Customer Reviews

Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a real eye-opener, or perhaps I should say ear-opener. It's overflowing with innovative and challenging ways to listen to music. After I read it, I felt that I had not only learned a great deal about Haydn, Mendelssohn, Ives, Ravel, and the relation of their music to their worlds; I also had an enriched sense of why and how classical music matters so much to people who love it, as the author obviously does. One thing I especially liked about this book is that it deals with sensitive social and cultural issues in a constructive rather than a debunking spirit. We need to think about this music, and feel it, too, in such living terms in order to keep the music itself alive. My belief in this need was what prompted me to write this review.

As a long-time classical music lover, I've been dismayed in recent years to find my interest in the music slipping. The newspapers talk about this as a phenomenon, and I read Kramer's book because a friend told me it offers some insight into the problem. It does. But for me at least did something even better, and that was to help revive my interest in the music. It made me start listening again by the way it showed (without preaching in any way) that this music can matter to people in big ways, meaningful ways. It made the music seem vital again by its humanistic way of approaching it.

It is neither great nor bad, and there always are a few gems.

For instance, his interpretation of Elvis is a hoot,

and someboday had to say it!

The arrogance of the writing is the salient feature here. Presuming that the reader is able to effortlessly follow complex topics, the author seems to be too content to create an elaborate display of his own intelligence in the subject matter without making sure that the proper foundations are laid for any sense of comprenhension for those who may be left behind. It is obvious that Kramer does indeed know the material, yet his prose is often caught up in its own self-indulgence.