Customer Reviews

My Musical Life

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In this book, Rimsky-Korsakov gives the inside story of his life and those of his fellow musicians. The book itself is very readable and very interesting for anybody interested in the history of music to read. There are many interesting references to musical works, pupils, and fellow composers such as Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. This book is an excellent account of a composer's life and legend. Recommended if you can find it!

It is almost never that a CD of music of Rimsky-Korsakov or any of the Russian five does not quotes a line or two from this autobiography.In it the composer himself tells about his life,works,and also about those that were fortunate enough to be close to him.He speaks of every aspect of his life with specific details....I wish to tell you more,but I would really like for you to read the book...

Rimsky-Korsakov's reallife personality exhibited signs of a clear split. His outward manner was dry, didactic, taciturn, argumentative, fussy and straight-laced. But to those who knew him more personally--his family, his friends, and those who saw his actions, rather than his words-- the man who emerged was kind, thoughtful, generous, colorful, provocative, and uncoventional in the extreme.

Unfortunately, My Musical Life carefully maintains the public persona with which Rimsky-Korsakov walled off his private thoughts. You'll look in vein for what led this one-time career naval officer to write several operas which cast the Tsar and his court as buffoons and lackeys, causing his work to be banned; or for any analysis of either his music or its generation. This musical life is a series of dull, faded pictures; dull not because of images whose meaning has been lost to cultural changes, but because the pictures are deliberately bland reminiscences of a man who did not care to extend his confidence to strangers.

This is a very important book and inexpensive in a library binding and chucked full of information for anyone who wishes to know about Russian classical music and the military career of Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov and also touches on other great lives of a number of Russian composers of the nineteenth century. It also names names of Korsakov's major works both operatic (of which there are many) and symphonic literature. I first read "My Musical Life" some years ago and was very pleased to see that it was still available to the general public. It will be a very important part of my musical library.
In the same vein, I was pleased to find a number of musical scores (Dover editions) available from Amazon including the symphonic cycle of Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler and others which I will also be adding to my library from time to time.
To Amazon, keep up the good work! Sincerely,
/s/ Kris Kleeberg
kriskleeberg@gmail.com