Books : The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

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Rating:

- content, amazing. physical book, not so much...
i/m on page 260, by which time i/ve learned quite a lot i didn/t know abt some music (which is odd), and have ordered or downloaded quite a few cds. my only complaint is that the binding of the book has now broken *twice*. i haven/t been carrying it around or dropping it or anything, it just *breaks*. if you don/t need the info, wait for the paperback. no one else even *wants* to read your superglued copy of a book.

content - 5. book - as low as it goes.

Rating:

- The Pedantic Mister Alex Ross
I've decided to give this book four stars for a number of reasons, including its highly informative content, its ability to transform and inspire the reader to become a musicologist in the model of the author, and its ability to make obscure, avant-garde pieces of music actually stand out with true color. Despite these positive assessments, I wish to briefly underline why I'm not giving this book five stars. For one, Alex Ross, the author, comes across as a rather pedantic, elitist individual: not only does he fail to translate any quotes given in French, Spanish, Italian, etc. (thus losing the efficacy and relevancy of the quote and his point) but he also uses a language which automatically assumes that all of his readers have advanced through the same music theory training as him. Personally, the more than frequent moments in the book where Mr Ross expounds a piece of music by discussing its structure in terms of glissandos, ostinatos, and major sevenths means very little to me - and I even tried learning about these separate articles via Wikipedia and other supplementary websites to no avail. It really requires a special university level course to understand the relevancy of these topics as Mr Ross discusses them. In short, he has written a book for the high-brow, high-profile crowd which normally reads the New Yorker, the publication which he has served at for over 12 years now.

It's not a horrible book. I just wish I would have known that I should've purchased The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory before reading it!

Rating:

- Left-wing Politics Vitiates Anything Positive in this Book
First, I don't consider Mr. Ross's narrative and insights to be particularly compelling. He has a fairly shallow vision of classical music . Second, and more important, his unrelenting liberal political views intrude ubiquitously into his story of 20th century music. His focus on Germany is standard left-wing claptrap. Can't liberals ever give Germans and Nazis a rest. They were bad, really bad and probably lots of Germans still are. But in the 21st century, it's time to move on...which won't occur for people like Mr. Ross who are virtually blind to anything wrong on the left. Also, the book meanders and it's selection of composers to write on is arbitrary---the Sibelius section is inexusable. Finally, he's a socialist and a true believer in big government as big daddy for us all. This book is perhaps the most overrated book in many a year.

Rating:

- TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
Extremely well written but one gets the feeling that two different books have been sandwiched together. The overview of 20th century composers is ideal for anyone looking to consolidate what may only have been fragmented up to then. The analytical sections are addressed to the reader with considerable musical knowledge.The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

Rating:

- The Rest is Noise is an erudite survey of 20th century music by an expert musicologist
Alex Ross is the music critic of the New Yorker magazine. This book has been ballyhooed far and wide being named as one of the ten best books of 2007 by the New York Times. The 600 page book takes a detailed look at the great figures of twentieth century music and the major works they produced.
The book begins with a riveting account of the 1906 premiere of Richard Strauss' "Salome" which proved shocking to Edwardian audiences. We learn of Strauss' friendship with Gustav Mahler. Their works are discussed in detail. Strauss and Mahler were the last hurrah of traditional tonal music. Gone were the glory days of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and the boys! The new century of two catastrophic wars and the Jewish holocaust would usher in a century of avant gardism and experimentation. Classical music would decline in popularity but would be influential in its impact on jazz, twelve tone compositions, movie music and works using newly invented instruments and electonic/computerized music.
The book has technical explanations of the works discussed which I found less interesting than the profiles of the composers and the political and social milieus in which they crafted their art. Such major figures and eras are covered as:
Music under dictatorship. We visit Prokofiev and listen to the somber symphonies of Dimitri Shostakovich. We see how Stalin enforced musical banality on an entire generation of Soviet artists.
Nazi Germany under Hitler bowed to the altars of Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner while forcing artists like Richard Strauss to bow down to the idol of Hitler.
Ross has a chapter on American popular music focusing on African-American jazz manifested in the genius of Duke Elliington and other black composers. We see how radio and the phonograph record revolutionized the way the public heard and responded to music. The chapter on Aaron Copland and music in FDR's America was insightful. Ross has done his homework!
We visit artists in exiles from embattled Europe such as Stravinsky with his "Firebird" and "The Rites of Spring" and Arnold Schoenberg the creator of the twelve tone system of musical composition. We explore how immigrant composers found jobs in the Hollywood Studios
Aloof artists such as Jean Sibelius are examined. Sibelius disdained much of modernism and charted his own course. We also see the works and career of Benjamin Brittain and Leonard Berstein.
Avant garde artists such as Phillip Glass, Martin Gould, John Adams and Steve Reich are discussed by Ross. The author is nonjudgmental in explaining their techniques.
As a person who loves classical music but knows little about avant garde music this book proved to be of interest. The book is geared for the general reader who wants to discover how music mirrors life as lived in the past century. Politics, culture and popular public approval have all influenced the paths taken by the muse of music in the modern era. This is a fine boo and is magisterial in the knowledge it conveys to the reader. Excellent!

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