This historical anthology shows the evolution of music journalism and its place in Western culture over the past three centuries and illustrates the richness, variety, and vitality of music criticism as both an intellectual enterprise and a literary genre. Because little music criticism in foreign languages is accessible to English- speaking readers, Harry Haskell has made a special point of exemplifying regional traditions of critical writing from throughout the Western world. Included in The Attentive Listener are articles not only from England, Western Europe, and the United States, but also from Russia, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Latin America, and Canada. Each of the one hundred articles here relates to one or more topics of central importance in music history, such as the nature of musical taste and criticism, operatic reform, cultural nationalism, the value of tradition, and the impact of modern technologies on composers, performers, and audiences.The Attentive Listener differs from previous anthologies of musical writings in its emphasis on journalistic criticism, its broadly international scope, and the thematic organization of the articles, most of which have not been translated or anthologized before. The writers represented include not only professional critics and scholars but also composers such as Debussy, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Janacek, and Virgil Thomson, and literary figures such as Heine, Boito, and Shaw.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
A delightful collection of 100 items of musical commentary dating across the centuries. Haskell, music editor at Yale University Press, has chosen well in his selection and includes material from some of the most famous critics of the past and present, including Eduard Hanslick, Alfred Einstein, and Andrew Porter. The entries vary in length from two to six pages, and some are judiciously unabridged. The subject matter varies from reviews of specific compositions-William Aryton's reservations about Beethoven's Ninth Symphony-to larger issues-Bedrich Smetana's plea for more operas by Czech composers in Prague, and Ernest Newman's reflections on criticism itself. Eminently readable and thoroughly informative. Recommended for all collections.
Timothy McGee, Univ. of Toronto
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Timothy McGee, Univ. of Toronto
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Serious, Intelligent, Difficult but Worth It!,
By Mary Rose (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Attentive Listener - Three Centuries of Music Criticism (Hardcover)
The Attentive Listener by Harry Haskell isn't for the faint-hearted, nor is it for them looking for an easy read. It is a complicated, highly evolved kind of a book, the sort that could only have been written by someone with an incredible depth to his understanding of music. Not for everyone by any means, but Haskell's book is a must for any music critic or anyone heavily interested in the history of music. I recommend it!
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