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The Rest Is Noise | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: FSG
Category: EBooks
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $17.82
You Save: $12.18 (41%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 335
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Dewey Decimal Number: 780.904
ASIN: B000UZQIDI
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Amazon.com Review
Anyone who has ever gamely tried and failed to absorb, enjoy, and--especially--understand the complex works of Schoenberg, Mahler, Strauss, or even Philip Glass will allow themselves a wry smile reading New Yorker music critic Alex Ross's outstanding The Rest Is Noise. Not only does Ross manage to give historical, biographical, and social context to 20th-century pieces both major and minor, he brings the scores alive in language that's accessible and dramatic. Take Ross's description of Schoenberg's Second Quartet, "in which he hesitates at a crossroads, contemplating various paths forming in front of him. The first movement, written the previous year, still uses a fairly conventional late-Romantic language. The second movement, by contrast, is a hallucinatory Scherzo, unlike any other music at the time. It contains fragments of the folk song 'Ach, du lieber Augustin'--the same tune that held Freudian significance for Mahler. For Schoenberg, the song seems to represent a bygone world disintegrating; the crucial line is 'Alles ist hin' (all is lost). The movement ends in a fearsome sequence of four-note figures, which are made up of fourths separated by a tritone. In them may be discerned traces of the bifurcated scale that begins Salome. But there is no longer a sense of tonalities colliding. Instead, the very concept of a chord is dissolving into a matrix of intervals." Armed with such a detailed aural roadmap, even a troglodyte--or a heavy metal fan--can explore these pivotal works anew. But it's not all crashing cymbals, honking tubas, and somber Germans stroking their chins. Ross also presents the human dramas (affairs, wars, etc.) behind these sweeping compositions while managing, against the odds, to discuss C-major triads, pentatonic scales, and B-flat dominant sevenths without making our eyes glaze over. And he draws a direct link between the Beatles and Sibelius. It's no surprise that the New York Times named The Rest Is Noise one of the 10 Best Books of 2007. Music nerds have found their most articulate valedictorian. --Kim Hughes
Product Description
The scandal over modern music has not died down. While paintings by Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, shocking musical works from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring onward still send ripples of unease through audiences. At the same time, the influence of modern music can be felt everywhere. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalist music has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward. Alex Ross, the brilliant music critic for The New Yorker, shines a bright light on this secret world, and shows how it has pervaded every corner of twentieth century life. The Rest Is Noise takes the reader inside the labyrinth of modern sound. It tells of maverick personalities who have resisted the cult of the classical past, struggled against the indifference of a wide public, and defied the will of dictators. Whether they have charmed audiences with the purest beauty or battered them with the purest noise, composers have always been exuberantly of the present, defying the stereotype of classical music as a dying art. Ross, in this sweeping and dramatic narrative, takes us from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties, from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. We follow the rise of mass culture and mass politics, of dramatic new technologies, of hot and cold wars, of experiments, revolutions, riots, and friendships forged and broken. In the tradition of Simon Schama's The Embarrassment of Riches and Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, the end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 47 more reviews...
 A Poetic History of the 20th Century as Only an Art Critic Can Give... October 13, 2008
Other than the weather and traffic, and an occasional political talk show, audio CD's are the way to go while driving now, and this set was a unique and fascinating history of the 20th century from the vantage point of the classical musical world.
The author takes the reader through the landscape with the exquisite communication skills of a seasoned, in-depth critic, his analysis filled with beautiful, deep, and frightening metaphorical analysis of the classical creations and personas of the twentieth century, never straying from the vantage point of the classical music world.
I overlooked his occasional, obviously academically-indoctrinated, naively left-leaning personal interjections; and for a person involved so deeply with an art world that hates Bush so catatonically, they were admirably few and far between.
 Knows nothing about music September 27, 2008
2 out of 10 found this review helpful
I am astounded at the glowing reviews for this intellectual lightweight of a book about music in 20th century. Author Alex Ross does a frantic tap dance of maintaining a narrative with critical insights, but ultimately, he has created a vapid work of no real insight into 20th century music, except those created by popular tastes. In fact, no one I know in serious musical discussions considers his commentary worthwhile. I do not believe he understands anything about music in form, in taste, and in historical context. Really disappointing.
jack's pick September 4, 2008
This is a great read. There are very few books on this subject.
This book has taken some of the enigma out of this style of music.
intellectually exciting July 30, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is an exhilirating intellectual tour de force. Ross is the best "describer" of music I've ever read. Music resists being put into words -- they are two very different media. But Ross has the ability to do this -- his descriptions of works I am familiar with is always both precise and exciting. He makes the reader hear or at least want to hear the music.
But his major contribution is to fuse 20th century music with the many political and social forces that shaped it. His description of the sufferings of Prokofiev and Shostakovitch under the malign rule of Stalin is tremendously moving. Ross does not make the mistake of glorifying composers just because they were musical geniuses. Richard Strauss, Shostakovitch, Alban Berg, Copland, Schoenberg, Britten all emerge as flawed individuals who happened to have the ability to create great music, sometimes under intensely difficult conditions. None of them was a saint. One wishes Strauss had taken a more decisive stand against Nazism or that Britten didn't like little boys or that Shostakovitch had exhibited more moral courage against Stalin -- but they didn't. What they did was create wonderful music despite their limitations as humans.
For Ross, the disintegration of western democracy and society under the twin scourges of Nazism and Communism led to the disintegration of traditional classical music. But the worst of the disintegration took place after World War II when composers abandoned "music" and started producing what is best described as unpleasant noise in pursuit of various elitist political and cultural programs.
Ross tries to do justice to these various composers, none of whom ever commanded any attention from the public. It's noteworthy however that few of them are represented in the list of 30 recommended recordings he usefully appends to the book. Instead, we find symphonies by Sibelius and Mahler, Strauss's glorious "Four Last Songs" and concertos by Prokofiev and Ravel.
I conclude from this that the past 50 years has mostly been a lost era for classical music with a couple of notable exceptions. Hopefully, the next 50 will see a recovery.
Anyone interested in music should read this book but its appeal should be wider than that. This is really a history of the 20th century as reflected through music and as such a magnificent achievement.
For more about me and my book, The Nazi Hunter: A Novel, in which music plays a major part, go to www.alanelsner.com.
excelent introduction to 20th century music and its context July 29, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book addresses a long-standing desire to familiarize myself with 20th Century "classical" music. I really enjoyed it and found it a very educational resource for my musical exploration. I know the term "classical" is incorrect - call it concert music, music in the European tradition of composed music, art music, WHATEVER! For better or for worse using the term "classical" allows most people to know what you're talking about. For that reason I will use that term in the rest of the review.
In a TV interview and in the preface to the book the author commented that he listened exclusively to classical music until college. In college he would play some things to his fellow students, who would comment that it sounded like Sonic Youth or Cecil Taylor, etc. Although I have been starting to immerse myself in the music for some time now, I am still very much a novice and this book's release is perfectly timed for me. I am not totally ignorant of older forms of classical music, but I approached 20th Century art music not via Bach and Beethoven, but via Frank Zappa and Ornette Coleman. Frank Zappa, who became my musical idol in my teens (and remains so in my 40's), was particularly influential in exposing me to a new world of possibilities. He made direct reference to Stravinsky, Varese and Holst, among others, in his music. Likewise in modern jazz there has been a lot of cross-polination with this music. A jazz fan would find the harmonies in Erik Satie's piano works not at all unfamiliar.
I suspect that many music fans are also approaching this music in a similar way, and this book will be very helpful. This is not an academic book and it is not aimed at an ivory tower readership. It does not assume an encyclopedic knowledge of all music that's gone before, although it does use musical terminology, so if you're not very familiar with such terms (like I am not, really), you'll want to consult a dictionary or encyclopedia occasionally. A bit of a challenge is hardly a bad thing, I think.
Mr. Ross uses very evocative language to describe the key works of music in his book. This is never an easy task. Music hits you in places that words will never go! Still, he does a very good job. When I was reading this I had never heard most of the music being described, but reading about it I certainly wanted to!
Music does not exist in a vacuum, but is both a product of and an influence on its times. Mr. Ross writes a very compelling narrative which puts the music in the context of the places, times, politics, and the lives of the people involved. This is a fascinating history book as well as a book on music. It's also full of colorful and entertaining character studies of these composers' often "unusual" personalities. Their interactions with each other are not necessarily always all that high-minded!
This music has survived in relative obscurity since the early part of the 20 Century. Mr. Ross proposes a number of explanations for this, which the reader may or may not agree with, but one recurring theme is that the various movements in 20th Century music eventually seem to paint themselves in corners through an almost fanatical insistence on taking things to the most abstract and extreme (if the audience likes it, it's a failure!). Not everyone comes out in favorable light. Pierre Boulez, in particular, comes across a bit absurd in his extreme positions. Whether this is an accurate portrayal I don't know. Clearly the author's personal tastes come through here, but he does a good job of describing their mindset.
The first section of the book deals with the events of the early 20th Century - the decline of the decadent old empires, the rapidly-growing role of industry and technology, and others, which led people to search for something new. One recurring theme is the struggle between the aspirations for "pure" art versus a desire to be relevant to society at large. The chapter dealing with Russian composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich's struggles and compromises during the height of Stalin's reign of terror is a highlight. It covers, from a different angle, the some of the subjects dealt in "the Gulag Archipelago" by Solzhenitsyn.
Sandwhiched between the chapters on Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany is the chapter on music in the USA in that period. He does not insinuate that they are equivalent, by any means. He does detail how even in the US composers had to navigate through dealings with government bureaucracy and corporate sponsors, for both of whom artistry was perhaps not the top priority.
I could nitpick whether Sibelius and Britten deserve entire chapters while others get little more than name-dropping mention (The chapter on Sibelius is very good). Consequently his coverage of the second half of the century is more condensed. I wish that he might have spent more time on it.
At the end of the book is a recommended discography of 10 recordings, then another 20 more. I have ordered a number of these and look forward to going back and looking at Mr. Ross's descriptions after actually listening to them. I will leave it to better-informed people to argue whether or not these really are the "best" versions of the pieces, but they seem as good a place as any to start. Certainly it would seem reasonable to me to start your collection of Stravinsky with a performance conducted by the man himself. Coming from a background in performer-oriented rock and jazz, it can be daunting to figure out which performance of a composer's work is best, so this discography helps such readers get at least a start.
I give this book a five-star rating without reservations. Mr. Ross is to be commended for his work. The same unfortunately cannot be said for his publisher who physically put together the book. I did not consider it fair to the author to deduct points, but I would like to give a big raspberry to the publisher, FSG. I bought the book new, and by the time I was barely halfway through, the binding started breaking apart. This to me is a shameless disregard for quality, which is sadly pervasive these days. Several other reviewers on this and other websites have mentioned the same problem. I plan to hang on to this book and use it as a reference when exploring new music. I wish I didn't have to rubber cement it back together so soon!
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