Fantasy Pieces

Barack Obama's stunning victory in the 2008 presidential election will go down as one of the more pivotal in American history. Given America's legacy of racism, how could a relatively untested first-term senator with an African father defeat some of the giants of American politics? In The Obama Victory, Kate Kenski, Bruce Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson draw upon the best voter data available, The National Annenberg Election Survey, as well as interviews with key advisors to each campaign, to illuminate how media, money, and messages shaped the 2008 election. In a crisp, incisive narrative, the authors identify the candidates' major themes-Maverick versus Mc-Same; Change versus Tax and Spend Liberal, etc.-and then apply them to the five main periods ofthe campaign: the early summer; the period from the vice presidential nominations through the conventions; the financial meltdown from mid-September to mid-October; the two weeks after the final debate; and the final week. Throughout, they explain how both sides worked the media to reinforce or combat images ofMcCain as too old and Obama as not ready; how Obama used a very effective rough-and-tumble radio and cable campaign that was largely unnoticed by the mainstream media; how the Vice Presidential nominees impacted the campaign; how McCain's age and Obama's race affected the final vote, and much more. Analyzing each nominee's broadcast, cable, and radio spending, the authors conclude that Obama's media campaign was more savvy than McCain's, and that early voting and the complete collapse ofcampaign finance reform will change elections for years to come. Briskly written and filled with surprising insights, The Obama Victory goes beyond opinion to offer the most authoritative account available of precisely how and why Obama won the presidency.Fantasy Pieces examines from several vantage points a vital life-force of Robert Schumann's music, namely metrical conflict. Harald Krebs's imaginative yet rigorous study makes use of Schumann's fascinating projections of his own personality-the characters Florestan and Eusebius-as one means of addressing the biographical and aesthetic context of the music.In counterpoint with the remarks of these personae, Krebs develops an original theory of metrical conflict by adapting the concepts of consonance and dissonance to metrical analysis. He investigates how states of metrical dissonance arise, and shows how they are manipulated and resolved in the course of compositions. He offers new methods for understanding the metrical progressions of entire works or movements, and studies the interaction of metrical conflict with form, with pitch structure,and with the texts of Schumann's vocal works. Krebs includes a wealth of illustrations from the whole range of Schumann's work and offers numerous insights important for performance. In the final chapter, he provides richly detailed studies of pieces by Schumann in various genres, interspersing themwith shorter discussions of music by Berlioz, Chopin, Clara Schumann, Ives, and Schoenberg.This is a book that will appeal not only to students and scholars of music theory, but to all musicians interested in the life, work, and unique personality of Robert Schumann.