The Bluffer's Guide to Music
By Peter Gammond
 
Extracts from the book

 
Modern music
Modern music is that which is written in an idiom that came just after the period that any given music-lover was last able to understand.
 
Beethoven
Beethoven is regarded as a public company in which a number of people have shares and it is important to know how many shares each of them holds. Thus one talks of Klemperer's Beethoven, Karajan's Beethoven, SoltiÍs Beethoven, Bernstein's Beethoven and, after a bit of research, Furtwangler's Beethoven - those are main shareholders with Klemperer holding a working majority.
 
Bach
Any suggestion that you can take Bach as good clean fun can earn you a very nasty reputation. You must take Bach seriously or not at all.
 
Mahler
It was suddenly realised that Mahler had not written big long boring symphonies of the Brahms type which you have to listen to carefully from beginning to end in order not to miss the themes, but had, in fact, simply strung together hundreds of attractive little tunes, and it was possible to go into a coma for a lot of the symphony and still get involved when you came to again.
 
Bartok
Bartok is great stuff for people with the kind of mentality that takes naturally to chess and Ximenes crosswords.
 
Reviews

 
Full of quirky, provocative statements.
The Sunday Telegraph
 
This Bluffer's Guide scores the highest on my scale.
A reader from San Francisco, USA
 
Table of Contents
 

The Gentle Art

Order of Precedence
Impresarios
Agents
Recording Companies
Conductors
Virtuosos
Singers
Pianists
Organists
Violinists
Cellists
Run-of-the-Mill Musicians
Critics

Instrumental Odds and Ends

Conversation Piece

Composers
Beethoven
Mozart
Bach

Other Composers
Bartok
Berlioz
Brahms
Britten
Bruch
Bruckner
Chopin
Debussy
Delius
Dvorak
Elgar
Grieg
Handel
Haydn
Liszt
Mahler
Mendlessohn
Rachmaninov
Schoenberg
Schubert
Strauss, Johann
Strauss, Richard
Stravinsky
Tchaikovsky
Tippett
Vivaldi

Modern Music

A Few Musical Byways
Music-Hall Songs
Folk-Music
Light Music
Jazz

Glossary

 
Author: Peter Gammond
Format: 64 pages, pb
Published: 01/11/05
Updated: New Edition
Price: £3.99
ISBN-10 & ISBN-13:
1-903096-58-8
978-1-903096-58-1
  
About the author
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Table of contents
  
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