This is a nice collection of piano/guitar/vocal sheet music for the Evita movie (originally a musical). It includes Madonna's single "You Must Love Me" which was written for the movie and not a part of the original Broadway show.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone. The music is great and the arrangements are not too hard to play, for the most part. Personally I had trouble with "And The Money Kept Rolling In (And Out)" because it is in 7/4 time but in general any intermediate pianist should be able to enjoy this collection. "You Must Love Me", "I'd Be Surprisingly Good For You" and "On This Night of a Thousand Stars" are particularly good, as well as the popular "Don't Cry For Me Argentina".

Frank Lloyd Wright
Wright was born in Wisconsin shortly after the American Civil War. He studied in the late nineteenth century with noted architect Louis Sullivan, with whom he had continuing and occasionally strained relationship. Wright is probably best known in America for the design of the Guggenheim Museum of Art In New York City; more generally, though, he is known for a particular style of low-built prairie-style houses and institutional buildings, that utilised open-space planning, and often had an element of interaction with elements such as water (in fact, a perennial complaint of Wright buildings is that they leak!). Wright was an innovator in incorporating engineering principles into the design of his buildings to provide sturdiness and creative forms of support and room design. In Japan, Wright was well-known for his design of the Imperial Hotel in Japan, as well as other buildings, including private residences of many prominent Japanese citizens. His work in Japan did not extend much beyond the early 1920s, however, and even the Imperial Hotel was demolished in 1968. Wright himself passed away in 1959 at the age of 91.

Wright and the Art of Japan
This book was produced for the Japan Society Gallery of New York by Julia Melch. It traces early affinities and influences of Japanese art on Wright and his work, continuing interest including Wright's almost voracious collecting habits, and the final selling and distribution of his collection late in Wright's life.

'When Wright died at the age of almost ninety-two, he owed money to several Asian art dealers in New York, and there were six thousand Japanese colour woodblock prints in his personal collection, not to mention some three hundred Chinese and Japanese ceramics, bronzes, sculptures, textiles, stencils, and carpets, and about twenty Japanese and Chinese folding screens.'

Some of this collection remains as part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, but much had to be sold to pay debts, including tax bills.

Japanese art probably first came into Wright's sphere of creative influences with the World's Fair of 1893 in Chicago. Louis Sullivan had many books of Japanese design and art in his offices when Wright first joined the firm of Adler and Sullivan. This probably represents the earliest introduction. However, Japanese art was becoming widely available in American and Europe by this time, and Japanese principles were beginning to be introduced in novel ways to various buildings. Wright's first trip to Japan came in 1905, the first of many.

Wright became well-known in Japan, and entered a period he sometimes referred to as his 'Oriental Symphony'. During the time of his work on the Imperial Hotel, he gave an interview which showed his standing and mis-understanding in the Japanese architectural community:

Wright was not only a collector, but was himself a dealer of some standing. Particularly in Oak Park and the Chicago area, his designs for buildings would often include artistic recommendations that he would provide as dealer.

This lead to a major scandal, which Melch recounts in some (sometimes juicy) detail. Wright's egocentric way of viewing the world and attempt to 'get away' with various controversial practices of manufacture and transfer of art work.

'Wright was an immodest foreigner operating outside the guidelines of the closed community of Tokyo print dealers. He flaunted his money and exuded the thinly veiled bravado of the ace dealer. Prince were escalating, the stakes were high, and h is jealous rivals were no doubt pleased to take him out of the game. Revamping was a new technique, totally unexpected. Greed and anticipation of huge profits had made him careless.'

Wright left Japan in 1922, before completion of the Imperial Hotel. He never returned. In fact, he had few international dealings in art or architecture after this period. He longed for greater international acclaim and exposure, but save a few unfinished projects in Hungary and Baghdad, he had few foreign assignments, and none of note.

Disposing of the collection, both before his death and by his widow after his death, is a tale in-and-of itself recounted in the book. Trading with friends and other art dealers, auctioning off pieces individually and as collections, and giving gifts away reduced the collection somewhat, but Wright continued to add pieces throughout his life.

Julia Melch
The author, Julia Melch, has had a career devoted to Asian art. Educated at Smith College and Harvard University, she has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art organising exhibitions of Asian art. She is currently a senior consultant to Christie's, the famous auction house, specialising in Japanese art works.

This book is produced by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., which has a strong reputation, well deserved, for producing outstanding volumes of art. The colours are vibrant and attractive; the pages are firm and well-suited to the art represented. This is a reference volume, a great coffee-table book, and an interesting narrative read. Giving a perspective on both Frank Lloyd Wright and Japanese art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the lens of each other is a unique perspective, well executed.

Wright, the driven, self-absorbed genius, is everywhere apparent in this fascinating, well-researched saga. But so is the conflicted man behind the famous persona. (This isn't to say that he emerges as a particularly sympathetic figure: Meech relates, for instance, how Wright helped organize a memorial exhibition following the untimely death of his Japanese mentor, the young and talented printmaker Hashiguchi Goyo. She adds, however, that no evidence exists to show that Wright ever owned one of Goyo's prints--a bit ironic given the high regard in which Goyo's work is held today.)

Equal to Meech's riveting account, I would have to say that this is one of the most beautifully-designed catalogs (it accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the Japan Society Gallery in New York City) that I have ever encountered. It is both lavish and tasteful, if that's possible, with gorgeous color plates and scads of rare photographs of the architect and his cronies, his places of refuge (including hotel suites and other temporary dwellings chock-a-block full of art treasures), and persons and places relevant to the story. For Frank Lloyd Wright fans already burdened by a surfeit of wonderful books, make room on your shelf for a fine new acquisition.

Like other volumes in this series, this book combines a brief but informative text with a wealth of full-color photos. Lind also includes a bibliography, a chronology, black-and-white historical photos, and sidebar quotes from various sources.

The photos of the California houses capture many interior and exterior details. These marvelous homes reflect the spirit of the pre-Columbian civilizations of Mexico and Central America; in fact, they look like modern versions of ancient Mayan temples. It is amazing to look at the patterned concrete blocks, the innovative use of glass, and the other distinctive features of these homes.

Wright's California homes are majestic, yet inviting buildings that have a timeless beauty and grace to them. This little book is a wonderful tribute to these great homes.

Ms. de Romilly is a great French classicist with numerous thoughtful publications to her credit of which "The Great Sophists" is the most recent.

The Sophists have historically had an evil reputation as the first cultural and moral relativists; as corruptors of virtue; and for degrading philosophy.

Ms. de Romilly attempts to demonstrate that this view is due to a variety of factors (primarily Plato's laregly negative characterization of them and the dearth of Sophistic texts)which can and should be re-examined.

She attempts to lay out, to the best of the knowledge available to us, exactly what the Sophists teachings actually were; their similarities with many of Socrates views; and why Plato viewed them with hostile but at times ambivalent feelings.

In all of this Ms. de Romilly does a superb job of rooting out every reference to the Sophists in ancient literature as well as their own statements (often from hostile witnesses like Plato). With this awkward mass of material Ms. de Romilly has fashioned a very interesting and useful work that diserves a prominent place in the history of Greek thought. With the notable exception of Kerford's "The Sophistic Movement" it is difficult to recall any modern work other than Ms. de Romilly's that attempts to so thoroughly arrive at what the Sophists actually believed and what their effect was on Greek thought and civilization.

The most important question though is does she finally redeem the Sophists from the charges of amorality and corruption that were assigned to them? Ultimately I do not think believe she can regardless of how neutral a face she puts on her analysis and how much she endeavors to redeem their thought. As with so much ancient literature it is deeply sad that we do not pocess more texts by the sophists themselves. Given that we do not and given what remains, it seems that Plato was entirely in the right to cast them in the evil light that he did. But that is certainly no reason not to buy and learn from this terrific work of scholarship.