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The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
 
 
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The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: string trio, eternal music, music control, New York, Richard Strauss, Thomas Mann (more...)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anyone who has ever gamely tried and failed to absorb, enjoy, and--especially--understand the complex works of Schoenberg, Mahler, Strauss, or even Philip Glass will allow themselves a wry smile reading New Yorker music critic Alex Ross's outstanding The Rest Is Noise. Not only does Ross manage to give historical, biographical, and social context to 20th-century pieces both major and minor, he brings the scores alive in language that's accessible and dramatic.

Take Ross's description of Schoenberg's Second Quartet, "in which he hesitates at a crossroads, contemplating various paths forming in front of him. The first movement, written the previous year, still uses a fairly conventional late-Romantic language. The second movement, by contrast, is a hallucinatory Scherzo, unlike any other music at the time. It contains fragments of the folk song 'Ach, du lieber Augustin'--the same tune that held Freudian significance for Mahler. For Schoenberg, the song seems to represent a bygone world disintegrating; the crucial line is 'Alles ist hin' (all is lost). The movement ends in a fearsome sequence of four-note figures, which are made up of fourths separated by a tritone. In them may be discerned traces of the bifurcated scale that begins Salome. But there is no longer a sense of tonalities colliding. Instead, the very concept of a chord is dissolving into a matrix of intervals."

Armed with such a detailed aural roadmap, even a troglodyte--or a heavy metal fan--can explore these pivotal works anew. But it's not all crashing cymbals, honking tubas, and somber Germans stroking their chins. Ross also presents the human dramas (affairs, wars, etc.) behind these sweeping compositions while managing, against the odds, to discuss C-major triads, pentatonic scales, and B-flat dominant sevenths without making our eyes glaze over. And he draws a direct link between the Beatles and Sibelius. It's no surprise that the New York Times named The Rest Is Noise one of the 10 Best Books of 2007. Music nerds have found their most articulate valedictorian. --Kim Hughes



From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Ross, the classical music critic for the New Yorker, leads a whirlwind tour from the Viennese premiere of Richard Strauss's Salome in 1906 to minimalist Steve Reich's downtown Manhattan apartment. The wide-ranging historical material is organized in thematic essays grounded in personalities and places, in a disarmingly comprehensive style reminiscent of historian Otto Friedrich. Thus, composers who led dramatic lives—such as Shostakovich's struggles under the Soviet regime—make for gripping reading, but Ross treats each composer with equal gravitas. The real strength of this study, however, lies in his detailed musical analysis, teasing out—in precise but readily accessible language—the notes that link Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story to Arnold Schoenberg's avant-garde compositions or hint at a connection between Sibelius and John Coltrane. Among the many notable passages, a close reading of Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes stands out for its masterful blend of artistic and biographical insight. Readers new to classical music will quickly seek out the recordings Ross recommends, especially the works by less prominent composers, and even avid fans will find themselves hearing familiar favorites with new ears. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 640 pages
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (October 16, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0374249393
  • ISBN-13: 978-0374249397
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #17,553 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #44 in  Books > Entertainment > Music > History & Criticism
    #45 in  Books > History > World > 20th Century

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Alex Ross
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
string trio, eternal music, music control, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, apparition from the woods, total serialism, period modernism
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Richard Strauss, Thomas Mann, Cold War, Soviet Union, Los Angeles, Virgil Thomson, New Deal, Ballets Russes, Gustav Mahler, Duke Ellington, Second World War, Peter Grimes, Carnegie Hall, Popular Front, Leonard Bernstein, Arnold Schoenberg, Doctor Faustus, United States, Alban Berg, Aaron Copland, Will Marion Cook, Weimar Republic, Jack the Ripper, West Coast
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Customer Reviews

79 Reviews
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155 of 167 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Not Noise But The Sound of the Twentieth Century in Words, October 19, 2007
By Michael Salcman (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This magisterial book will, for many years, remain the definitive account of classical music (or art music, if you prefer) in the twentieth century, from the time of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler to the age of Steve Reich and John Adams. Ross situates his history of an art form within the swirl of contemporary developments in culture and politics. The many individual stories of composers and their chief works are unified through the use of literary themes, the philosophical musings of Theodor Adorno and a close analysis of Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faust. Along the way, Ross gives us an absolutely riveting account of the musical scene in the Third Reich, covering the composers who stayed and were complicit with the regime, as well as those artists who either fled or perished. He covers music in the concentration camps and the life of composers under Soviet dictatorship. He makes links between modern performance practice and the rise of jazz, bebop and adventurous rockers like the Beatles and Radiohead. His knowledge is encyclopedic and his research prodigous. Here and there his enthusiasms betray him. The heavy emphasis on German music as the spine of musical development turns Wagner into the main 19th century ancestor to modern music, a leit motive throughout the book; he scants the incipient modernisms of Tchaikovsky and the Russian School, the contributions of Liszt, Berlioz and other French composers. The chapter on Sibelius is so long it feels like a Bruckner symphony, ditto the scene by scene analysis of Britten's opera Peter Grimes; these sections are among the few longeurs encountered in a historical text that generally reads like a mystery novel. This book is highly recommended for anyone who is afraid of modern music but be warned, it will make you go out and compulsively expand your library of discs!
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83 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Richly Informative, Engrossing Examination of Twentieth Century Music, December 7, 2007
By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
Alex Ross has the ability and the resources to write about the music of the 20th Century and to establish himself as the creator of the definitive volume with the publication of THE REST IS NOISE: LISTENING TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. His depth of knowledge is matched only by his ability to communicate with a writing style that places him in the echelon of our finest biographers. This book is indeed a comprehensive study of the music created in the 20th Century, but it is also a survey of all of the arts and social changes, effects of wars, industrialization, and quirks and idiosyncrasies that surfaced in that recently ended period of history: Ross may call this 'listening' to the 20th century, but is also visualizing and feeling the changes of that fascinating period.

Ross opens his survey with a detailed description of the premiere of Richard Strauss' opera SALOME and in doing so he references all of those in attendance (from Mahler to Schoenberg, the last of the great Romantics to the leader of the Modernist innovators) and focuses not only on the chances Strauss took using a libidinous libretto by the infamous Oscar Wilde to the astringent dissonances that surface in this tale of evil and necrophilia. The ballast of that evening is then followed throughout the book, a means of communicating music theory and execution in a manner that is wildly entertaining while simultaneously informative.

Ross studies the influence of nationalism in music (the German School, the French School, the British and the American Schools) and then interweaves the particular innovations by showing how each school and each composer was influenced by the simultaneous destruction and reconstruction of the world borders resulting form the wars of that century. He dwells on the pacifists (Benjamin Britten et al) and those trapped by authoritarian regimes (Shostakovich et al), following the great moments as well as the dissonant chances that found audience at times far from the nidus of origin. Ross crosses the 'pond' showing how American music nurtured in the European schools ultimately found grounding in a sound peculiar to this country (Ives, Copland, etc) and allows enough insight as to the influence of jazz to finally satisfy the most critical of readers.

Ross, then, accompanies us on the journey from melody to atonality and back, all the while giving us insights into the composers that help us understand the changes in music landscape they induced. The book is long and demanding, but at the same time it is one of the finest 'novels on a music theme' ever written. Highly recommended not only to musicologists, ardent music lovers, and students of the arts, but to the reading public who simply loves history enhanced by brilliant prose. Grady Harp, December 07
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62 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A feast, a delight, a party, October 20, 2007
By Kevin McMahon (Silverlake, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A history of 20th century music with the history left out, thankfully. Ross writes vividly about specific compositions and imparts his enormous enthusiasm. Everyone who dips into this book will compile a list of works to hear. His avidity is a model for other listeners: he approaches Metataseis with the same eager expectation of enjoyment as the Firebird. And happily his enthusiasm is focused solely on the music--the ideologies, manifestoes, movements and politics of 20th century classical music he approaches with extreme scepticism. He is especially good at teasing apart a composer's words from a composer's music. Naturally he has preferences: he provides several full-length portraits of Strauss and Stravinsky at different points in their long careers, and movingly profiles Shostakovich and Britten, but Schoenberg and Cage appear more as instigators than artists, and Boulez is given up as an obnoxious enigma. But overall, I can't imagine a better guide. While modernism in the visual arts has been pretty much embraced by culture at large (e.g. the crowds at MOMA or Tate Modern), musical modernism, the tradition of 20th century classical music, has not. Whatever the explanation, Alex Ross thinks it's a shame that more people don't know it and love it. He certainly loves it, and it's prompted some of the best writing on music since Bernard Shaw.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars The rest is bias
Often Ross is a very thoughtful commentator of classical and modern music but this book is rubbish. He makes unsubstantiated correlation between German imperialism and German... Read more
Published 29 days ago by LivingWords

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes Bartók, Schoenberg et al easier to listen to
I really wanted just one thing from this book -- to be better able to listen to and enjoy music from the 20th century that is more on the dissonant, arrhythmic, "grating" side. Read more
Published 2 months ago by T. Fisher

2.0 out of 5 stars noise is right
So, let's see. Modern music began with Strauss' opera "Salome," which premiered in 1906, right? Yes, says Ross in this lengthy, boring, chatty, overwritten, superficial tome... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Arnold Cusmariu

4.0 out of 5 stars A Perfect Primer
This book does for modern music what Robert Hughes' The Shock of the New did for modern art - provides both the layperson and the initiate with a perfect primer for a dense and... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Erich Zann

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal
Alex Ross gives a phenomenal overview of twentieth century music in the 500 some pages in this book. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Fingers McGuire

5.0 out of 5 stars The Rest is Noise
An outstanding discussion of music around the turn of the century to the present covering much detail and seldom discussed observations of music and the composers. Read more
Published 4 months ago by John J. Hammerle

5.0 out of 5 stars The essential one volume guide to 20th Century Music
There are already plenty of excellent reviews (and some that weren't), so I will just say that this is a really good introduction to 20th C. Read more
Published 4 months ago by P. Gleeson

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating and Exhilirating Read for Lovers of Modern Music
Alex Ross has produced a remarkable history of music in the Twentieth Century from from the last days of Mahler and Strauss up to John Adams in the 21st Century. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Austin Showen

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting if not too insightful !
I am conducting a series of lectures on the historical approach to music by composers and thought this might be just the book to recommend to my class. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Harry Philips

2.0 out of 5 stars Big and Long Disappointment
I plowed through this book on my Kindle when I first got it. I found it compelling, but ultimately, disappointing. Here are the main reasons why: 1. Read more
Published 5 months ago by R. Williams

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