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 *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html