Welcome,
New User!
New User!
The Life and Death of Classical Music
By: Norman Lebrecht , Ralph A. WebereBook Publisher: Random House
Imprint: Anchor
Format: ePub Encrypted (DRM)
Earn $0.50 - Write a Review »
Price reduced from: 
$15.99
Current Price$13.99
Reward Money:
$0.00
Reader Review: Normal Lebrecht has always been a provocative, well-informed, opinionated and generally stimulating writer. As a long-stending lover of classical music, I found this a very revealing book about the powers behind the classical music recording industry and the reasons for its current demise. Lebrecht is very well informed and cuts straight through all the nonsense, the hype and the dumbing down of the music industry. I very much share his revulsion at the way many young musicians are currently marketed, hyped up, 'managed' and raised sky-high through exaggerated praise only to disappear shortly afterwards, eclipsed by a newer, younger, prettier face. It is also tragic how many honest, gifted and even great performers are silenced, simply because the major recording companies cannot find a way of 'packaging them' in order to sell CDs. Fortunately, we still have the 'minor' recording companies to thank for venturing into less well-known repertoite, offering honest and unhyped exposure to young musicians and, often, lowering the price at which a music lover can taste and test music that he/she has not known in the past. Lebrecht's catalogue of 100 of his favourite recordings and 20 the 'should never have been made' is both entertaining and provocative. One can disagree with many of his nominations, but it is interesting to take issue with him. His dismissal and derision of Peter Pears as a Schubert singer verges on the vitriolic - it would have been offensive if one took it out of the context of this book, whose opinionated tone is a pleasure even when one disagrees with it.
In this compulsively readable, fascinating, and provocative guide to classical music, Norman Lebrecht, one of the world’s most widely read cultural commentators tells the story of the rise of the classical recording industry from Caruso’s first notes to the heyday of Bernstein, Glenn Gould, Callas, and von Karajan.
Lebrecht compellingly demonstrates that classical recording has reached its end point–but this is not simply an expos? of decline and fall. It is, for the first time, the full story of a minor art form, analyzing the cultural revolution wrought by Schnabel, Toscanini, Callas, Rattle, the Three Tenors, and Charlotte Church. It is the story of how stars were made and broken by the record business; how a war criminal conspired with a concentration-camp victim to create a record empire; and how advancing technology, boardroom wars, public credulity and unscrupulous exploitation shaped the musical backdrop to our modern lives. The book ends with a suitable shrine to classical recording: the author’s critical selection of the 100 most important recordings–and the 20 most appalling.
Filled with memorable incidents and unforgettable personalities–from Goddard Lieberson, legendary head of CBS Masterworks who signed his letters as God; to Georg Solti, who turned the Chicago Symphony into “ the loudest symphony on earth”–this is at once the captivating story of the life and death of classical recording and an opinioned, insider’s guide to appreciating the genre, now and for years to come.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Share your thoughts on the The Life and Death of Classical Music Art & Music eBook with others!
| Title of eBook: The Life and Death of Classical Music | |
| Release Date: 12-18-2008 | |
| Allowed Countries (hover) | |
| Publisher: Anchor |
This eBook download is available in the following formats:
| Parent title | The Life and Death... |
|---|---|
| Encrypted (DRM) | Yes |
| SKU | 9780307487469 |
| File size | 3392 |
| Internet Security | n/a |
| Printing | Not allowed |
| Copying | Not allowed |
| Read aloud | No Sys requirements Download reader |
| Devices | Samsung Tablet, Apple Ipad & Iphone, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, Aluratek Libre, Iliad, Nokia, Blackberry, Hanlin |
| Note | ePub, short for electronic publication is one of our favorites and should be yours for a couple of reasons. ePub offers reflowable text giving you flexibility to manipulate how the content is presented. Moreover, lots of cool features are now being developed for the reader like advanced video and audio. ePub is now an industry standard, so all of the "non-propreitary" hardware manufacturers are now supporting it. |
The Life and Death of Classical Music
1. Matinee
One afternoon in 1920, a young pianist sat down in a shuttered room in the capital of defeated Germany and played a Bagatelle by Beethoven. At the return of the main theme, one of his fingers fractionally strayed, touching two keys instead of one. 'Donnerwetter!' (dammit!), cried Wilhelm Kempff. He looked around and saw crestfallen faces. 'That was very beautiful,' said the machine operator, 'but the recording is now ruined.'
This lapse, recalled by Kemp years later, amounts to a defining moment in the annals of performance - the moment a musician realized that recording required a different discipline and temperament from public concerts. Kempff, had his finger slipped on stage, would have played on regardless, knowing that few would detect the fiaw, or remember it afterwards. On record, though, the imperfection was engraved for all time, growing larger and uglier with each replay. There was no hiding place, no camoufiage available on disc for inferior technique or inchoate interpretation. The artist stood exposed to eternal scrutiny, stripped of illusory diversion.
Sound recording had begun in 1877 with the inventor Thomas Alva Edison shouting 'Mary had a little lamb' into a phonograph and acquired a mass market in 1902 with the first brass-horn arias of the Neapolitan tenor Enrico Caruso. But the birth of recording as a musical act, separate and distinct from live performance, came in 1920 with the undeletable exclamation of a German artist in the aftermath of the First World War. Kempff, a protege of Brahms' friend Joseph Joachim, was rooted in gaslight romanticism but suffciently aware of swirling currents to realize that recording presented more than just an opportunity to ...
One afternoon in 1920, a young pianist sat down in a shuttered room in the capital of defeated Germany and played a Bagatelle by Beethoven. At the return of the main theme, one of his fingers fractionally strayed, touching two keys instead of one. 'Donnerwetter!' (dammit!), cried Wilhelm Kempff. He looked around and saw crestfallen faces. 'That was very beautiful,' said the machine operator, 'but the recording is now ruined.'
This lapse, recalled by Kemp years later, amounts to a defining moment in the annals of performance - the moment a musician realized that recording required a different discipline and temperament from public concerts. Kempff, had his finger slipped on stage, would have played on regardless, knowing that few would detect the fiaw, or remember it afterwards. On record, though, the imperfection was engraved for all time, growing larger and uglier with each replay. There was no hiding place, no camoufiage available on disc for inferior technique or inchoate interpretation. The artist stood exposed to eternal scrutiny, stripped of illusory diversion.
Sound recording had begun in 1877 with the inventor Thomas Alva Edison shouting 'Mary had a little lamb' into a phonograph and acquired a mass market in 1902 with the first brass-horn arias of the Neapolitan tenor Enrico Caruso. But the birth of recording as a musical act, separate and distinct from live performance, came in 1920 with the undeletable exclamation of a German artist in the aftermath of the First World War. Kempff, a protege of Brahms' friend Joseph Joachim, was rooted in gaslight romanticism but suffciently aware of swirling currents to realize that recording presented more than just an opportunity to ...
Read full excerpt from The Life and Death of Classical Music ebook
Title: The Life and Death of Classical Music April 25, 2012 Normal Lebrecht has always been a provocative, well-informed, opinionated and generally stimulating writer. As a long-stending lover of classical music, I found this a very revealing book about the powers behind the classical music recording industry and the reasons for its current demise. Lebrecht is very well informed and cuts straight through all the nonsense, the hype and the dumbing down of the music industry. I very much share his revulsion at the way many young musicians are currently marketed, hyped up, 'managed' and raised sky-high through exaggerated praise only to disappear shortly afterwards, eclipsed by a newer, younger, prettier face. It is also tragic how many honest, gifted and even great performers are silenced, simply because the major recording companies cannot find a way of 'packaging them' in order to sell CDs.
Average Customer Review:
Number of Comments: 2 Rating(s) 1 Review(s)
recording-madness industry
Reviewer: A reader from BRASILIA, DISTRITO FEDERAL BRA
Fortunately, we still have the 'minor' recording companies to thank for venturing into less well-known repertoite, offering honest and unhyped exposure to young musicians and, often, lowering the price at which a music lover can taste and test music that he/she has not known in the past.
Lebrecht's catalogue of 100 of his favourite recordings and 20 the 'should never have been made' is both entertaining and provocative. One can disagree with many of his nominations, but it is interesting to take issue with him. His dismissal and derision of Peter Pears as a Schubert singer verges on the vitriolic - it would have been offensive if one took it out of the context of this book, whose opinionated tone is a pleasure even when one disagrees with it.
1-1 of 1
Write a review »
Earn rewards points!
Reward Our Customers.