Books On Culture

Alex Ross - The Rest is Noise

To skip straight to the point of this review, I am going to say up front that Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise is a must-read book for anyone interested in twentieth-century music. That said, it’s not for the faint of heart. At 543 dense pages (plus ample notes and a generous index), it’s quite a long haul of a read. But Ross achieves what many writers failed at when I was faced with their texts in school: he makes one want to learn what he is discussing and listen to the music he describes so intensely. He tells the stories of the composers, their pieces, and their histories in ways we may not have heard before.

Sheldon Morgenstern 1938-2007

I received word that that Sheldon Morgenstern, the author of the first book reviewed here at Books On Culture, died this past Sunday in Geneva, Switzerland. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family.

This article first appeared on Tuesday in the Greensboro News & Record, and here is the obituary published today. Visitors may sign a guestbook at that site as well.

No Vivaldi in the Garage

The first book we’ll be looking at here at Books on Culture is Sheldon Morgenstern’s No Vivaldi in the Garage: A Requiem for Classical Music in North America. After reading this book I needed to reconcile my expectations of the book with what it really was. I was hoping for both an exposé of, as well as a solution book for, the ills of the modern American orchestra and classical music culture in general. I was only half right, and it turns out that I’m OK with that. My biggest quibble with the book, it turns out, is with the title.