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Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time Paperback – August 17, 2000

4.5 out of 5 stars 94

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"A supermarket tabloid of classical music criticism." ―from the 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 Bülow, 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").


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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nicolas Slonimsky, pianist, composer, conductor, author, lexicographer, jingle writer, and parent who spoke Latin to his daughter, died in 1996 at the age of 100.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (August 17, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 039332009X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393320091
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 94

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4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
94 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2015
I'm not so much aware of (lack of good exposure, uh, availability, not a college "music appreciation" fun class) classical music, but whenever I can pick up something interesting and a good lead, worth a read. Note: up front, the earliest copyright date shows 1953, and a 2000 paperback reprint.

Viciously funny. The classical (1850+) equivalent of Ambrose Bierce's DEVIL'S DICTIONARY. The reviews' prose (beginning p. 39) runs to 19th Century flowery, but the venom comes through loud and funny clear. If you're a music/recording buff looking for leads on classical composer plugs after the "sweet stuff" everyone of the they-think-they're-educated Great Unwashed thinks is the ONLY acceptable Classy-cal Music, pick up this book. As a music recommendation book, this tome works as an anti-book: bad is good, but WORST is BEST.

Most interesting aspect of the book, for my kitsch weirdo rock-music-is-the-devil's-music bookshelf self-lobotomizing reading interest, is featured in "Non Acceptance of the Unfamiliar," which runs pp. 3-33, especially pp. 24-25, where you pick up concerns about Depression era VOODOOISM IN MUSIC by Sir Richard R. Terry and Cyril Scott 
Music and Its Secret Influence: Throughout the Ages  (See also David Tame  The Secret Power of Music: The Transformation of Self and Society through Musical Energy  which extensively quotes Scott's anti-jazz "dark forces" mental-telepathy-with-dead-and-fictional-people work, and Tame got an expert boost in Frank Garlock's 1992 teaching textbook,  Music in the Balance ). The information presented about corrupt Gallic morals, eeevil syncopated voodoo drums  The Sounds of American Doomsday Cults, Vol. 14: The Church Universal and Triumphant, Inc. feat. Elizabeth Clare Prophet , slavic commie brainwashing symphonies  The Marxist Minstrels: A Handbook on Communist Subversion of Music , and uncomfortable picture art (paintings that aren't just like color photographs) is still being blustered about in U.S. and some U.K. halloween non-fiction "research" tracts scaring people today.

Like backward-masking demonic conspiracy literature, this book is a roadway to (serious) music styles well worth checking out.
7 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2019
taken a few at a time, great and amusing reading
Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2015
I've known this book for more than 50 years. I have never owned a copy, and this paperback, with introductory essay by Peter Schickele, (itself worth the price of the book) was something I felt I should finally own outright. What makes it so enjoyable is the gusto with which so many writers of reviews of musical performances have launched into the task of destroying the reputation of the composers of the music in question. We know from the outset that these reviews will be dead wrong, since the composers in question constitute the canon of modern concert music. That makes it all the more fun, seeing these folks make fun of music that is now considered unassailable. How could they be so far off, we ask ourselves? Yet, just stop and think of what you thought, the first time you heard The Rite of Spring or some of the Bartok string quartets, especially if these encounters took place 50 or 60 years ago. A lot of reviewers' prose has flowed onto the pages of various publications, and some of the authors of these remarks would be just as happy if we didn't remind them of everything they said, way back then.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2017
An unusual and peevish little book that assembles various critics' nasty remarks about some of the most glorious music of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Helps to remind one that the great standards were once dangerously envelope-pushing in terms of style and technique, and offended critics and their "standards" most of all. (Numerous composers, including Wagner, have been accused of employing 'trained cats' in the orchestra, for example.) You wonder how the alleged taste-makers could have been so gloriously wrong about "the music of the future." Besides that, it's very, very funny. Highly recommended.
6 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2015
A must-read for all artists, also scientists, anyone whose work is subjected to public criticism. The sting of a negative review will surely be softened by the knowledge of such things as Chopin being accused of the "crudest modulations" and preventing "the slightest idea when wrong notes are played", &c., and similarly for many revered composers. In fact, the only downside is realizing that one has not walked among the greats until one has been publicly raked over the coals.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2015
Great in small doses. Interesting to read original critiques of music you love and know now are a part of the best symphonic literature.
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2015
It's a fun book to read for music history smack talk. Because it is a well-known book, I've heard a few of my colleagues recommend it as a source if someone is interested in music criticism. I don't really think it is that useful, though, as a source for serious research. But, it is very fun to read in spite of that. I like to turn to a random page from day to day and read the bluster.
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2023
Let's not confuse the amusement from reading the cited passages with endorsement of the author's clear prejudiced ideology of favor of Schoenbergian musical modernism that since the early 20th century failed to "catch on" in the music hall without state endorsement in some form.

Top reviews from other countries

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ramon s
5.0 out of 5 stars Gran libro. U
Reviewed in Spain on October 31, 2022
Divertido e iluminador
Samuel
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly funny! Fantastic little book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 11, 2017
Amazingly funny! Fantastic little book! Always a good laugh to look up a piece before playing it to see how accurate the comments are. Would recommend to any classical music lover.
Giovanni Neri
5.0 out of 5 stars Sciocchezzaio musicale
Reviewed in Italy on May 20, 2013
Un libro la cui prima edizione risale agli anni '50 dello scorso secolo. Raccoglie le parti più significative di articoli di giornali, lettere etc. che attaccano con incredibile (e oggi riservata solo alla politica..) violenza le novità musicali dell'800. Vi sono articoli in inglese (la maggior parte), in francese e in tedesco (entrambi con traduzione in inglese). La lettura è esilarante e costituisce un esempio lampante di come il conservatorismo (in questo caso musicale) offuschi le menti delle genti. Una lettura assolutamente indispensabile per chi ami la musica e voglia conoscerne il percorso di sviluppo nel tempo
18pouce
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in France on December 26, 2012
Drôle, original...Il faut avoir un minimum de culture musicale classique pour l' apprécier. SI c'est le cas, on se régale.
Alfredo
4.0 out of 5 stars Ilustrativo y provocador
Reviewed in Spain on January 14, 2023
Se trata de una recopilación de críticas publicadas en periódicos y revistas especializadas de Europa y Estados Unidos, sobre estrenos de obras de muchos compositores, desde comienzos del s. XIX hasta mediados del s. XX. Hoy en día se nos hace extraño que en su tiempo se pudieran escribir críticas feroces sobre piezas de Beethoven, Brahms o Chaicovski, pero ahí están. La provocación es que en la actualidad nadie se atreve a criticar en público los estrenos de la música más vanguardista, cuando la realidad es que algunas de ellas son execrables..