Books on Classical Music : Recommending / Considering

[Mookalafalas]

These three books by Daniel Heartz all look intriguing. Any further comments or recommendations in regards to these books?
Definitely expensive, so these will be library requests for sure.

I'm going to the university library today to meet a student. I'll see if they have these.  It's an incredibly spotty library, but they often shock  me with what they do (and don't!) have.  There is an equally expensive set of 4 books on Haydn, which I know the library does have.  Really out of my league, probably, but I may grab one and have a look.  If I really like one that is otherwise out of print or hard to acquire, I can actually have a copy made quite cheaply. One of the benefits of living in Taiwan

[Moonfish]

I'm going to the university library today to meet a student. I'll see if they have these.  It's an incredibly spotty library, but they often shock  me with what they do (and don't!) have.  There is an equally expensive set of 4 books on Haydn, which I know the library does have.  Really out of my league, probably, but I may grab one and have a look.  If I really like one that is otherwise out of print or hard to acquire, I can actually have a copy made quite cheaply. One of the benefits of living in Taiwan

Please report back from your library journey (and take pictures!!   )......

[Mookalafalas]

Please report back from your library journey (and take pictures!!   )......

  Aaah, it was rather disappointing.  They do have the Rosen "Romantic" book, but not the Heartz, which is what I was really hoping to have a look at.  They have some good biography, such as the Swafford Brahms. I expect I'll read that eventually.  I ended up with a book on the Asian film industry (that was the topic I met the student to discuss--I'm her thesis advisor).  Of course it was silly anyway, I have a shelf full of music books I haven't read yet.  Still, there is nothing like an embarrassment of riches

[Moonfish]

  Aaah, it was rather disappointing.  They do have the Rosen "Romantic" book, but not the Heartz, which is what I was really hoping to have a look at.  They have some good biography, such as the Swafford Brahms. I expect I'll read that eventually.  I ended up with a book on the Asian film industry (that was the topic I met the student to discuss--I'm her thesis advisor).  Of course it was silly anyway, I have a shelf full of music books I haven't read yet.  Still, there is nothing like an embarrassment of riches

Yes, that theme sounds quite familiar!   

[EigenUser]

Of course it was silly anyway, I have a shelf full of music books I haven't read yet.  Still, there is nothing like an embarrassment of riches

I must have the entire Messiaen shelf checked out right now -- but I've probably only read 10 or so pages from most of them... And I also have his entire orchestral oeuvre (that my library has) checked out -- Canyons... (all three volumes!) and Turangalila-Symphonie to name a few. I'm currently trying to figure out his Chronochromie. The only things I haven't checked out are the two volumes of La Transfiguration.... Maybe I'll change that later today...

[andolink]

Thoroughly enjoying this:

[Monsieur Croche]

Oh, I hope not!

Playing armchair behavioral analyst is quite the fad in biography these days.

Uh, oh, and please... imposing and overlaying 'my contemporary sensibility' on the past has become a very big thing.

From those who do that, it strikes me as their being so utterly egocentric and narcissistic that not only can they but completely fail to tap the genuine ethos of another era or find the pulse of their subject, they seem compelled to impose their entire contemporary sensibility on the past because they just can not imagine another era without their precious selves in it. This is rather like thinking it scholarly and legitimate to impose a feminist spin on Oedipus Rex, lol.

[Monsieur Croche]

40000 years of music; Jacques Chailley 1964
"Professor of the History of Music at the Sorbonne, Jacques Chailley has written an unorthodox history of man's search for, creation and performance of music, in a book characterized by French individualism, lucidity and charm. With gadfly acuteness and acumen he views the life of music from the time when it was not an art but a force, to the present day with its dissonances and dodecaphony. Not a reference but a reading book for the music lover." ~ Kirkus Reviews

The Interior Beethoven ~ Irving Kolodin.
Even with later praised biographies, Kolodin's book covers both the musical / technical of the what and why Beethoven is Beethoven, while always connecting both the man and the music, yet never going to any romantic fantasized or romanticized degree. Still a fine one on Beethoven.

Longing ~ J.D. Landis
A superb biographical novel on Robert Schumann, very well-researched. Its tone is varied while the overall form, fact laden, is still that of a highly readable novel. Chock-a-block with real information, it also gives a very good insight into both the music, the composer's life, and other real persons from the romantic era are part of the fabric; Brahms, Mendelssohn, Paganini, etc.

Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons ~ Igor Stravinsky
From the series of lectures Stravinsky gave as honored guest for Harvard's Charles Eliot Norton Lectures series.
They cover a lot, about music, his loves and admirations of numerous other composers, while above all, they may be the one slim book which can prompt in the reader their own thoughts on "the aesthetics" of music. Brief volume, and I would think whether you agree with the composer or not on the many things said, stimulating to thought on music in general. I can not think of another volume, so slim, that comes close to what this can do for a reader who loves classical music.

[Gurn Blanston]

Uh, oh, and please... imposing and overlaying 'my contemporary sensibility' on the past has become a very big thing.

From those who do that, it strikes me as their being so utterly egocentric and narcissistic that not only can they but completely fail to tap the genuine ethos of another era or find the pulse of their subject, they seem compelled to impose their entire contemporary sensibility on the past because they just can not imagine another era without their precious selves in it. This is rather like thinking it scholarly and legitimate to impose a feminist spin on Oedipus Rex, lol.

I think many (most?) people lack the imagination to divorce their reality to the point where they can see things as they were to a contemporary of whatever era. Even those who are aware of the problem and DO have imagination are constrained by their personal history. The only thing we can really do is not be judgmental about what we see. That, at least, is possible. Difficult for some, though.

[Monsieur Croche]

I think many (most?) people lack the imagination to divorce their reality to the point where they can see things as they were to a contemporary of whatever era. Even those who are aware of the problem and DO have imagination are constrained by their personal history. The only thing we can really do is not be judgmental about what we see. That, at least, is possible. Difficult for some, though.

A-yep, it is impossible to be completely within the ethos or psyche of a past distant subject so separated from our present time, whether to the purpose of writing about it or as a performer playing the music of the past.

It is to be hoped the author / scholar / performer wholly recognizes that and then will do their damnedest to learn enough to at least well-imagine what wearing that hat was like 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I read chunks of this book once.



Useful for my purposes.

[Brian]

A new anthology of Virgil Thomson writings will be released by Library of America in a few weeks.

[(poco) Sforzando]

A new anthology of Virgil Thomson writings will be released by Library of America in a few weeks.

I'd rather read him than listen to anything he wrote.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I'd rather read him than listen to anything he wrote.

He does come across as sour grapes in the above quote...
Anyway never thought he was anything other than serviceable as a composer.

[(poco) Sforzando]

He does come across as sour grapes in the above quote...
Anyway never thought he was anything other than serviceable as a composer.

Actually his statement was likely correct at the time, c. 1940. I've sat through The Mother of Us All (but not of me) and Four Saints in Three Acts (which would have been better as Half a Saint in One Act or even a smaller subdivision, and which was redeemed only by the Mark Morris choreography).

[Moonfish]

*bump*

We need to talk about books more!!!!!!    0:)


To digress:

This is just what we needed....     

"With outrageous anecdotes about everyone from Gioachino Rossini (draft-dodging womanizer) to Johann Sebastian Bach (jailbird) to Richard Wagner (alleged cross-dresser), Secret Lives of Great Composers recounts the seamy, steamy, and gritty history behind the great masters of international music. You'll learn that Edward Elgar dabbled with explosives; that John Cage was obsessed with fungus; that Berlioz plotted murder; and that Giacomo Puccini stole his church's organ pipes and sold them as scrap metal so he could buy cigarettes. This is one music history lesson you'll never forget!"


[asin] B00GQA2CU4[/asin]

[Moonfish]

I have had Taruskin's five volume set (4,000 pgs) staring at me from the shelves for a few years now. I occasionally dive into a section (to learn more about a composer, style or time period). A bit dry but very informative! The volumes can also make you suffocate if you read them while in bed. Fortunately there is a Kindle version. Do you guys read this (or refer to) at all?

Review by Mark Sealey: https://www.classical.net/music/books/reviews/0195386302a.php
Review in NYRB Pt1: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2006/02/23/from-the-troubadours-to-frank-sinatra/
Review in NYRB Pt2: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2006/03/09/from-the-troubadours-to-sinatra-part-ii/
Review in The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/man-who-heard-it-all/

[asin] B004H0N71S[/asin]

[Moonfish]

I have been looking for a biography (or work) focused on Rachmaninoff's life and times. Anybody familiar with this book? It looks very interesting and contains a fair number of entries resembling diaries or letters.

Sergei Bertensson: Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music
ISBN: 978-0253214218

"Throughout his career as composer, conductor, and pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) was an intensely private individual. When Bertensson and Leyda's 1956 biography appeared, it lifted the veil of secrecy from several areas of Rachmaninoff's life, especially concerning the genesis of his compositions and how their critical reception affected him.

The authors consulted a number of people who knew Rachmaninoff, who worked with him, and who corresponded with him. Even with the availability of such sources and full access to the Rachmaninoff Archive at the Library of Congress, Bertensson and Leyda were tireless in their pursuit of privately held documents, particularly correspondence. The wonderfully engaging product of their labors masterfully incorporates primary materials into the narrative."


[asin] B06Y42TG9P[/asin]

[Moonfish]

Being in the Russian mind set I also came across what looks like a very interesting biography focused on Alexander Scriabin:
Scriabin, a Biography by Faubion Bowers
Dover; ISBN 978-0486288970

https://smile.amazon.com/Scriabin-Biography-Second-Revised-Dover/dp/0486288978/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527842727&sr=1-1&keywords=bowers+scriabin

"This definitive biography of Alexander Scriabin (1871–1915), newly revised and updated by the author, incorporates many confessional letters and personal reminiscences in a vivid, highly personal portrait of the controversial Russian composer. One of the visionary pioneers who sought a new musical language — at least a full decade before the advances of Stravinsky and Schoenberg — Scriabin immersed himself in a search for a way to express, in sound, the mystical and theosophical ideals that obsessed him.
This monumental biography probes the complexities of the composer's personal revolution as it chronicles the turbulent events of his upbringing, marital life, and career: his tours of Europe and America, abandonment of his wife, brushes with homosexuality and madness, and the flowering of an unrealized vision to synthesize all of art and life in an all-encompassing final work. Originally published in two volumes, the work is republished here in one volume unabridged, complete with a catalog of Scriabin's works and 49 rare photographs."

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

This is one of the best books I have ever come across. Most other books focussing on contemporary music only really brush over the very surface of the complex and varied styles and individuals. This one looks at things in more detail: