Deep in the Burgundy countryside, a murder case is perplexing Inspector Pel. The body was found in the salon, an elegant room with a grand piano and a Louis XIV escritoire. The shutters were still closed and the dead end of a record of Rigoletto was still turning. There are some obvious suspects, yet the clothes of none of them show any signs of blood. And what were the tensions that must have torn at this family? It’s only when a second murder takes place that the method of the first becomes startlingly clear. Moody, sharp-tongued and worrying constantly about his health, Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel ensures that no case goes unsolved, in these mordantly witty French mysteries. Praise for the Inspector Pel Mystery series: ‘Totally convincing.’ Financial Times ‘Mr Hebden has created a nice band of flics.’ Oxford Times ‘Pel and his procedurals are some of the best things since Maigret.’ Observer ‘Chief Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel, as well rounded a character as Maigret or Van der Valk.’ Punch ‘Impeccable French ambience, unexaggerated flics, and a well-constructed solution. Hebden proves again that few understand Gallic cops better than English writers!’ The Times ‘Some characters grow as their saga lengthens and Pel... is one of them. You might say he is ripening along with the grapes.’ Police Review ‘...written with downbeat humour and some delightful dialogue.’ Financial Times ‘...all is most cunningly contrived and dovetailed into a coherent plot.’ Irish Times ‘A thoroughly entertaining read.’ Evening Standard ‘The best Gallic sleuth since Maigret.’ London Mystery Selection

This book examines four major works (The St. Matthew Passion by J.S. Bach, A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms, the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to St. Luke by Krzysztof Penderecki, and Mass: A Cry for Peace by Leonard Bernstein). The author concentrates on the text composition of these works and analyzes the words as expressions of theology and faith.

This book engages with the question of how music expresses and responds to the profound existential disturbance that death and loss present to the living. Singing Death ranges across genres from medieval love song to twenty-first-century horror film music. Each chapter offers readers an encounter with music as a distinct way of speaking or responding to human mortality. The chapters cover a wide range of disciplines: musicology, ethnomusicology, literature, history, philosophy, film studies, psychology and psychoanalysis. The collection is accompanied by a website including some of the music associated with each of its chapters.

Music gives specific meanings to our lives, but also to how we experience death; it forms a central part of death rituals, consoles survivors, and celebrates the deceased. Music & Death investigates different musical engagements with death. Its eleven essays examine a broad range of genres, styles and periods of Western music from the Middle Ages until the present day. This volume brings a variety of methodological approaches to bear on a broad, but non-exhaustive, range of music. These include musical rituals and intercessions on behalf of the departed. Chapters also focus on musicians' reactions to death, their ways of engaging with grief, anger and acceptance, and the public's reaction to the death of musicians. The genres covered include requiem settings, operas and ballets, arts songs, songs by Leonard Cohen and the B-52s, and instrumental music. There are also broader reflections regarding the psychological links between creative musical practice and the overcoming of grief, music's central role in shaping a specific lifestyle (of psychobillies) and the supposed universalism of Western art music (as exemplified by Brahms). The volume adds many new facets to the area of death studies, highlighting different aspects of "musical thanatology". It will appeal to those interested in the intersections between western music and theology, as well as scholars of anthropology and cultural studies. CONTRIBUTORS: Matt BaileyShea, Alexandra Buckle, Peter Edwards, Richard Elliott, Nicole Grimes, Mieko Kanno, Kimberly Kattari, Wolfgang Marx, Fred E. Maus, Jillian C. Rogers, UtaSailer and Miriam Wendling.

This edited collection explores the reception of dead rock stars, ‘rock’ being taken in the widest sense. When music artists die, their fellow musicians, producers, fans and the media react differently, and this book brings together their intertwining modalities of reception. The commercial impact of death on record sales, copyrights, and print media is considered, and the different justifications by living artists for being involved with the dead, through covers, sampling and tributes. The cultural representation of dead singers is investigated through obituaries, biographies and biopics. The book discusses the gendering of death and posthumous prestige, and the enduring appeal of the notion of ‘tragedy’ in popular music culture.