The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
Book Review: The Rest is Noise is an erudite survey of 20th century music by an expert musicologist
Summary: 5 Stars
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!
Book Review: Not as engaging as it could be
Summary: 3 Stars
There's some good stuff here, and plenty of great material to work with, but somehow it doesn't hang together and engage the reader (at least, this reader) either in the narrative or in the music that the narrative describes. I also missed any real mention of Ralph Vaughan Williams, a personal favorite among the 20th century classical greats--although I tried not to hold that against the author. For me, the real test of a book about music is whether it moves me to listen to the music. Sadly, apart from one Bartok quartet, this one didn't. Book Review: BARELY LISTENING
Summary: 3 Stars
Made possible by the exacting editors at The New Yorker, where most of it appeared first, this once-over-very-lightly survey of 20th century Western music begins with the first stirrings of modernity in Bayreuth and Paris circa 1880 and takes us up to now, when new classical work is largely consigned to movie soundtracks.
The real story since 1950 is the discovery of so much forgotten classical past, and the careful efforts to recreate its original sound in recordings. We experience classical music today through the composers brought back to roaring life by musicologists and audio engineers, not the dry postwar modernisms shunned by the public. At home, I now have more beautiful music ready to play than any pre-war musician would have heard in a lifetime. Halfway through the century, the medium itself changed profoundly, from an ephemeral public one to an archival private one. This story Mr. Ross does not tell at all.
What would make his survey really useful is an annotated bibliography for each chapter, showing us where to get the information barely sketched here, along with a discography longer than one page. Ross' survey is very readable; it's just that you're on your own if you want anything more. But I do envy Ross for getting two paychecks for the same work, from his magazine and from his publisher.
Book Review: Very good, but where are the real issues?
Summary: 4 Stars
Ross's musical erudition and insight are beyond reproach, and his historical research is thorough. His writing style is intelligent and scholarly, but still very conversational and enjoyable to read. I'm inspired to listen to a whole host of works I've never heard, and to listen with fresh ears to the old workhorses (Rite of Spring, Concerto for Orchestra, etc.).
Still, I can't give the book five stars, because it gives precious little attention to two of the most important phenomena affecting 20th-century music:
1. The separation of composer's duties from performer's duties;
2. The influence of recording technology on music.
So, despite its many virtues, the book falls frustratingly short of the mark.
Book Review: I learned a lot of new words
Summary: 3 Stars
I was given this book as a gift. I learned soooooooooo many new words. I finally decided to keep the dictionary with the book, because it seemed I had to look up two or three words per page. The author must have an amazing vocabulary -- I now have far better dictionary skills!!
I've read Mr Ross's columns in the New Yorker and didn't find them as wordy as this book . His editor might need to reread The Elements of Style by Strunk, White and Angell (just a suggestion).