For the Love of Music: Invitations to Listening [Hardcover]

Michael Steinberg (Author), Larry Rothe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2006

The power of music, the way it works on the mind and heart, remains an enticing mystery. Now two noted writers on classical music, Michael Steinberg and Larry Rothe, explore the allure of this melodious art--not in the clinical terms of social scientists--but through stories drawn from their own experience.
In For the Love of Music, Steinberg and Rothe draw on a lifetime of listening to, living with, and writing about music, sharing the delights and revelatory encounters they have had with Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, and a host of other great (and almost-great) composers. At once highly personal and immediately accessible, their writings shed light on those who make music and those who listen to it--drawing readers into the beautiful and dangerous terrain that has meant so much to the authors. In recounting how they themselves came to love music, Steinberg and Rothe offer keys for listening. Here you will find the story of a boy discovering a lifelong passion as he huddled in an alley behind a movie theater in World War II England, listening to the Fantasia soundtrack. You will meet the man who created the sound of Hollywood's Golden Age. You will learn how composers have addressed issues as contemporary as AIDS and the terrorist attacks of September 11. You will sit in on strange and enlightening listening sessions with one of America's quirkiest music critics. And you will enter a world of mind- and soul-nourishing pleasures.
Articulate and impassioned, sophisticated but never esoteric, Steinberg and Rothe offer invigorating reflections on music that will delight both the beginning and the seasoned listener.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his chapter on Sibelius and Mahler, Rothe asks how music might have progressed if these giants had composed more, noting "such speculation might be more suited to the late hours of a cocktail party." Rothe thus captures the flavor of this entire volume, in which he and Steinberg expound on subjects ranging from their burgeoning interest in music to George Perle's life and work to poor audience behavior. These are not analytical pieces on specific works, but broader essays, most of which originally appeared in San Francisco Symphony programs. Steinberg's essays are the stand-outs here, including his informative and inspiring "Salute" to conductor and impresario Theodore Thomas and his recommendations on acquainting oneself with Robert Schumann's music. Rothe is less consistent: his "Vienna Trilogy" begins as a colorful tourist's guide but devolves into a silly postulation of a dinner shared by Mahler, Schoenberg and Freud, and his essay about Mahler and Sibelius contrasts Sibelius's "profound logic" with Mahler's "all-embracing" grandiosity, neglecting the profound inner logic of Mahler's works. The writing is engaging and easy to read, but dates for each essay would have established helpful contexts.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Written for the classical-music listener, these essays, separately written by Steinberg and Rothe, cover three eras of composers, music "missionaries," affairs to remember, and concert audiences. More than biographical, they coax listener-readers to delve into music through analysis of style, influences of contemporary culture, comparisons of different composers' music, and descriptions of composers' motivations and techniques. They also contain the personal observations of veteran music-writers Steinberg, program annotator for orchestras in Boston, Minnesota, New York, and San Francisco, whose style is mostly analytical and direct; and Rothe, publications editor for the San Francisco Symphony, who adopts a mostly philosophical approach. Bracketed by introductions by each author on how they were introduced to classical music and a postlude covering audience approbation, the essays stimulate readers to respond to all the nuances of the classical music they hear in concert and at home and to appreciate what went into its creation.^B They afford a rewarding exploration of many facets of music that are rarely illuminated. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195162161
• ISBN-13: 978-0195162165
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,075,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Feast for Music and Book Lovers, January 22, 2007

By 

Margot Goldsmith - See all my reviews
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This review is from: For the Love of Music: Invitations to Listening (Hardcover)

Once you've sampled one of the warm and witty essays in this book, you'll want to devour the rest at a single sitting. Rothe and Steinberg provide vivid and evocative accounts of their falling in love--or not--with various musical works. At the same time, they offer fascinating details about the all-too-human composers of those pieces. The passion that the authors bring to their descriptions of music and its creators will make readers eager to encounter the works themselves. Just as Steinberg mentions that he has learned that "music repays repeated listening," I believe this book will amply repay repeated reading.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When Only Music Will Do, January 12, 2007

By 

Mary B. Vandezande - See all my reviews
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This review is from: For the Love of Music: Invitations to Listening (Hardcover)

For those of us in the world who have not yielded entirely to the mass apppeal of pop music in whatever form it takes this book is a gift. I speak for those who listen to classical music without the benefit of an education in the history or theory of music. Rothe and Steinberg bring us a window into the passions and thoughts of composers whose work has endured over decades and centuries. They do so with a robust appreciation for their subjects and amusing insights into their encounters with the work they describe. I cherish the crisp,candid style and knowlegeable background information that fills the pages. It will stay on my shelf as a reference book as well as a re-read for those times when only music will do.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Music 101 for the rest of us, January 28, 2007

By 

A. A. Stewart (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: For the Love of Music: Invitations to Listening (Hardcover)

For the Love of Music is a wonderfully accessible look at the world of classical music: the composers, the performers, the music, and the emotions all three manage to produce in listeners. The authors are music professionals, yet their pleasure in music, and their engagement with music, is as clear in these essays as their knowledge of their subjects. The volume contains essays on the greats--Bach, Mozart, Mahler--but also covers some modern and contemporary composers whose work is less known, and less appreciated, by non-specialist listeners. There are also some unexpected notes; in his essay on film music, author Larry Rothe suggests that Beethoven might have been a great film composer, and reminds us that Dino de Laurentiis approached Stravinsky about scoring his epic The Bible! A fascinating book for both the musically literate and those who would like to know more about the music they love.