Author/teacher/concert pianist Rosen delivers a monumental follow-up to his award-winning The Classical Style (not reviewed), here concentrating on the generation of European composers who ``came of age'' in the 1820s and 1830s: Liszt, Schumann, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Bellini, and, first and foremost, Chopin. This is not an easy read. The greater part of Rosen's arguments require not only the ability to read music but also a firm grasp of basic music theory. Although we are promised a CD of musical examples (not received for review), it seems questionable whether it could allow a musical layperson to comprehend the twists and turns of Rosen's analyses. The thrust of those discussions is to illuminate some of the more startling and masterful changes in musical form that occurred as ``Classical'' gave way to ``Romantic.'' Despite the rise of certain specific ``Romantic'' values (such as the worth attached to the musical fragment), Rosen does not find a wide-scale disintegration of form; rather, he sees old forms reconstituted in new and surprising ways. The unexpected hero of Rosen's musings is Chopin. Arguing persuasively (and at length) for Chopin's innovative formal genius, Rosen removes him from the realm of the salon pianist and places him on a par with Bach in his treatment of large-scale counterpoint and the subtlety of his ``inner voices.'' Rosen is no stranger to controversy, and his advocacy of Chopin will seem provocative to some, as will his decision to omit entirely women composers like Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann on the (questionable) grounds that he does not wish to obscure the ``real tragedy'' that society prevented them from completing the mature work of which they were capable. The compilation of this volume from disparate previously published pieces and lectures may account for an occasional unwieldiness that largely was edited out of Rosen's earlier works. Still, a valuable and important book.
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-674-77933-9
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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