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The Symphony: A Listener's Guide, by Michael Steinberg
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Enriched by biographical detail, historical background, musical examples, and many finely nuanced observations, this volume is a treasury of insight and information. Readers will find illuminating discussion of the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Sibelius, and Mahler, as well as of the most loved symphonic works of Schubert, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and others. We learn how to listen more sharply for Haydn's humor, to Mozart's singular combination of pathos with grace, and to the evolution of Beethoven's musical ideas in his nine symphonies. This remarkable range and variety of composers are illuminated by Steinberg's deft, inviting, and intensely personal essays, which give such a vivid portrait of each composer's personality that the reader gets an immediate sense of how the work is a direct expression of the person from whose soul and brain it has sprung.
Tracing the ways in which composers have dealt with the musical challenges that have engaged them throughout the centuries, Steinberg takes us through the revolutions of expression, sound, and form that have shaped the symphony's remarkable history. Whether beginners or veterans, music lovers will listen to the symphony with enlivened interest and deeper understanding with Steinberg's masterful guide in hand.
- Sales Rank: #954368 in Books
- Published on: 1998-12-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.10" h x 1.90" w x 9.10" l, 2.16 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 704 pages
Amazon.com Review
Anyone compiling a guide to the symphony faces two problems: impartiality versus personal enthusiasm and detailed musical analysis versus help for the newcomer. Michael Steinberg succeeds brilliantly at the task, as he has with his guide to the concerto. He has pared this vast repertory down to 118 entries (Franck and Bizet being the surprising omissions), thus keeping room for music by Schmidt, Hartmann, Harbison, Piston, and Tippett. Many of the chapters have helpful general introductions; the brief one on Mendelssohn and the longer one on Schubert are ideal. The Mahler chapter is superb, with consideration of the original version of the First Symphony and the unfinished Tenth Symphony framing a chronological discussion of the works. Steinberg includes all texts and translations of vocal movements and places even isolated works (such as G�recki's wholly atypical Third Symphony) in context. Absent is the clubby tone that infects classical music programming on public radio, and readers will not need to follow scores to understand Steinberg's points. There are some great but peripheral tidbits in the footnotes, as well as frequently trenchant quotations from various composers' letters. Best of all, Steinberg has clear concerns and enthusiasms: orchestral seating plans for the violins and the reasons that repeats in first movements are so often disregarded become refrains. The descriptions of William Schuman's Sixth Symphony and Bohuslav Martinu's Fantaisies Symphoniques may send readers rushing to listen, and the overly familiar Beethoven Eroica and Schubert "Unfinished" are once again fantastical, odd, and fresh in these pages. In Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, we read, "the oboe is the sweetest and most seductive of tour guides." Steinberg might well have been describing himself. --William R. Braun
From Library Journal
Critic, lecturer, and program annotator Steinberg describes 36 composers and, movement by movement, 118 symphonies, including all the standard repertory regularly programmed by North American orchestras as well as a few by less well known composers such as Gorecki, Harbison, Martinu, and Sessions. The writing varies from formal and factual to chatty, with candid asides and stories relevant to the composer, the composition, or an important performance. The information is on the level of good program notes (the origin of most of it), although reader familiarity with some basic musical technical terms is assumed. A well-written, informative introduction to the repertory for most music collections.?Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Here's a treat for those addicted to reading the program notes before the concert begins. They will find that Steinberg has done for symphonies what Milton Cross did for operas. These essays, based on program notes Steinberg wrote for the Boston and San Francisco orchestras during the past 20 years, combine insight into a composer's personality and times with thorough analysis of the music, and their coverage ranges from the complete symphonies of cornerstone composers Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler to selected symphonies of such moderns as Copland, Sessions, Harbison, Tippett, and Piston. They offer both the concertgoer and the audiophile the chance to study a symphony from a point of view that is more personal than that of most recording liner notes. Many a reader will keenly anticipate Steinberg's next volume, which will give concertos similar treatment. Alan Hirsch
Most helpful customer reviews
57 of 61 people found the following review helpful.
Beginner's perspective
By Steven Carroll
The other reviewers here have given you the perspective of die-hard classical music fans. I am not really expert enough to comment on ommisions and such. But I would like to present another possible reason to purchase this book. Classical music can seem kind of inscrutable to the outsider, but this book sort of walks the reader (and listener) through each piece. I've used it to pick what piece to track down next. This book will enrich the listening experience and the listening skills of the musically minded amateur i think. It did for me.
48 of 52 people found the following review helpful.
Indispensable
By David A. Kemp
A wonderful book. Michael Steinberg is probably the premier writer of program notes for symphony orchestra concerts in the English-speaking world, and his two books, The Symphony: A Listener's Guide (Oxford University Press, 1995, 678 pages), and its companion volume The Concerto: A Listener's Guide (Oxford UP, 1998, 506 pages), are probably the two best collections of program notes on the symphony and the concerto that have ever been published in English. Steinberg formerly wrote the program notes for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and currently writes them for the New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He was music critic of the Boston Globe for twelve years. These two books come with glowing recommendations from such distinguished musical figures as Seiji Ozawa, Michael Tilson Thomas, Andre Previn, Herbert Blomstedt, Roger Norrington, and John Adams. Speaking as one who has attended countless symphony orchestra concerts on the East Coast, West Coast, and in Dallas for more than forty years, and has always read the program notes, I can say that I've never read any as good as these. They are readable, learned, witty, accessible, and delightful, full of important biographical and historical information, and of course musical description, evaluation, and analysis that is genuinely illuminating and enlightening, without being so technical you need to be a musicologist or seated at a piano to understand it. (Inevitably, there are some musical examples, but these are relatively few, usually fairly simple, and you don't have to understand them to grasp the meaning of the text.) I would recommend these two books strongly to any lover of classical music, anyone who attends symphony orchestra concerts.
Having said this, I can't help noting a few unfortunate omissions. The Symphony is a thick book and perhaps one is ungenerous to cavil at such a generous and generally inclusive and comprehensive volume. All the Beethoven symphonies are included, of course, as are all the symphonies of Brahms and Schumann, and all the major symphonies of Haydn (only two symphonies before No. 86), Mozart (no Mozart symphonies earlier than No. 35, "Haffner"), Tchaikovsky (three symphonies), Dvorak (four symphonies), and Bruckner (six symphonies). The two greatest twentieth-century symphonists, Mahler and Sibelius, are covered in full, including all of their published symphonies and the unfinished Mahler Tenth (but not the early Sibelius "Kullervo" symphony). The third great twentieth-century symphonist, Shostakovich, is represented by seven of his fifteen symphonies. Both Elgar symphonies are included. The most striking lapses are in the French repertoire: the Franck D minor symphony and the Saint-Saens Third ("Organ") are unaccountably omitted, and these are serious omissions. The Schubert Fifth is omitted. Copland is represented by his Second ("Short Symphony"), not his much better known and more frequently performed Third. The same can be said of Hanson, who is represented by his Fourth ("Requiem"), not his Second ("Romantic"). Among the moderns, there are some strangely arbitrary (and, one suspects, personal) choices and omissions: for example, Roy Harris' Third is omitted, although symphonies by Harbison and Hartmann are included; the Harris is surely better established in the standard repertoire than either of these composers. For Vaughan Williams, two of his most popular and accessible symphonies, the First ("Sea") and Second ("London"), are omitted in favor three later symphonies (only 4, 5, and 6 are covered).
Despite these omissions, I recommend this book and its companion volume warmly and wouldn't be without them. Now I wish Mr. Steinberg and Oxford University Press would give us a third volume, covering the large body of orchestral music that is neither symphony nor concerto (such as tone poems and symphonic suites and dances, ballets and ballet suites, incidental music to plays and pageants, major overtures and preludes, et al.).
23 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
great, but with 20 pages more it would have been perfect
By Daniele
I greatly enjoyed this book: Steinberg's style is lively and full of wit, but authoritative nonetheless, which is rare. As a reference book, this is an invaluable "tool" for the music lover and the scholar alike. As a fan of British and American music I found the Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Schuman chapters really praiseworthy. So, why not 5 stars? I think that, if you write such a kind of book (a "guide"), you should try to find a balance between the objective and the subjective, Steinberg tends decidedly to the subjective, which is good when he gives us so many insights about composers or conductors he met, much less so when this affects the selection criteria. For example, talking about American music, he spends pages talking about the Steinberg-dedicated Harbison Second (I bought the CD after I read the book and I found it very empty and rambling) and just a few (denigratory) lines about the Copland Third, which is a a classic , like it or not. And what about the almost total omission of the French symphonies? You won't find Franck and Bizet, as Amazon points, but also Saint-Saens is missing , and I don't think a book about symphonies can be without his Third. All in all, an indispensable issue, but with some flaws.
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