# whats everone reading now days



## jeremyr60 (Apr 14, 2007)

what classical books is everyone reading, i just got down with an OLD liszt book, and browsed through a Glenn Gould book explaning every apect of his performance, tempo, rhytme, dynamics etc


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## zlya (Apr 9, 2007)

I haven't read much on music lately (pretty burnt out from TOO much reading in college) but I always enjoyed some good old fashioned Schoenberg. Quite theory-heavy, but incredibly fun to read, fantastically descriptive and he puts everything in terms of WWI analogies. Also, Schenker's good if you like rants (and frankly, who doesn't?).

I also always loved the medievalists, with the music of the spheres and harmonic balance of the universe. I find the idea extraordinarily beautiful and peaceful, if scientifically discredited.


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## Saturnus (Nov 7, 2006)

(Is score reading included?) 
The score of Albinoni op. 9-2, Bach's Orchestral suite no. 4 & Sibelius's 1st symphony


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## zlya (Apr 9, 2007)

You read scores? Very Vetinari of you.


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## avrile (Apr 25, 2007)

*catalogue of works*



jeremyr60 said:


> what classical books is everyone reading, i just got down with an OLD liszt book, and browsed through a Glenn Gould book explaning every apect of his performance, tempo, rhytme, dynamics etc


Well, I practically read through composers' catalogue of works in Grove Dictionary everyday. This is part of my job as a researcher.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Just finished Ib Melchior's reminiscence/retrospective on the career of his father, heldentenor Lauritz Melchior. People can talk about the primacy of Heifetz on the violin, or Galway on flute, but is there any musician who comprehensively eclipsed his peers as thoroughly as Melchior?!

Currently working on "Shaw on Music," (G.B., that is). Not buying everything he's selling, but one favored passage shows him referring to rival music critics who mention a disembodied musical citation as being akin to quoting Shakespeare thusly "Now is the...etc."* Had a good laugh at that one

*For those of you keeping score at home, the reference is to the "Winter of our discontent" soliliquy from Richard III.


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## Leporello87 (Mar 25, 2007)

Yay Saturnus, another score reader!  

I just recently read a Bach score too, but it was the Magnificat.


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## Mark Harwood (Mar 5, 2007)

Just finished Stephen Fry's "Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music". As it's based on a series of readings for the radio, it just barely works as a book; Mr. Fry is an intelligent and literate chap but the adjectives are repetitive and the humour is a little forced. Still, as a quick overview it's pleasantly diverting and worth the time if, like me, you're not too educated in these things.
Almost finished a Christmas present from my wife Carol: "The Classical Guitar Book" by various authors, ed. John Morrish. Based on the Russell Cleveland collection, it gives an account of the history of the instrument. Typically, each guitar or topic has a double page spread, and many guitars are displayed on a fold-out. It's informative, and it's also what might be thought of as "guitar porn". It's a large format softback coffee-table browsing book, but I've read it from the beginning almost to the end and it works that way too.


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## opus67 (Jan 30, 2007)

Mark Harwood said:


> Just finished Stephen Fry's "Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music". As it's based on a series of readings for the radio, it just barely works as a book; Mr. Fry is an intelligent and literate chap but the adjectives are repetitive and the humour is a little forced. Still, as a quick overview it's pleasantly diverting and worth the time if, like me, you're not too educated in these things.


If were to write a review for that book, it would read more or less like that.  I agree on what you say, and apart form Wikipedia, that was my intro to composers' lives. I didn't get to complete the book, though. He went gaga over Wagner, and it got a boring after that.  I have borrowed the Eyewitness Companion to Classical Music. Much more 'formal' in presentation than My.Fry.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

My eyes have been bigger than my free time lately- I have four books out on loan from libraries... I'm unlikely to finish them all. However, the one I have no doubt I'll finish is Deryck Cooke's _Vindications- Essays on Romantic Music_. Of particular interest to me are the essays on Wagner, Mahler, and the Beatles.

I also like the one titled "reactionary."


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

I'm another score reader... Beethoven yesterday and probably today (I've got Toscanini's set to help; yes, I know I cheat, but I'm young and so have an excuse).


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## opus67 (Jan 30, 2007)

_What to Listen for in Music_
Aaron Copland

So far, so good.

I also have a book from the library, _The Encyclopedia of Muisc_, by Max Wade-Mathews and Wendy Thomson, which I flip through now and then. It has a huge section on instruments which is quite good.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

opus67 said:


> _What to Listen for in Music_
> Aaron Copland


That's a great book. Excellent.


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

Katie Hafner, 'A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano.' (McClelland & Stewart 2008). Centres on the story of Gould's piano tuner, Verne Edquist, a poor, near-blind farmboy. Hafner delves into the history of piano tuners and explains that having grown sensitive to sound, many tuners can't cope with the noisy world. "In the early 20th Century, piano tuners outnumbered members of any other trade in English insane asylums" she explains. Gould and Edquist had an extraordinary relationship, with Gould unable to function without his tuner, chief mechanic and friend.


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## Isola (Mar 26, 2008)

The best Glenn Gould biography I've read and would recommend to anyone who love Gould's music as much as I do, is *Wondrous Strange - The Life and Art of Glenn Gould* by Kevin Bazzana, insightful, sincere and very well-written. Much better than another book I've read: *Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius* by Peter Ostwald. I also bought Tim Page's *Glenn Gould Reader* and looking forward to devouring it.

Also read *Chopin's Funeral* by Benita Eisler. The book is based on well researched historic facts of Chopin's life towards the end, quite scholarly, not at all the usual romantic portrait of the tragic musical poet. Very good.

Another book I recently bought is *Mahler: His Life, Work and World* by Kurt Blaukopf. It's going to be another great read!


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## R-F (Feb 12, 2008)

The Rough Guide to Classical Music- being fairly new to classical music, I'm finding it a very useful book. It lists more than 200 composers from all the ages in A-Z format, but there's also a contents pages that groups the composers into the times they lived in. It gives summaries of all the composers, as well as summaries of their (considered) best works, and recommended recordings of these works.


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## motoboy (May 19, 2008)

zlya said:


> You read scores? Very Vetinari of you.


Very nice. "Don't let me detain you."

I just re-read The Violin Maker. It was a lot of fun. I'll be passing it around the family now.


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