Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time (Paperback)

~ (Author), Peter Schickele (Author) "I suffered more than upon any occasion in my life apart from an incident or two connected with 'painless dentistry.'..." (more)
Key Phrases: five orchestral pieces, cat music, minor symphony, New York, Richard Strauss, Boston Daily Advertiser (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The music of a demented eunuch," writes one 19th-century critic of Wagner in this remarkable anthology of vitriolic reviews.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

"A supermarket tabloid of classical music criticism."--from the new foreword by Peter Schickele. A snakeful of critical venom aimed at the composers and the classics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music. Who wrote advanced cat music? What commonplace theme is very much like Yankee Doodle? Which composer is a scoundrel and a giftless bastard? What opera would His Satanic Majesty turn out? Whose name suggests fierce whiskers stained with vodka? And finally, what third movement begins with a dog howling at midnight, then imitates the regurgitations of the less-refined or lower-middle-class type of water-closet cistern, and ends with the cello reproducing the screech of an ungreased wheelbarrow? For the answers to these and other questions, readers need only consult the "Invecticon" at the back of this inspired book and then turn to the full passage, in all its vituperation. Among the eminent reviewers are George Bernard Shaw, Virgil Thomson, Hans von Bulow, Friedrich Nietzsche, Eduard Hanslick, Olin Downes, Deems Taylor, Paul Rosenfeld, and Oscar Wilde. Itself a classic, this collection of nasty barbs about composers and their works, culled mostly from contemporaneous newspapers and magazines, makes for hilarious reading and belongs on the shelf of everyone who loves--or hates--classical music. With a new foreword by Peter Schickele ("P.D.Q. Bach").

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (August 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039332009X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393320091
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #218,668 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fear of the unknown..., May 25, 2002

By	Bob Zeidler (Charlton, MA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

...is a "fresher" expression for Nicholas Slonimsky's introduction, "Non-Acceptance of the Unfamiliar," to this howler of a compendium of musical criticism.

In a nutshell, this book is a collection of excerpts from reviews, commentary and correspondence regarding the music of forty-three composers over a 150-year span, beginning with Beethoven and ending (approximately) with Bartók, Schoenberg, Shostakovich and Stravinsky. While most of the composers are well-known, some (Henry Cowell, Roy Harris, Wallingford Riegger, Carl Ruggles, Edgar Varèse) are hardly household names. For the most part, the commentary closely follows, in time, the premieres of the works described. (In some cases, this may be years after their original premieres. It often took, in times past, years for the works to get from "the country of origin" to the venues that were the domains of the reviewers and critics. History - and this book - have shown that this extra time was not necessarily an asset in evaluating the works more accurately.)

A quick page count by composer shows that Wagner (at 27 pages), Schoenberg (at 20 pages), Stravinsky (at 19 pages), Strauss (at 16 pages), and Debussy (at 15 pages) come under the greatest critical scrutiny, or, in retrospect, the greatest "fear of the unknown." Surprisingly, other "true revolutionaries" come off somewhat better: Berlioz (at 5 pages), Mahler (at 4 pages), to name two. Even "universally-loved" composers who wrote music which these days is commonly considered accessible don't escape the critics' wrath: Bizet, Brahms, Puccini, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky are some who didn't exactly become accepted overnight.

It's not as if these music critics "who blew it" didn't know their field appropriately. More than a few (César Cui, George Templeton Strong, Virgil Thomson, to name three) were themselves composers, writing about the new music of their contemporaries. Others (Olin Downes, long-time music critic of the New York Times, Henry E. Krehbiel, similarly of the New York Tribune, and Philip Hale, similarly of the Boston Herald) were highly-respected music critics of their time, not normally given to "blowing it" as far as making a bad call against a new piece of music was concerned.

But that is what this book is about: "Blowing it, major-league big-time," usually with style and panache to spare, as well as all the buzzwords and "tricks of the trade" that suggest expertise. Then, along comes the unsuspecting reader of "the next morning's dailies." He (or she) reads the critique, and the die is cast: Wagner (or Strauss or Stravinsky or Debussy; enter a name of your choice) has just composed music that is: cacophonous; caterwauling; noise, non-music; not fit for human consumption (pick one). The reader has fallen victim to this "expert opinion." It is hard to shake this initial "expert" impression. It may take years. It may never happen. And it might have been the fault of the critic in the first instance.

There is one significant omission, perhaps curious only to those who are unfamiliar with some of the other "alter egos" which Slonimsky had: Charles Ives. Now, Ives was America's first "modern" (or, in terms that I think fit him best, our "first-and-only romantic pre-post-modern"), and his music just barely found acceptance within his lifetime, even if this acceptance came many years after he stopped composing and was quite infirm due to a variety of ailments. Slonimsky had been a friend and champion of Ives well before Ives's music caught on with the concert-going public, and I like to think that omission of Ives as a subject of such invective was a conscious decision on the part of Slonimsky, perhaps as a gift from a friend. But it is also true that much of Ives's music went unperformed during his lifetime, thereby escaping the invective it might otherwise have garnered.

I almost thought that there might be a second significant omission, that of Hector Berlioz as music critic (something which he did for the better part of forty years). But the index at the back of the book did turn up one comment of Berlioz's (in a letter [dated 1861]), brief but to the point: "Wagner is evidently mad." By 1861, Berlioz and Wagner had already known each other quite well for some six years or more. Berlioz - despite trying hard - couldn't fathom the chromaticism in Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," this despite the fact that Wagner wasn't at all bashful about borrowing some of Berlioz's better ideas in his "Romeo et Juliette" for "Tristan und Isolde."

Also curiously absent is any mention of twentieth-century British composers (Vaughan Williams, Holst, Britten, Brian, Bax and so forth). Neither Slonimsky nor Peter Schickele (of P. D. Q. Bach fame, and the writer of a fresh Foreword to this edition) posits why this might be so. There is no shortage of criticism by British critics; they have plenty to say about the musics of composers of other countries. And sheer accessibility cannot be the explanation; the Fourth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams hardly fits the mold of "instant acceptance and accessibility." Curious.

It wouldn't surprise me if every working composer already has a copy of Slonimsky's little masterpiece tucked away for "rainy day" encouragement. And if they don't, they ought to. Music lovers would do well to read how initial critical thinking can affect acceptance of new music, and how critical opinion can change "once the dust settles."

But those who stand to benefit the most from reading this book, as a cautionary tale, perhaps, are the working music reviewers and critics. They (or at least their predecessors) are the ones whose flawed judgements at the time have not withstood history's judgement, resulting in these screamingly funny "critiques."

Good for much more than just a laugh or two! Pick your favorite composer. He's probably been picked apart by someone anthologized in Slonimsky's screamer.

Bob Zeidler

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A *must have* for music educators and students, August 2, 2001

By	Robert Pomicter Jr. "Bob Pomicter" (Hackettstown, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A favorite book by all of our music school staff members, this collection of witty and razor-tongued "reviews" by critics is sure to please the classical music lover!

The introduction by Peter Shickele (a.k.a. P.D.Q. Bach) is equally brilliant and the wonderful "index of invectives" only adds to the great humor of this work, as well as providing a great way for younger music students to "enter" into the this work for some "instant" insight!

It should be stated, however, that some familiarity with the works of the many composers included in this book is a must... otherwise the humor is lost.

The book could have been improved, perhaps, by arranging the composers in a chronological order, or by time period, rather than alphabetically as much of the invectives seem to be the product of one major factor: the inability for the minds of critics to understand musical progress!

Well written, engaging, and always a delight to read and re-read!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good to flip through for a chuckle at how wrong some critics ultimately proved to be, February 11, 2008

By	Christopher Culver - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Nicolas Slonimsky's LEXICON OF MUSICAL INVECTIVE collects those critical reviews of composers from Beethoven's time which proved "biased, unfair, ill-tempered, and singularly unprophetic judgements". It's handily arranged in alphabetic order by composer, so while listening to, say, Bela Bartok's first piano concerto, you can amuse yourself with a 1928 review from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

"Mr. Bartok elected to play his composition dignified by the title Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra. Note the ommission of key. Ultra-moderns cannot be bothered with such trifling designations ... It has been said that the Concerto is based on folk tunes. They have been successfully concealed. Only tonal chaos arises from the diabolical employment of unrelated keys simultaneously."

A 1913 review from the Boston Journal manages to make unprophetic judgements about two composers in one go:

"For the most part the latest symphony [the Sibelius Fourth] from the pen of Finland's foremost composer is a tangle of the most dismal dissonances. It eclipses the saddest and sourest moments of Debussy."

In addition to these citations, Slonimsky offers his own analysis of critical tendencies in the opening essay "Non-Acceptance of the Familiar". To the elderly among the old critics, Slonimsky notes, new music always seems louder than what they are used to. They also often resorted to linguistic similes, comparing new music to "Chinese", a then-handy symbol of incomprehensibility. He gives some general anecdotes about the world of music reviewing, such as a Russian journalist writing a review on Prokofiev's "Scythian Suite" before the concert even took place--he was fired when the review appeared but the piece had actually be taken off the programme at the last minute. There's even an index of Invective, so if you want to find all reviews making use of the terms "Hideous", "Grunting", or even "Feeding Time at Zoo", you'll know which pages to turn to.

Though the work is entertaining, it's no essential addition to a home library. You can read it in an hour at your public or university library. Also, the work was never updated after 1965--it ends with the generation of Bartok, Webern, and Varese--and so those hoping to read invective against Boulez, Stockhausen and others won't find it here.