Ray writes:

>We are hoping that some of you can list your favorite five or ten books on
>classical music...  They could be on a composer or a period or philosophy.

Picking favorites is difficult since, like music, different books speak to
me in different ways at different periods.  However, I will cite a couple
that have spoken to me forcefully recently.

1.  Anthony Thomassini's Virgil Thompson.  A fascinating biography
providing insight into the man, his music and what life was like for
a gay man in the early and mids 1900s.

2.  Deryk Cooke's The Language of Music.  A hard read but an effective
and forceful argument that there is a grammar and syntax that determine
our emotional reaction to what we hear.

3.  Franz Schubert by Elizabeth Norman McKay.  Argues that Schubert
suffered from what to day would be diagnosed as cyclothymia, "a mild
form of manic depression characterized by pronounced changes of 'mood,
behavious, thinking, sleep and energy levels." This in turn leads to
interesting reflections on therelationship between creativity and
psychological "disorder."

4.  Understanding Toscanini by Joseph Horowitz.  Really gave me insight
into the way "music appreciation" developed in this country as a marketing
tool.

5.  The Birth of Bebop by Scott DeVeaux.  I include this because I do
consider "jazz":  to be every bit as serious and expressive as classical
music.  This book, like the Horowitz book, shows how creative arts are
inextricaply tied up with social trends.

Kind of all over the map, but that's todays list anyway.

Ed