| 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 |
|
| |
| Chatty
and debunking, with the impulsive generalisations that enliven conversation. |
|
The
Guardian
|
| |
| 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
|
|
|
Fortune
Telling
