The conductor Christian Thielemann chronicles his ardent personal and professional engagement with Richard Wagner’s music, describes his own journey from Berlin Orchestral Academy to Bayreuth, and appraises each of Wagner’s operas in turn. Translated by Anthea Bell.

Eliot Weisman became Frank Sinatra's manager in the 1970s and helped him stay at the peak of his profession until his death in 1998. Describing the recordings and tours of the 1980s and 1990s, this memoir also provides an insight into the singer's private life, which included complicated family relationships and friendships with celebrities, politicians and mobsters. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

Philip Norman's history of the Beatles, Shout!, and his biography of John Lennon seemed to take a largely anti-McCartney stance so it was a surprise when Paul gave tacit approval to Norman to write this biography, enabling access to family members and close friends. The result redresses the balance, describing the importance of McCartney's creative leadership in the Beatles and exploring his later career and personal life from the early death of his mother to his highly publicized marriages.

Folk legend Peggy Seeger is the half-sister of American protest singer Pete Seeger but it is her marriage and collaborations with British activist and songwriter Ewan MacColl for which she is best known. In this memoir she reflects on her bohemian New York upbringing, left-wing politics and activism and the British folk scene of the 1950s and 1960s that she did much to nurture.

George Butterworth, the enigmatic, patriotic young composer of English choral and orchestral music, was making a living as a reviewer, teacher and Morris dancer before the First World War, which he wrote about with a mixture of humour and frustration. Using previously unpublished documents, war diaries and fictionalized conversations, the author has reconstructed the brief life of a promising musician who was killed in the Battle of the Somme.

Making her name in the jazz clubs of New York in the late 1940s, Sarah Vaughan broke through race barriers to become a mainstream recording artist in the 1950s. This biography traces her roots and influences, and assesses her music as well as her impact on American life as a pioneer of women's and civil rights. Slightly off-mint.

As a writer for the NME in the 1970s and The Face in the 1980s, Nick Kent established himself as one of the UK's leading rock journalists of the era. This collection of his writings focuses on the self-destructive nature of musicians such as Syd Barrett and Kurt Cobain and also includes previously unpublished material on artists including Johnny Cash and Phil Spector.

Ed Caraeff was commissioned to photograph The Stooges in 1970 and this volume collects his classic images of Iggy Pop and his band performing a showcase at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, alongside essays about the band, the venue and the photographer.

Most Bowie fans will be familiar with his ‘final’ Hammersmith Odeon performance in the Ziggy persona, which was filmed by DA Pennebaker. However his last portrayal of the role came a few months later in a Marquee show filmed for US television. Terry O’Neill, well known for photographing the glamorous and the good, captured the front and backstage action: his photos are accompanied here by reminiscences from fans who were there.

The Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, North Dakota in 1959; Monterey in 1963 (with Joan Baez ‘dragging my little vagabond out onto the stage’); the Royal Albert Hall; the Isle of Wight Festival; the Slow Train Coming recording session in Alabama, 1979 ... This book covers 20 years of Dylan performances as described by fellow musicians, record producers and fans who were there, along with set lists, photographs and quotations from rock music’s A list.

Since the 1950s, when the term ‘rock and roll’ came into common use, more than 200 distinct rock genres have been named. King’s guide explores the branches of this ‘family tree’, with recommended crossover tracks illustrating the genres’ interconnections. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

The Rolling Stones were named after a Muddy Waters song, Oasis after a leisure centre in Swindon, the Boomtown Rats after Woody Guthrie's childhood gang and the Beach Boys were chistened by their record company, without their knowledge. This compendium tells the sometimes convoluted tales behind the naming of the music business's most famous artists.

This musical survey examines the influence of traditional songs and a shared sense of British folklore on popular music. Beginning with the early song collectors and post-war revivalists, such as Ewan MacColl, the author traces how folk music has inspired some of the 20th century's most important artists from Fairport Convention and Nick Drake to Pink Floyd and Kate Bush.

This celebration of John Lennon's historic 1971 album has been compiled by Yoko Ono and reproduces letters and postcards, lyric sheets and photographs of the making of the record in London, New York and the Lennons' Berkshire home, Tittenhurst Park. Also included are the reminiscences of musicians, journalists, filmmakers and other people in Lennon's circle at the time. Slightly off-mint.

Cult singer-songwriter Tom Waits started to get noticed at Hollywood's famous Troubadour club in the early 1970s. This biography describes his musical development in the decades since, his parallel acting career and personal life.

Focusing on Lou Reed's 'singular concern to turn rock into an intelligently literate medium of expression', this biography from Jeremy Reed (no relation) traces and critically assesses his career from 'experimenting with weaponised noise' at Syracuse University in the 1960s, through the years with The Velvet Underground, solo projects such as Transformer and Berlin, collaborations with other musicians and lyric-writing, to his final album, Lulu, recorded with Metallica in 2011. Off-mint.

Born in Moscow in 1971, Evgeny Kissin made his concert debut at the age of ten and is now internationally renowned for his interpretation of the classical and Romantic piano repertoire. In this collection of reminiscences he answers some of the questions that he is most often asked – about his childhood, his early teachers and his encounters with the world’s great musicians – and muses on topics including fame, inspiration and his favourite composers. Slightly off-mint.

The music venue that opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1992 quickly built into a chain around the United States, hosting the top names in blues, jazz and gospel. This highly illustrated celebration includes printed ephemera such as ticket stubs and concert posters.

Judith Chernaik describes Robert Schumann (1810–1856) as a key figure in Romanticism: ‘a true Romantic in his embrace of poetry and feeling, his love of emotional extremes, his intermingling of life and art’. In this groundbreaking biography she traces the composer’s life and musical career, from his provincial, middle-class upbringing to his tragically early death, and draws on the medical records kept by Schumann’s doctor to shed light on the composer’s final illness in the Endenich asylum.

Few people were photographed more than John Lennon between 1962, when he first found fame, and his death in 1980. This volume tells the story of his public life through images and extended captions, including publicity portraits, and concert and TV performances. It also features candid photographs of his musical and campaigning activities, from the Cavern Club in Liverpool to life in New York in the late 1970s.

Author of bestselling biographies of Lennon, McCartney and Jagger, Philip Norman describes how Eric Clapton became rock's premier virtuoso in the 1960s and 1970s and examines a turbulent private life that has included chronic substance abuse, a famous affair with George Harrison's wife and the freak death of his son at the age of four.

Composed in a three-week burst of creativity, Handel’s sacred oratorio Messiah took an audacious, unprecedented form. Keates explains how the composer and his librettist, Charles Jennens, devised its narrative and musical structure and how the oratorio relates to the cultural and spiritual contexts of Georgian England. He also describes its mixed reception at the first Dublin and London performances and the process by which it became established as one of the best-loved works in the choral repertoire.

Slade had tried a skinhead look to make their mark before they became the standard-bearers of glam rock in the early 1970s. In this memoir the band's lead guitarist tells the story of their success and eventual break-up. Slightly off-mint.

Presented in scrapbook format with archive photographs, memorabilia and quotations from contemporary musicians, this history of the Ramones assesses the band's entire career, musical output and cultural impact, and includes a foreword by CJ Ramone.

When it was first performed in 1805, Beethoven’s Third Symphony (the ‘Eroica’) baffled audiences with a size, complexity and expressiveness that broke the Viennese Classical mould and would change the course of Western music by making symphonies the vehicle for composers’ greatest thoughts. This guide to the work analyses its innovations and explores its biographical and political background, including Beethoven’s increasing deafness and his shifting opinions of Napoleon, to whom the ‘Eroica’ was once dedicated.

This collection of anecdotes from a career in music journalism that began with the Melody Maker in the mid-1970s includes stories of self-importance and rock excess in the company of stars such as David Bowie, Lou Reed and Elvis Costello.

Danny Goldberg was Nirvana's manager during the height of their success from 1991 until Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994. This memoir includes his first-hand experience of working with the troubled singer as he rose to international fame.

The long and sometimes turbulent life of Sir Michael Tippett (1905–98) has been studied much less than his visionary music. This first full-length biography, which uses excerpts from his unpublished letters and from interviews with those who knew him, uncovers the sorrows behind the composer’s cheerful persona and the extent of his involvement in left-wing politics during the 1930s.

In 1968 the singer Serge Gainsbourg, devastated by his break-up with Brigitte Bardot, met Londoner Jane Birkin, who would revive his career and his personal life. Following the author’s itinerary as she zigzags across France from Deauville to St Tropez to interview their friends and associates – and in Paris, Jane herself – this book explores the charismatic couple’s 10-year romantic and creative partnership.

Bob Marley’s musical heroes growing up in Jamaica in the 1950s and 1960s were not the local calypso singers but black American vocal groups, such as the Drifters. His later transformation of Jamaican musical styles into reggae and his resulting rise to international fame are described in this celebration volume, illustrated with archive photographs, concert posters, record labels and other Marley ephemera. Slightly off-mint.

Otis Redding (1941–1967) made a seismic impact on American popular culture, and his recordings for the STAX label during the 1960s helped to define the sound of soul music and bring it to the mainstream. Based on interviews and extensive archival research, this chronicle of his life traces his rise from an unknown rural gospel singer to a superstar capable of selling out huge venues across the world. American-cut pages.

Rebellious teenagers risked persecution by the Stasi in East Germany in the late 1970s when they formed punk bands. As the Communist regime weakened the punks contributed to the underground movements that ultimately led to the reunification of Germany.

The Performing Rights Society was founded to protect, administer and distribute performance royalties, and since 1914 it has represented some of the finest composers, songwriters and music publishers in the world. To celebrate the Society’s centenary, this volume presents photographs and brief profiles of over 120 individuals and groups, including composers of music for film, singer-songwriters, jazz musicians, rock bands and classical composers, from Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Edward Elgar to Amy Winehouse and Ed Sheeran.

Homi Dastoor, a lover of Western Classical music since his teens, compiled this introductory guide at the age of 90 to pass on a lifetime’s knowledge and reflection. He profiles 34 great composers, from Palestrina and Monteverdi to Rachmaninov and Stravinsky, assessing their importance in musical history and providing lists of their major compositions for the reader to explore. Foreword by Zubin Mehta. Off-mint.

Based on an extended interview given during a 2003 UK tour, and other first-hand accounts, Philip Clark explores the jazz pianist’s music and influence on performers including Sting and John Cage. It recalls behind-the-scenes stories of breakthrough classics like ‘Take Five’, which propelled jazz into the mainstream, and Brubeck’s many encounters and collaborations with musical greats such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie.

Quoting extensively from contemporaries of Chopin, Ateş Orga traces the composer’s life and musical career from his birth in the village of Żelazowa Wola, west of Warsaw, in 1810, to his life as an emigré in Paris and his tragically early death in 1849. A selection of his music is performed by Idil Biret on the accompanying CD.

Following Mahler from his birthplace in Kalist, Bohemia in 1860 to his early death in Vienna in 1911, Seckerson explores the vicissitudes of his reputation – internationally renowned as a conductor during his lifetime, Mahler was initially neglected as a composer after his death. The CD contains seven selections from the symphonies and three lieder.

Paul Holmes traces the musical career of the ‘father of modern music’, Achille-Claude Debussy (1862–1918), from his first teacher, herself once a student with Chopin, to his death in Paris during the city’s darkest days in March 1918. The CD comprises 18 pieces, including the great Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.

Born in 1756, into a family where he ‘lived and breathed in an atmosphere of music’, Mozart was to become music’s most famous prodigy. Drawing on contemporary accounts and the composer’s letters, Woodford presents the story of a prolific musical life, cut short at the age of 35. The 15-track CD includes excerpts from the operas, concertos and requiems.

After booking The Pretty Things for a student dance and becoming their manager, Bryan Morrison’s career developed organically. His autobiography recalls his rapid rise in the music industry, representing a host of top stars before expanding into music publishing and developing a business empire.

As a virtuoso pianist, Beethoven composed sonatas for his instrument throughout his career, developing the Classical style into a new Romantic idiom through such popular and revolutionary works as the Pathétique, Moonlight and Hammerklavier sonatas. This urtext performing edition contains the full cycle of 32 works, from the early Op. 2 set of 1795, which Beethoven dedicated to his teacher Haydn, to the great C-minor Op. 111 written in 1822.

Lonnie Donegan’s energetic renditions of American folk and blues songs inspired thousands of teenagers to start skiffle bands in the mid 1950s. Billy Bragg’s analysis of this uniquely British craze shows how it led to the Beatles, British blues and the transformation of Western popular music.

Carmine Appice came to prominence with Vanilla Fudge in the 1960s, his innovative style helping to define modern rock drumming and inspiring players such as John Bonham. Recounting wild stories from decades of touring, this biography describes his experiences playing with Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Ozzy Osborne and Pink Floyd as well as reflecting on his childhood and life in recent years.

The famous 1965 musical was not the first film to be made about the von Trapp family nor the last. Paul Simpson’s celebration of the show investigates the real-life Austrian singers, the making of the Broadway show and movie and its enduring appeal.

The rock music writer Mick O’Shea presents a vivid biography of Amy Winehouse, the award-winning singer-songwriter who is quoted as saying ‘I don’t ever want to do anything mediocre’. With over 80 photographs, the book follows her life from childhood in Southgate to international fame following the Back to Black album in 2006, and her tragically early death at the age of 27 in 2011.

One of the most significant figures in American popular music, Hank Williams (1923–1953) rose to fame in the late 1940s, but alcohol and drug abuse made him difficult to work with and contributed to his early death. This definitive biography, updated with new information about the singer that has emerged in recent years, forms the basis of the 2015 film of the same title. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on upper trimmed edge.

From Purcell and Arne to Vaughan Williams and Maxwell Davies, British composers have often made use of maritime tropes. These twelve essays examine how their music reflects changes in Britons’ relationship with the sea, focusing on three themes: the sea as landscape, profession and metaphor. Slightly off-mint.

During the religious upheavals of the 16th century the old Scottish repertory of polyphonic music was swept away and replaced by simple tunes that could be sung by congregations of the Reformed Kirk. This book focuses on the compositions of this type by former Benedictine monk Jhone Angus (c.1515–96), which are preserved in the delightful manuscript psalter of his friend Thomas Wode. The accompanying CD features recordings of the canticles set to music by Angus. Slightly off-mint.

This second collection from the column from FT Weekend describes the background to the writing of 50 more classic songs and their cultural impact after release. An interesting example is John Lennon’s 1971 song ‘Jealous Guy’ which started out in 1968 as ‘Child of Nature’. It was reinterpreted by Donny Hathaway and then the Faces before Bryan Ferry recorded a version that is arguably better known than the original.

Working alongside contributors such as Annie Leibovitz and Hunter S Thompson, Robin Green was a lead journalist on Rolling Stone in the 1970s, during the magazine’s most influential years. This memoir tells how she became the magazine’s only woman writer and reveals the background to some of her most notorious stories, including a spat with Dennis Hopper and an exposé of David Cassidy.

Jann Wenner created a new type of magazine with Rolling Stone in 1967, mixing politics with serious pop-music journalism. This biography was written with extensive access to the controversial editor as well as interviews with leading rock stars.

This photo-led celebration of the Irish rock group includes hundreds of images of the band on and off stage as it describes their milestone albums and concert performances over a period of more than 35 years. Slightly off-mint.

Originally a daily online comic on a Greek website, created by the multidisciplinary artist Con Chrisoulis and published as a book in 2018, this is the story of the teenage years and musical influences of Morrissey, Marr, Rourke and Joyce in Manchester, culminating with the formation of The Smiths in 1982. Slightly off-mint.

This illustrated memoir celebrates the friendship and innovative collaboration between David Bowie and the artist Edward Bell. It explains how they met, describes Bowie’s involvement in the creative process and explores the unique qualities that made him a cultural icon.

A biography in the form of interviews, this book explores the life and music of the celebrated tenor Jonas Kaufmann. In extended conversations with Thomas Voigt, Kaufmann discusses his work in opera, and particularly his relationship to Verdi and Wagner, the sacrifices of success, and the performance of lieder, which he describes as ‘the ne plus ultra of singing’. Foreword by Plácido Domingo.

Internationally renowned jazz composer Graham Collier (1937–2011) offers a radical analysis of the composer’s place in a genre associated with improvization and traditional ‘standards’. Looking back over the development of jazz composition, he considers the work of such important figures as Gil Evans and ‘acknowedged genius’ Duke Ellington. He then examines the new directions taken by contemporary jazz, illustrating his points with examples from his own music and anecdotes from his life. References to websites may no longer be valid.

Melissa J de Graaf tells the story of the Composers’ Forum, a free weekly concert series at which American composers such as Aaron Copland, Amy Beach and Henry Cowell introduced their work to a newly developing audience for modern music. She also analyses the transcripts of the question-and-answer sessions sponsored by the Forum: reflecting its inclusive, populist ideology, these conversations offer remarkable insights into New Yorkers’ diverse reactions to the music and their attitudes to modernism, politics and American identity.

From flamboyant Jean-Paul Gaultier bustiers to sophisticated Dolce & Gabbana gowns, Madonna's fashion choices have long proved as influential as her hit records. This volumeillustrates her style evolution from the street-punk look synonymous with her early performances to her surprising reinvention as a tweed-clad countrywoman. Concluding with the elaborate costumes she showcased in her 2012 'MDNA' World Tour, this is a comprehensive visual record of a near four-decade-long career.

Musicians such as Eric Clapton were stunned by Jimi Hendrix’s virtuosity when they first heard him in 1966 and an army of fans were similarly bowled over by his concert performances in the few years before his death in 1970. Supported by personal photographs and memorabilia this volume collects over 500 eyewitness accounts of Hendrix concerts from early New York gigs to Woodstock.

Many rock stars become monuments to their youthful fame, but Thurston Moore has remained innovative. In this account of the guitarist’s career, friends and colleagues discuss his work from 1978 to the present, including Sonic Youth and his free jazz improvisations.

Perhaps best known for his opera, The Tempest, composer, conductor and pianist Thomas Adès is one of Britain’s leading musicians. This extended interview reveals his influences and creative processes and includes a foreword with his thoughts on his 2016 opera The Exterminating Angel.

For centuries female composers have been unjustly ignored and patronized, since they worked within a male-dominated musical culture that sought to exclude them, even to the extent of questioning their music’s authorship. The eight composers profiled here all challenged this prejudice with courage and pragmatism, from Francesca Caccini, who manipulated the gender politics of the Medici court, to Vaughan Williams’ pupil Elizabeth Maconchy, who fought back against sexism by working with ‘rigid self-discipline’.

Now best remembered as the conductor of Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra, Sir Hamilton Harty (1879–1941) began his career in Ulster and Dublin before coming to prominence in London as a piano accompanist. This biography reveals how he was influenced by these early experiences, analyses the debates he provoked on such topics as jazz and modernism and emphasizes his parallel career as a composer of orchestral works, chamber music and songs. The book ends with complete lists of Harty’s recordings and compositions.

In 1970 David Bowie and his bass player Tony Visconti had some ideas for a new sound that could make the impact that Bowie's first two albums hadn't. Guitarist Mick Ronson suggested the drummer from his old band and Woody Woodmansey joined the team. This biography tells the story of his time recording and touring with Bowie up until 1973, and his later career with his own band and as a session player.

After describing the instrument’s history and anatomy, two restoration experts introduce the tools and techniques of the violin repair shop. Their illustrated, step-by-step instructions guide violinists through maintenance routines at basic, intermediate and advanced level, from changing a string to re-gluing a whole plate.

One of three brothers and a cousin who formed The Beach Boys in the early 1960s, Brian Wilson emerged as the leading creative force of the group. This autobiography explores the influences that nurtured his talent and the productive years of creativity, before his struggles with mental illness and drugs began, as well as his rehabilitation since the 1990s and the completion of his legendary abandoned album, Smile. Slightly off-mint.

Simon Callow developed a one-man play for the Royal Opera House for the bicentenary of Wagner’s birth in 2013. He subsequently wrote this biography which sets out, as the actor did on stage, to understand what drove this most divisive and mercurial of musical figures, examining the intellectual, political and artistic climate of his times, the struggle to create his great operatic works and his turbulent private life.

Based on interviews with Elton John and his friends and collaborators, Tom Doyle’s book follows Elton through the decade of platform soles, wild costumes and hits such as Your Song, Rocket Man and Candle in the Wind, but also discusses the undercurrents of insecurity and depression.

Growing up in a humble shack in Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis Presley dreamed that success would free him from poverty. So how did he become dependent on bank loans even after achieving huge worldwide fame, and why did he despise his own movies and songs, even fearing that he would be forgotten after his death? This biography focuses on identifying the origins of the contradictions and frailties that lay behind Elvis’s charming, confident onstage persona. Slightly off-mint.

Dusty Springfield (1939–1999) was one of the most celebrated stars of the 1960s, whose ‘blue-eyed soul’ was popular both here and in America. This biography discusses her musical development and lasting legacy, but also delves beyond Dusty’s cheerful image to explore a more conflicted person. In the words of her lover, Dusty ‘wanted to be straight and she wanted to be a good Catholic and she wanted to be black’.

The Six-Five Special was the BBC’s first attempt to put pop music on television, breaking new ground in 1957 with a live, dancing studio audience. Drawing on interviews and anecdotes from presenters and performers, Jeff Evans analyses the development of music programming on British television, recalling the memorable moments and revealing what went on behind the scenes on shows such as Ready, Steady Go!, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Top of the Pops. Slightly off-mint.

At the Monterey Festival in June 1967 a German photographer told Ed Caraeff, ‘save some film for this Jimi Hendrix cat’; among the photographs that Caraeff took that day was the famous image of Hendrix setting fire to his guitar. From that summer to the Newport ’69 festival, this volume of photographs follows the iconic guitarist and his band as they played gigs across America.

From his childhood in Queens, New York, and Hey, Schoolgirl, the hit song recorded with his best friend Artie Garfunkel in 1957, to the release of Stranger to Stranger in 2016, Paul Simon has sustained one of the most interesting and successful careers in popular music. Peter Ames Carlin’s biography delves deep into the life and character of the artist responsible for the incomparable Bridge over Troubled Water (1970) and the solo album, Graceland (1986).

Following the band from 1991 when Ronan Munro reviewed their gig at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford for the local music paper, to a Times Literary Supplement article in May 2016, this book is a compilation of interviews and articles on Radiohead. It includes reviews of the albums from Pablo Honey to the digital release of The King of Limbs and Thom Yorke’s work with Atoms for Peace.

During the last decade of his life Leoš Janácek sent hundreds of passionate letters to Kamila Stösslová, a married woman half his age. Selections from their correspondence are translated in this volume, with linking commentary, photographs and a decoding of the lovers’ erotic references. Their words reveal how much this relationship inspired the composer’s final, greatest works – including the String Quartet ‘Intimate Letters’ – and shed valuable light on his personality.

After working as a film actor, Peter Grant found himself managing Led Zeppelin in the 1960s and, through a fierce determination to protect the musicians and improve their earnings and conditions, is credited with revolutionizing the profession.

Aimed at amateur players, for whom much of the chamber repertoire was written, this guide covers music by 50 significant composers, from the 17th century (Purcell and Corelli) to the 20th (including Britten and Shostakovich). Information is provided on each work’s instrumentation, duration and technical difficulty, together with comments on special points of interest. Pieces particularly suitable for inexperienced players are identified; an appendix suggests less familiar composers whose music will also be of interest. Slightly off-mint.

The scandal over his marriage to his teenage cousin stopped Jerry Lee Lewis’s career in its tracks in 1958 but he made a comeback in the 1970s as a country artist. Extensive recent interviews with the singer provide the basis of this biography, telling his story of rags to riches success, multiple wives and divorces, drug and alcohol abuse and eventual rehabilitation as a respected elder statesman of rock. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

Perhaps the most aggressive expression of the pop culture of the 1960s, The Who were powerful exponents of early British rock and their reputation as an unrivalled live act kept audiences flocking to their concerts well into the 21st century. This photographic portfolio presents many previously unpublished images of the group from early promotional portraits and London pub gigs of the mid 1960s to their Live 8 performance of 2005. Felt-tip mark on the upper trimmed edge.

In 1982 Michael Jackson made a demo of a song called Starlight for his new album but it was judged inadequate until a new lyric transformed it into Thriller, his career-defining recording. This highly illustrated book tells the story of all Jackson’s songs from the first hits of the Jackson 5 to songs released since the singer’s death in 2009, and includes profiles of key producers and collaborators. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge

A household name since his prodigious childhood, the violinist and conductor Sir Yehudi Menuhin (1916–99) strove to use his fame to draw attention to many humanitarian issues. Humphrey Burton, who knew Menuhin for 40 years, compiled this biography with full access to his subject’s personal archive; it offers a rounded portrait of his family life and his wide-ranging activities as performer, teacher and ‘musical diplomat’. The preface to this centenary edition highlights Menuhin’s continuing legacy.

On hearing a starling whistling his latest concerto in a Vienna shop, Mozart was so enchanted that he bought the bird as a family pet. Haupt interweaves the story of the composer’s songbird with her own experiences as a naturalist caring for a rescued nestling.

Raphael Terroni, piano; Phillida Bannister, contralto; Vadim Peaceman, piano.

Dame Evelyn Glennie, percussion; Hila Plitmann, soprano; Albany Symphony; David Alan Miller

Acclaimed director Michael Hampe presents ‘useful rules’ for staging opera, giving examples from his work with singers and conductors. He discusses such questions as how to move on stage and how to convey comedy, aiming to help performers realize the art form’s full potential.

At the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, Otis Redding’s set was one of the performances that made the festival legendary; by the end of the year he was dead, killed when his tour’s private plane crashed in Wisconsin. With the cooperation of the Redding family, friends and fellow musicians, Jonathan Gould presents a biography of ‘the king of soul’ and an appreciation of his immense contribution to popular music. Off-mint with felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge..

The popular image of Billie Holiday emphasizes the tragedy and notoriety of her life, her experiences of racism, drug addiction and abusive relationships, as much as the distinctive singing voice which conveyed such raw emotion. Drawing on recent academic work and a wealth of material rediscovered during the last decade, this centenary portrait ‘attempts to widen our sense of who Billie Holiday was’ by stripping away the accumulation of myths to reveal her strengths and insecurities, wit and warmth. Felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

NBC Symphony Orchestra; Arturo Toscanin. Toscanini Concert Edition

Alessandro Marangoni, piano.

Dietmar Berger; viola da Gamba

Elvis's career began to take off in 1955 when he was picked up by the shady Dutch-born promoter ’Colonel' Tom Parker, who secured a major recording deal. The contract sent to Elvis's parents (as the singer's guardians) to authorize Parker as manager is one of the items of memorabilia reproduced in this celebration of Elvis's career, which includes many concert and promotional photographs, film stills and posters as well as private snaps and personal documents.

The son of a big band singer, Declan McManus emerged from the post Punk era as one of the most significant British songwriters of his generation. This thoughtful memoir discusses his long career and many collaborations with other artists including Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach. Felt tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

This compendium of the popular Wall Street Journal column tells the stories of 45 hits by artists including Elvis, Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell and The Clash, based on interviews with the songs’ writers and performers. Off-mint.