Francisco Giants: Torture to Rapture: 2010 World Series Champions (KCI Sports Pub., 2010).

Tales From The San Francisco Giants Dugout: A Collection of the Greatest Giants Stories Ever Told by Nick Peters with Stuart Shea (Sports Pub., 2011).

This Is Our Time!: The 2010 San Francisco Giants World Series Champions: The Inside Story: Improbable, Wild, Unforgettable by Chris Haft and Eric Alan (Confluence Books, 2011).

Worth the Wait by Brian Murphy (Skybox Press, 2011).

"Your 2010 National League Champion San Francisco Giants: A Reading List," San Francisco Public Library Art, Music and Recreation Center [blog] (October 26, 2010).

Musicals!: A Complete Selection Guide for Local Productions

Richard Chigley Lynch's Musicals!: A Complete Selection Guide for Local Productions is one of the more useful and practical reference sources we use.  As the subtitle indicates, the purpose of the book is to assist anyone thinking of staging a musical.  It consists of an alphabetical listing of almost 500 musical theater works along with practical information about each of them.  While the information about the creators of each work is easy to come by in other sources, where this reference stands apart in supplying publication information about the work.

Musicals! gives bibliographic information about any published libretto (or script), condensations of the libretto, piano-vocal score, and when there is no piano-vocal score, whether there are vocal selections.

This is extraordinarily helpful information because in many cases, libretti and scores have not been commercially published.  Patrons are sometimes confused to learn that there is no published score or script for the music they seek.  But there is a logical reason for this--the rights holder of the work has made a decision that it is in their interest to make the scores and scripts available only on a rental basis.  Thus, Musicals! also includes another crucial bit of information - the Licensing Agent who owns the rights to each show.  They are also the ones who rent out performing material like scripts, performing scores and parts for the musicians in the pit.

Musicals! also gives information about commercially-released cast recordings (when they exist).  Finally, it also provides information about the numbers of actors and actresses needed to perform the work and a listing of songs from each show.

This resource also includes four indexes.  The first two provide contact information for the Licensing Agents and Publishers cited in the book.  There is also an index of composers, lyricists and librettists.  The final index is also very important - a song index to all of the numbers in each show included in the reference.

A copy of the 1984 edition of Musicals! is available to view online through archive.org for library users who register with Open Library.


Musicals!: A Complete Selection Guide For Local Productions by Richard Chigley Lynch, 2nd edition (American Library Association, 1994).

Introduction to Western Music: From Hildegard to Handel Fall 2012

The Art, Music & Recreation Center of the San Francisco Public Library in association with the University of the Commons (uotc.org) presents

INTRO TO WESTERN MUSIC: From Hildegard to Handel Fall 2012

Instructor: John Smalley

Recommended Texts:

• Joseph Kerman and Gary Tomlinson, Listen
• Joseph Machlis and Kristine Forney, The Enjoyment of Music
• Don Randel, The New Harvard Dictionary of Music
• Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, Music in the Western World: A History in Documents
• Michael Chanan, Musica Practica: The Social Practice of Western Music from Gregorian Chant to Postmodernism

Online Resources

• Classical Music Library (a database of classical music recordings available through the San Francisco Public Library.Go to www.sfpl.org then eLibrary then eMusic.)
• Oxford Music Online (Go to www.sfpl.org then eLibrary then Articles & Databases.)
• IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music: http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page
• The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Page (lyrics and translations of thousands of song texts): http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/
• SFPL’s blog of music resources: http://www.delicious.com/AMRLibrarian

Course Description and Objectives:  This course examines Western art music in various political, economic, and aesthetic contexts and seeks to teach listening skills, a critical vocabulary for discussing music, and a greater appreciation for the complex roles of music in society. The course looks at changing genres and styles of music and discusses composers’ choices and assumptions, as well as those of their patrons and audiences, as we move chronologically from the Middle Ages through the Baroque era. Students’ critical perceptions and responses to the music and the readings will be eagerly sought.

Course Calendar - October–November 2012

10/7     Introduction.  Elements of music.

Medieval Music.  Ars antiqua.  Terms: “chant,” “organum,” “scale,” “monophony,” “tenor,” “cantus firmus.”

Anon., Haec dies (chant)

Anon., Haec dies (organum)

Anon., O mitissima/Virgo/Haec dies

Anon., Vere dignum

Anon., In paradisum

Pérotin, Diffusa est gratia

10/14   Sacred and secular monophony. Terms: “Fifth”

Hildegard of Bingen, Ordo Virtutum

Beatritz, Countess of Dia, A chantar mes al cor

            Ars Nova.  Terms: “motet,” “isorhythm,” “polyphony,” “imitative polyphony,” “non-imitative polyphony,” “third”

Machaut, Quant en moy 

10/21   Renaissance Music.  Terms: “mass,” “motet,” “madrigal,” “cadence,” “word painting”

Josquin, Pange lingua Mass, Kyrie

Josquin, Pange lingua Mass, Gloria

Josquin, Ave Maria

Thomas Weelkes, As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending

10/28   NO CLASS

11/4     Baroque Music.  Terms: “opera,” “recitative,” “aria” “ritornello,” “ritornello form,”

“sequence.”

Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas, “Thy Hand, Belinda”

Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas, “When I Am Laid”

Baroque Concerto.  Ritornello form. Baroque keyboard music

Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, “Spring,” mvt. 1

Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Gigue

11/11   Baroque Concerto (cont.) and Oratorio. Terms: “fugue,” oratorio.”

Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, mvt. 1

Bach, Fugue in C- sharp major

Oratorio.

Handel, Messiah, “There Were Sheperds”

Handel, Messiah, “Glory to God”

Handel, Messiah, Hallelujah Chorus