James Tobin wrote:

> ...Ross ignores many of the composers I most care about--
> ones who express feelings, for instance--

I bought Ross's book because, perusing it in the bookstore where I work,
I saw that it is a box of chocolates.  I thought I knew a lot about music
in the 20th century, for example Shostakovich's problems with the Soviet
authorities, but I didn't know that a critic in the audience at the first
performance of the 14th symphony had a heart attack, and Shosty said,
"I didn't mean *that* to happen." Or that he said to Britten, presumably
in English, "You big composer, I little composer."

Starting from the beginning, I am only on page 29 of a book of nearly
550 pages, and I have already read about about Strauss, Mahler, Wagner
and Puccini.  These are composers who do not express feelings?  Later
in the book, I remember from my skimming in the bookstore, he makes clear
what a s**t the young Boulez could be.  He doesn't say a lot about Tippett
or Carter, either, two favorites of mine, one tonal and one avant-garde:
so what?  What Ross does say is a wealth of anecdotal scene-setting, and
worth the price in anybody's money.

The endemic complaints about musical academia and intelligensia don't
matter to me, because I had to discover all the music by taking records
out of the library.  Why not complain about Sarnoff making a culture
hero out of Toscanini, who played very little new music of any kind, but
guarded the gates of the museum while most people were watching "I Love
Lucy"?

Donald Clarke

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