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Depressions 1929 United States Jazz History and criticism Music 19th century History and criticism Music 20th century History and criticism Music 21st century History and criticism Musical form Romanticism in music Style, Musical United States History 1901-1953 United States Politics and government 1901-1953Filter By Subjects
Depressions 1929 United States Jazz History and criticism Music 19th century History and criticism Music 20th century History and criticism Music 21st century History and criticism Musical form Romanticism in music Style, Musical United States History 1901-1953 United States Politics and government 1901-1953Summary: The flowering of the Jazz Age is a tale of two great cities, Chicago and New York, and two extraordinary artists whose achievements spanned nearly three-quarters of a century. Louis Armstrong was a fatherless waif who grew up on the rough streets of New Orleans, developing his extraordinary gifts before moving to Chicago, where his transcendent sound inspired a new generation of musicians. Duke...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2000
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Summary: This program explores a century of conflict and tragedy in the Appalachians, beginning with the cultural oppression and forced exodus of the Cherokee. Documenting Appalachia's role in racial and ideological tensions leading up to the Civil War, the video examines the prevalence of slavery outside plantation culture and the unpredictable divisions among mountain communities that followed...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Throughout history, musicians and musical works have reflected the fashion, culture, and social attitudes of their times. Music today is more diversified than ever, from the megahits of teen pop stars to the depth and emotionality of gospel choirs to the tones and textures produced by large-scale orchestras. Add to this the unstoppable forces of MySpace, YouTube, the iPod, and a rapidly...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: During the early 20th century, Washington, D.C., was the cultural capital of black America. Prefiguring Harlem in the 1920s, D.C.'s Uptown area nurtured dynamic figures such as Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Mary Church Terrell, Justice Thurgood Marshall, and Dr. Charles Drew. In this program, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith tells the often-overlooked story of the heyday,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Best known for its flappers, gangsters, and jazz, the Roaring Twenties was also an era of social tensions and political change. This program is a time capsule of a boisterous era that began with a surge of hope and ended on the verge of the Great Depression. Topics include the presidencies of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, the post-World War I "return to normalcy," the economic boom and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: This program from the Famous Composers series introduces the life and work of German composer Richard Strauss, born to a horn player, Franz Strauss, in 1864. The film sheds light on Strauss' childhood in Munich, which revolved around the boy's musical education. His father's conservative tastes played a large role in shaping the composer, but also kept him away from the important influence of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: When America entered World War II, jazz became part of the arsenal, with bandleaders like Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw taking their swing to troops overseas. For many black Americans, however, that sound had a hollow ring. Segregated at home and in uniform, they found themselves fighting for liberties their own country denied them-as when authorities padlocked the integrated Savoy Ballroom....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: Refined, luminous, and fundamentally optimistic, the music of Joaquin Rodrigo is a tribute to the rich and varied cultures of Spain. Filmed on location throughout Europe, this captivating program profiles the influential Spanish composer whose life spanned the 20th century and whose works set the standard for guitar technique in modern Spanish music. Performance clips from his Concierto de...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Liszt frequently expanded upon the work of previous composers to create new musical forms. His transcription of Verdi's Rigoletto was part of a completely new style of piano composition. In this program, Martino Tirimo guides students toward a mastery of the Rigoletto paraphrase and an understanding of its compositional layers. Assembled at London's Royal Academy of Music, pianists from the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: What the painters and poets of the Impressionist movement sought to capture in their media, the French composer Debussy realized in music. This program looks at the techniques Debussy used to create pictures in tones and how he sought to express mood and melody in dramatically new ways. Among the selections featured are Herbert von Karajan conducting Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun and La...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Taking viewers back to the Roaring Twenties, this program examines the Broadway of the Jazz Age-the era of Runnin' Wild, George White Scandals, and Shuffle Along, which helped reopen Broadway's doors to African-American artists. The film also features unique talents like the Marx Brothers, Al Jolson, the Gershwin brothers, and the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. But the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
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Summary: The story of jazz begins in New Orleans, 19th-century America's most cosmopolitan city. Here, in the 1890s, African-American artists created a new music out of ragtime syncopations, Caribbean rhythms, marching band instrumentation, and the soulful feeling of the blues. This program introduces the pioneers of this revolutionary art form: half-mad cornet player Buddy Bolden, pianist Jelly Roll...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2000
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Summary: This program examines the first waves of settlement in the Appalachian mountains, beginning with the region's earliest inhabitants-the Cherokee people and other Native American tribes. Illustrating how these indigenous populations were eventually overwhelmed by the arrival of Europeans, the video focuses on the influx of Scots-Irish immigrants, their crucial role in the American Revolution, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Produced in conjunction with legendary singer Peter Gabriel, this program takes viewers to a stage outside London as it documents the work of artists appearing at the World of Music, Arts and Dance Festival (WOMAD) In addition to engaging and powerful on-stage numbers, the film captures intimate, behind-the-scenes moments with world music stars, tracing each performer's origins and artistic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: In the early 1950s, before rock-and-roll dominated youth and urban culture, an innovative form of music appeared on the streets of America's cities. It was a mix of strange new harmonies and nonsense syllables that came to be known as doo-wop. This program traces the development of doo-wop music and the accomplishments of musicians who made the style their own. Viewers also meet a group of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: This installment of the Famous Composers series introduces the life and work of French composer Joseph-Maurice Ravel. Opening with pictures and a description of the composer's birthplace, the seaport of Ciboure in Basque country, the film characterizes Ravel's childhood and family as modest but pleasant. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris at 14, and while he was a piano major, he was also...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: This overview of the life and work of Gustav Mahler from the Famous Composers series opens by introducing the composer's parents and the political and social landscape of nineteenth century Bohemia. The film follows the young Mahler's musical education at the Vienna Conservatory and his general education, both supported by his father, Bernard Mahler. By the age of 20, Mahler secured steady work...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This installment of the Famous Composers series offers an overview of the life and work of Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, born in Tuscany to a historically musical family. The film characterizes the young Puccini as a talented but disinterested student until he was inspired by a performance of Verdi's Aida to pursue opera. Following the composer to the Milan Conservatory, the program traces...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As the 1930s drew to a close, swing-mania was still going strong, but some fans were saying success had made the music too predictable. Their ears were tuned to a new sound, suffused with the blues-the Kansas City sound of Count Basie's band, which ignited new musical adventures. By 1938, Basie and his men were helping Benny Goodman bring jazz to Carnegie Hall. Soon Basie's lead saxophonist,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: As the Depression dragged on, jazz came as close as it ever would to being America's popular music. Now it was often called swing, and, as this program illustrates, it became the defining music of a generation. Suddenly, jazz bandleaders were the new matinee idols, with Benny Goodman hailed as the "King of Swing," while teenagers jitterbugged just as hard to the music of his rivals: Tommy...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: To pursue new directions in music, Schoenberg bravely abandoned traditional tonal arrangements, composing atonal works that would eventually lead to the development of his unique Twelve-Tone System. In this program, musicologists David Rosen and Michel Fischer discuss the dramatic technical changes as well as the historical contexts of Schoenberg's music. Historic performances include Pierre...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: How "musical space" is used to create drama in classical pieces is explored by examining this famous work of American composer Aaron Copland. Mixing small musical steps with giant leaps between notes and chords, the orchestra shows how Copland developed a musical piece full of surprises and the dissonant sounds for which he is noted.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Moved as a boy by the charming simplicity of an organ-grinder's song, Mahler brought "street sounds" into his symphonies. As conductor, he demanded dynamic stage design and lighting and insisted on darkness in the hall, changing the nature of the conductor's role and introducing modern stagecraft. Even his appointment as director of the Vienna Court Opera at the precocious age of 37 was...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: The wit, wisdom, and song of one of America's best-known bards comes to life in this program, which offers a rousing musical portrait of the beloved and often controversial folk singer, songwriter, storyteller, and activist. On the eve of Seeger's 75th birthday, Bill Moyers visited him at his home in New York's Hudson Valley for a warm and often wryly funny conversation about his life and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006