I’ve been paying some bills for the past couple for the past couple of days and haven’t had a chance to update much. While I’m still catching up, why don’t we do a followup to our great music fiction list–the essential non-fiction books about music. Perhaps, we could have a beginner’s or popular list and an advanced list. Who’s got something?
26 thoughts on “Non-Fiction, Anyone”
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Robin Holloway. On Music: Essays and Diversions 1963-2003.
Andrew Porter’s “Musical Events” columns for The New Yorker, collected in five volumes that take us up to 1986. They’re a portrait of an age, and an invaluable research tool. Lots and lots of new music is covered. Very well then, what about his succeeding years on the magazine? There must be a university press somewhere …
Roger Nichols. The Harlequin Years.
Chris Villars, ed. Morton Feldman Talks.
Alec Wilder. American Popular Song.
Alan Blyth, ed. Song on Record.
On jazz: Gunther Schuller, Gary Giddins, Whitney Balliett.
Michael Oliver’s reviews (uncollected) in Gramophone magazine.
Paul Griffiths on practically anything.
Virgil Thomson’s reviews for the Herald-Tribune 1940-1954, collected in three volumes.
Michael Steinberg’s in-the-footsteps-of-Tovey volumes for OUP on the symphony, concerto, choral music. Plus (uncollected, and for how long?) the reviews he wrote for the Boston Globe berween 1964 and 1976. Learned, funny, imaginative, scorching — they had everything.
Harry Halbreich. Arthur Honegger.
Writings on music by Paul Bowles, Lionel Salter, Hilary Finch, Bayan Northcott, Klaus George Roy, Richard Taruskin, David Hamilton, David Schiff, Joseph Horowitz.
Aldous Huxley as music critic? See Vol. 1 of his Complete Essays (Ivan Dee)
And so to bed.
With the exception of stuff that is more theoretical than anything else (eg, New Music Resources, Genesis of a Music, and some of Schoenberg’s more music theory-oriented writings), most of what I and others suggested should be readable by anyone. I think most of the best stuff that has been mentioned should be accessible regardless of one’s ability to read music. The Feldman, for example, has very little (too little, to my regret) notation in it.
It’s sort of how I have books on astrophysics and ellipsoids by S. Chandrasekhar, who was one of my gods. I can’t understand the math, since it was written for people with PhDs in this area, but he wrote so well that the beauty of the science comes out and it’s a pleasure to look at from time to time. Same thing with good books on composers and new music in general—the elegance of the art is there, and it’s the words, not the notation, that can transmit this to anyone.
For a lover of classical music whose abilities to read musical scores is pretty minimal–a position I suspect a lot of people who don’t play an instrument are in–where would you (collective ‘you’ referring to those who have contributed to this thread so far) draw the line between books that are accessible to such a person and ones that are not?
Actually, it’s my suspicion that Mr. GANN is John Adams. They both love Nancarrow, they both worship Ives, neither of them thinks John Adams was ever a real minimalist… and haven’t you noticed, you never see them together…?
Hey Seth:
Bitter Music and Experimental Music are both great books. I’ll second that emotion! The same with Oceans of Sound. Toop’s other book Exotica is good but not great. Both volumes of Bang’s writings should be essential reading, well to me anyway! Also Curtis Sach’s Wellspring of Music is also pretty groovy. Honourable Mention also to All Yesterday’s Parties: The Velvet Underground In Print 1966-1971.
I’ll second:
Bailey – Improvisation
Duckworth – Talking Music
Ives – Essays before a Sonata
Surprised nobody’s mentioned yet:
Harry Partch – Bitter Music
Nyman – Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond
Few others coming to mind, YMMV:
Douglas Kahn – Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts
WIRE Magazine – Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music
Andrew Jones – Plunderphonics, ‘Pataphysics & Pop Mechanics
Christoph Cox & Daniel Warner (ed.) – Audio Culture
Zorn (ed.) – Arcana: Musicians on Music & Arcana II
And a must for any touring musician: Eugene Chadbourne – I Hate The Man Who Runs This Bar
I’ll occasionally go for a couple of days where David Toop’s “Ocean of Sound” becomes like a bible. It happens once a year or so. And every time I reread it, I have completely different reactions and connections to it. I guess that’s the point.
Sounds right to me. That’s exactly my experience with the Berio Two Interviews.
Like I’ve written before (and despite the fact that he himself claims to be Max Reger) I think Mr. Rieper is John Adams. That, IMO, would tend to support the journalistic suspicions of the gentleman from the great state of New York.
My books aren’t fiction. Every time my name is mentioned in this forum, “Graham Rieper” instantly writes in to insult me. It’s been going on for years, as regular as clockwork. He must be someone I wrote a negative review of once, and he’s been seething, and obsessing about me, and vowing revenge – but since he hides behind a pseudonym, who would know?
I’ll occasionally go for a couple of days where David Toop’s “Ocean of Sound” becomes like a bible. It happens once a year or so. And every time I reread it, I have completely different reactions and connections to it. I guess that’s the point.
Two more idiosyncratic gems:
Of Men and Music by Deems Taylor
Music: Its Secret Influence Throughout the Ages by Cyril Scott
I meant, of course,
The SWING era by Schuller
Reflections of an American Composer by Arthur Berger
Virgil Thomson by Virgil Thomson
Music Reviewed 1939-1954 by Virgil Thomson
The State of Music by Virgil Thomson
Music for Words by Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson by Kathleen Hoover and John Cage
Judith Tick’s biography of Ruth Crawford
Mark the Music by Eric A. Gordon
National Music by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Stravinsky and the Russian Tradition by Richard Taruskin
Twentieth Century Music by Peter Yates
Vision and Resonance by John Hollander (really a book about poetry, but useful for anybody interested in the problems of setting words to music)
The Romantic Generation by Charles Rosen
The Classical Style by Charles Rosen
Music of Three Seasons by Andrew Porter (and the subsequent books of New Yorker Reviews)
Form and Feeling by Suzanne Langer
Words About Music by Milton Babbitt
The Sing Era by Gunther Schuller
Silence by John Cage
The Dyer’s Hand by W. H. Auden (another poetry book, but…)
The Rough Guide’s introduction to classical music is really quite good, even for non-beginners. It’s written with the same informal, straight-up tone as the travel guidebooks and include a good number of 20th century composers.
For non-beginners, I recommend:
Essays and Lectures on Music
Essay on Musical Analysis
Musician Talks
all by Sir Donald Francis Tovey
For its pure comic relief, Tovey’s Companion to Beethoven piano sonatas (bar-by-bar analysis) is hard to beat.
Don’t forget A Composer’s World by Paul Hindemith.
The Tradition of Western Music by Gerald Abraham
Slavonic and Romantic Music by Gerald Abraham
A History of Musical Style by Richard L. Crocker
Opera as Drama by Joseph Kerman
The Language of Modern Music by Donald Mitchell
The Composer’s Voice by Edward T. Cone
How Musical Is Man by John Blacking
A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography by Egon Wellesz
*
Last night, I started reading Michael Steinberg and Larry Rothe’s new, general reader-oriented For the Love of Music…
Recently finished: The Singing Neanderthals by Steven Mithen
Completely guess-work, but still brilliant.
Alex, I could keep going on as well—I thought of the Cage and Schoenberg’s Style and Idea after posting, and will undoubtedly think of others on the drive home.
Graham, does Kyle know it’s part fiction? I wasn’t aware it was fiction, but what do I know.
NP: Young: The Well-Tuned Piano (CD, not the DVD)
Speaking of possibly “embroidered” non-fiction, Colin McPhee’s A House in Bali is still wonderful after all these years.
“I would also most definitely include Kyle\’s books on Music Downtown…”
…which is at least part fiction.
Norman Del Mar’s three-volume study of Richard Strauss.
Bernstein’s Joy of Music and Infinite Variety of Music are still great books for beginners. I also recommend Maynard Solomon’s Mozart, Allen Shawn’s Schoenberg, and Elizabeth Wilson’s Shostakovich: A Life Remembered in that category.
More advanced books:
Charles Rosen, The Classical Style
Scott Burnham, Beethoven Hero
Berlioz Memoirs
ETA Hoffmann, Writings on Music
Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler
Schoenberg, Style and Idea
Auner, A Schoenberg Reader
Ives, Essays Before a Sonata
Feldman, Give My Regards to 8th Street
Cage, Silence
Reich, Writings on Music
Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions
Craft, Conversations with Stravinsky
Glenn Watkins, Pyramids at the Louvre
Wilfred Mellers, Music in a New Found Land
Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz
Lester Bangs, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
Bob Dylan, Chronicles
but I could keep going….
Rorem: Music from Inside Out & Knowing When to Stop
Stravinsky: Poetics of Music
Stockhausen: On Music and On a Cosmic Music
Derek Bailey: Improvisation
Cage: Silence
Charles Ives: Essay before a Sonata
LeRoi Jones: Blues People and Black Music
Graham Lock: Forces in Motion
Lewis Porter: John Coltrane
Joel Chadabe: Electronic Music
Ekkehard Jost: Free Jazz
Hazrat Inayat Khan: The Mysticism of Sound/Music/The Music of Life
William Duckworth-Talking Music
A.B. Spellman: Four Jazz Lives
Steve Reich: Writings About Music
Philip Glass (and some ghostwriter I cannot recall): Music by Philip Glass (an ego trip, to be sure, but has some interesting tidbits about his music)
Harry Partch: Genesis of a Music (my bible)
Henry Cowell: New Music Resources (the bible I wish I owned)
Rene Leibowitz: Schoenberg and His School (a polemic, to be sure, but worth reading)
Alban Berg: Letters to His Wife
Morton Feldman: Give My Regards to Eighth Street (one of my all-time favorites)
I would also most definitely include Kyle\’s books on Music Downtown and his Nancarrow book if I owned them–I\’ve perused parts of the nancarrow book on Amazon; does that count? Also Ross W. Duffi: How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) (it\’s on my Amazon wish list)
Luciano Berio: Two Interviews
with Rossana Dalmonte & Balint Andras Varga
I love this book.