Shostakovich Symphonies and Concertos - An Owner's Manual: Unlocking the Masters Series
by David Hurwitz
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Book Summary Information
Author: David HurwitzBrand: Amadeus Press
Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-01
ISBN: 1574671316
Number of pages: 217
Publisher: Amadeus Press
Product features:
- Published by Amadeus Press 224 Pages
- Unlocking the Masters Series by David Hurwitz Unlocking the Masters Series, No. 9 Book with
- Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich Author: David Hurwitz
Book Reviews of Shostakovich Symphonies and Concertos - An Owner's Manual: Unlocking the Masters Series
Book Review: 'Popular' treatment
Summary: 3 Stars
Boy, do I ever hate being the ant at the picnic. But somebody has to say something. This is both useful and of little use simultaneously. That is, it is a well-written, conversational excursion through the repertoire that will be illuminating to many music-lovers. But at the same time it will teach them almost nothing.
Here is the problem: this book, like so many books on music written recently, takes the position that it would be the kiss of death to actually include a single musical example. To which many might say, yahoo! But if you resolutely avoid any use of musical notation, or even musical terms, in talking about music in a detailed fashion, then you find yourself having to say things like "and now the bippity-boop theme returns, this time on the flute." And I'm only slightly exaggerating. Imagine several pages about a work that uses a characteristic rhythm throughout in which the only way the author can refer to this rhythm is as 'The Rhythm'. Imagine if we have two themes and instead of describing one as being repeated eighth notes on D and the other as being rising fourths he has to refer to them as "the droney theme" and "the leapy theme". (These names are made up.) This is to reduce discussion of music to baby talk. And when the subject is large symphonic works, that seems particularly incongruous.
But I suspect that the author is not as much to blame as might be thought. He is after all, not starting a trend, but merely extending it. Apparently no-one, not even music-lovers, actually learns to read music any more. And also, apparently, if you want to actually, y'know, sell your book on music it must not contain any actual music.
But it's still baby-talk.
More Shostakovich Symphonies and Concertos - An Owner's Manual: Unlocking the Masters Series reviews:
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