Dear Friends: With all apologies for semi-spam, here the good news about
the forthcoming release of my Siloti book, now due out at the beginning
of June.
Lost in the Stars: The Forgotten Musical Career of Alexander Siloti
Rowman and Littlefield / The Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810841088
Long-overdue and little-awaited, it checks in at a quarter-million words
and will tell you every thing you couldn't possibly want to know about
Siloti and his amazing circle in Weimar, Moscow, St Petersburg, London,
and New York -- to say nothing of his friends and teachers and students,
including Liszt, Tchaikovsky, the Rubinsteins, Zverev, Stravinsky,
Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Casals, Chaliapin, Glazunov,
Sibelius, Marc Blitzstein, Eugene Istomin, Toscanini etc etc etc.
It runs about 400pp, with 16pp of rare photographs and a marvellous CD
by the late pianist James Barbagallo. This Naxos CD, not commercially
available, includes 12 glowing Bach-Siloti piano transcriptions that we
produced in the weeks before James died. The book is a narrative covering
Siloti's life and circle, and a body of documentation not published in
English before, including the complete repertoire list for his remarkable
Siloti Concerts, and the Gorky Concerts as well. And Siloti's 205-item
worklist. And more and more.
The book is currently listed at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and similar places.
It has attracted some very nice jacket blurbs, given to you in advance --
and in confidence -- below.
If you'd like a short-form read about this remarkable
pianist/conductor/composer/impresario, go to New Grove 2000 and read
my essay on Ziloti. Or, reply to this and I'll send you the book's
Introduction.
SILOTI BOOK JACKET BLURBS
"Alexander Siloti was one of my predecessors at the Kirov Mariinsky
Opera and one of Russia's greatest musicians. It is a tragedy that
he has been forgotten. This new book is a wonderful contribution to
our understanding of Siloti's life and work and the people in his
orbit. If you want to understand music in St. Petersburg prior to
1917, read it." --- Valery Gergiev, conductor, General Director Kirov
Mariinsky Opera, and Principal Guest Conductor, The Metropolitan
Opera
"A thorough study of Siloti and his accomplishments, as well as his
life and times, involving as it does so many close relationships with
the most important musicians from Liszt to Rachmaninoff, is long
overdue." --- Gary Graffman, pianist, and Director, The Curtis
Institute of Music
"How extraordinarily wonderful that Charles Barber has been the
musical-archeologist able to bring the great career and music of
Alexander Siloti to light for all musicians. I, for one, am fascinated
by Siloti and look forward to hearing his music and reading more
about him." --- Marilyn Horne, singer
"Thanks to Dr Charles Barber's amazing research we now can read the
fascinating story of Alexander Siloti, one of the most important and
influential musicians in pre-revolutionary Russia. Astonishingly he
appears to have been entirely overlooked since that time. This book
provides a wonderful insight into artistic life in St. Petersburg
and the important influence on many famous names of the period by
this remarkable polymath of a musician. Essential reading for anyone
interested in Russian music and theatre." --- Sir Charles Mackerras,
conductor
"Alexander Siloti was probably the greatest pianist who could have
made records but didn't, and so his greatness has been forgotten.
Charles Barber has made a heroic rescue effort, and if even he cannot
bring back the lost sounds, he does offer the compensations of
exhaustive research into Siloti's many-faceted career, a vivid store
of descriptive quotes, and an irresistibly unabashed devotion to his
subject. Regarded during his lifetime as the last link to a glorious
past, Siloti regains that aura in these fascinating pages. --- Prof.
Richard Taruskin, University of California at Berkeley, and author
'Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions'
There. Enough for now, and thanks.
Charles
|
