Customer Reviews

Unlocking the Masters Series: Beethoven Symphonies Book/CD (Softcover)

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John Bell Young's Beethoven Symphonies, A Guided Tour from the Unlock the Master Series (Amadeus Press) is an immensely enjoyable read. Mr. Young succeeds in distilling his vast knowledge and understanding of these masterpieces into a form and style that are clear and comprehensible to the musical layman or amateur de musique, while remaining of substantial interest to the music professional as well. Mr. Young's advantage is that he is not only a writer of exceptional skill but also a top-rank pianist. He thus comes to the subject with an artist's keen ear to nuance, detail and expressive intent, and thereby avoids the polite decorum and often deadening chill of academe. His writing is tiger-bright, often alive and kicking. He makes no bones about the fact that the comments accompanying his guided tour through Beethoven's monumental creations are of a personal and subjective nature. However, it would be misleading to assume that his observations are somehow based on whim or mere fancy; to the contrary, it is apparent from the first paragraphs that Mr. Young's opinions are rigorously grounded in a broad knowledge of not only musical matters (i.e. analysis and style), but also are founded on an encompassing grasp of the cultural movements and ideas that contributed to making Beethoven's music possible. It is this breadth of outlook on Mr. Young's part, the fruit of an unusually supple and curious mind, that makes this rather modest book so important and refreshing, and sets it apart from others in the genre. The author's choice of Furtwangler's profound interpretations of the Symphonies is a great bonus. Highly recommended.

I was highly disappointed by this book. I was expecting to uncover new insights into the music, and instead got a lot of hyperbole and fluff.
Maybe it just wasn't an appropriate book for me; it's a gentle read with some interesting historical information throughout if you can stomach the empty language. However, I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone for the accompanying CD. Find a different recording, please, and throw the CD away.