Most Popular Books by Whitney Martin

This collection of original essays ranges widely among the composer''s interests and achievements: from his religious views to his skill as a cook, from the politics that galvanized him to the poetry that inspired him, from his earliest compositions to his final masterwork, Falstaff, completed at the age of 80. Drawing on original research and scholarship, this book also contains two of Verdi''s early works, never before published in this form; a translated collection of his letters, also heretofore unpublished; the text of the Requiem with indications of Verdi''s emphases; and a directory of his operas with sources, casts, theatres, and premiere dates.

The operas of Giuseppe Verdi stand at the center of today''s operatic repertoire, and have done so for more than a century. The story of how the reputation and wide appeal of these operas spread from Western Europe throughout the world has long needed to be told. This latest book by noted Verdi authority George W. Martin, Verdi in America: Oberto through Rigoletto, specifically details the changing fortunes of Verdi''s early operas in the theaters and concert halls of the United States. Among the important works whose fates Martin traces are Nabucco, Attila, Ernani, Macbeth (in its original version), Luisa Miller, and one of Verdi''s immortal masterpieces: Rigoletto, denounced in 1860 as the epitome of immorality. Martin also explores the astonishing revival of many of these operas in the 1940s and onward (including Macbeth in its revised version of 1865), and the first American productions-sometimes in small opera houses outside the main circuit-of some Verdi operas that had never previously managed to cross the Atlantic. Extensive quotations from newspaper reviews testify to the eventual triumph of these remarkable works. They also reveal the crucial shifts in tastes and expectations that have occurred from Verdi''s day to our own [Publisher description].

"Martin''s narrative of this talented lawyer includes not only an account of his relationships with Mayor La Guardia and others, but also details about Burlingham''s private life - his eccentric wife; his tragically afflicted son; and his daughter-in-law Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, who took CCB''s grandchildren off to Vienna, where she was analyzed by Sigmund Freud, and her children by Anna Freud."--BOOK JACKET.

(Limelight). Martin provides a guide to opera that is sweeping in its scope, thorough in its detail, and authoritative in its commentary. He recalls a century of achievement in an art form that today enjoys unprecedented popularity and that has been generously enriched by challenging works in many cases yet to be fully recognized of the modern era.

Provides synopses of forty-seven operas, a history of the opera, and a glossary of operatic terms.

Describes the lives of three generations of the Damrosch family and examines their influence on music in the United States.

"This is a narrative unlike any other, combining the most colorful, passionate, and theatrical of all art forms with the history of the most colorful, passionate, and theatrical of all American cities."--from the foreword by Lotfi Mansouri, General Director, San Francisco Opera "An important contribution to the cultural history of California and of San Francisco, unusual because of the author''s rich understanding of Verdi''s place in Western culture. Music and cultural historians will find this an exciting book in the field of opera and society."--Burton W. Peretti, author of The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America

Biography of Frances Perkins, First Woman Cabinet Member, politician, USA - leadership, activities in labour policy, social policy, labour relations, social security, ILO mentioned. Bibliography.

Big Ernie learns to deal with being worried, mad, and a little sad about moving to a new home.

More than a century ago over 200 leading lawyers met in a schoolroom on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Sixth Street to organize the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. They were hot with reform and with the sting of professional shame. Boss Tweed and his cronies were not only robbing the city''s treasury, but, worse, were also corrupting the courts and judges. Boss Tweed and his gang were routed but not without a long struggle and the help of many others in the city. Since that historical victory, the Association has taken up other "causes and conflicts," sometimes with wide success, sometimes failing, but continuing a wide variety of activities with unabated zeal. George Martin tells of these struggles in this volume. It is the story of the Association through times of turbulence and times of trouble, including the famous March on Washington, the toppling of Mayor Jimmie Walker under the Judge Seabury investigation, and the Joseph McCarthy Era. George Martin has brought these great events and a number of no less interesting footnotes to history alive in Causes and Conflicts through these many vignettes about the Associations'' leaders.