# Good books about musicians



## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

The rise and fall (if there is one) of a classical musicians career makes for awesome literature. I've read only books about pianists and composers so far, but I would really like to branch out and read a lot more. Speaking as someone who is planning to branch out into this field himself, (Whether successfully or not :tiphat: ) I apply a lot of the information in these biographies to my own life. So, I was wondering if you fine people could list some of your favorite books on classical musicians?

Books I have read:
*The life and times of Frederic Chopin*
*Sviatoslav Richter, Notebooks and Conversations* (The Enigma)
*Leon Fleisher, My Nine Lives*
*Sergei Rachmaninoff, I forgot the title but it was very thorough*


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Helene Grimaud's autobiography, though it has one weakness - it's interspersed with some weird stories about monkeys that learned to wash potatoes before they eat them. 

Also Memoirs of Paderewski with a lot of anegdotes like one about Richard Strauss being his inspiration to work on his face while playing because mr. Strauss used to make really awful mimics while playing himself.


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## Schnowotski (May 13, 2011)

The Shostakovich biography by Volkov is very entertaining. You don't even have to be interested about Shostakovich since the book is full of fascinating anecdotes which are more about the Soviet Union than uninteresting trivia about the composer. Once my friend and I were drinking alcohol at my place and he picked up the book and couldn't lay it down and later cited a few anecdotes he read from the book to his friends - and he's not a bit into classical music. 

A complete opposite, then, is the comprehensive "Anton Webern - a chronicle of his life and work" by Hans Moldenhauer. If you are interested in the composer this is the only biography you should consider but it is not for someone who isn't interested about Webern. The cheaper Webern-biography by Malcolm Hayes, on the other hand, is to be avoided. It is maybe somewhat easier to read, shorter and gives an idea about the life of Webern but it is too biased and doesn't have all the important information you NEED.

Some other books in the Phaidon's "20th century composers" -series are better. I enjoyed the Schnittke-biography. It is even more ridden with personal opinions than the Hayes' book but here it is done in such a entertaining way that it doesn't bother the reader, quite the contrary.


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## notesetter (Mar 31, 2011)

Pierre Monteux: Maitre - John Canarina
A lovingly done and fairly exhaustive biography by one of the conductor's students.

Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos - William R. Trotter


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

For anybody who wants to feel like they knew Mahler personally (I used to be one of these people, but have since realized that knowing Mahler personally might be rather vexing) there is certainly no more thorough source than Henry-Louis de La Grange's enormous biography. Some of La Grange's opinions, however, irritate me. He excuses Mahler's bad behavior toward other people with typical "Great Man" arguments and writes about most of the women he mentions as if they were children. But it is still a very interesting biography.


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