Conductor/pianist Barenboim, recently appointed to succeed Georg Solti at the Chicago Symphony, offers not, as billed, ``a witty and engaging memoir,'' but rather a quiet potpourri of professional reminiscences and aesthetic observations—with personal matters almost entirely off-limits. There are, for instance, virtually no nonmusical references to Barenboim's late wife Jacqueline du PrÇ; he ``became over-sensitive to intrusions'' into their private life during her long battle with MS. Instead, after brief recollections of childhood in Argentina (where his Russian-Jewish grandparents emigrated) and youth in 1950's Israel (where his parents settled), Barenboim concentrates on his career—from first concert at age eight—and on impressions of musicians and music. Among pianists, he singles out Artur Rubinstein, a generous mentor, for his rhythmic vitality; Sir Clifford Curzon, who demonstrated that a musician could combine ``great flair and intuition with deep thought and analysis''; and Claudio Arrau, ``the ideal musician.'' The most important conductors for Barenboim have been stern George Szell (who initially ``told me to stick to the piano''), uncompromising Otto Klemperer, practical Sir John Barbirolli, and Pierre Boulez. His other great influence: du PrÇ, a musical rebel totally devoted to her art (``a musician who also happened to be a human being'') and a matchless expert on stringed-instrument playing. Barenboim discusses piano and conducting technique, the art of simultaneous playing-and-conducting (in Mozart concertos), his love of chamber- music and opera-conducting. (The brouhaha at the Bastille Opera receives a curt few paragraphs.) He laments the modern tendencies toward overcommercial, overtechnical music-making, and repeatedly invokes Spinoza in musings on the metaphysics of music. And, in a rare nonmusical vein, Barenboim salutes David Ben-Gurion and expresses hopes for a more tolerant Israel. Rather earnest and dry, somewhat disjointed—but thoughtful, intelligent commentaries for serious and/or philosophically oriented music fans. (Sixteen pages of photos—not seen.)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-684-19326-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.
Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.
Photographer and author Stanton returns with a companion volume to Humans of New York (2013), this one with similarly affecting photographs of New Yorkers but also with some tales from his subjects’ mouths.
Readers of the first volume—and followers of the related site on Facebook and elsewhere—will feel immediately at home. The author has continued to photograph the human zoo: folks out in the streets and in the parks, in moods ranging from parade-happy to deep despair. He includes one running feature—“Today in Microfashion,” which shows images of little children dressed up in various arresting ways. He also provides some juxtapositions, images and/or stories that are related somehow. These range from surprising to forced to barely tolerable. One shows a man with a cat on his head and a woman with a large flowered headpiece, another a construction worker proud of his body and, on the facing page, a man in a wheelchair. The emotions course along the entire continuum of human passion: love, broken love, elation, depression, playfulness, argumentativeness, madness, arrogance, humility, pride, frustration, and confusion. We see varieties of the human costume, as well, from formalwear to homeless-wear. A few celebrities appear, President Barack Obama among them. The “stories” range from single-sentence comments and quips and complaints to more lengthy tales (none longer than a couple of pages). People talk about abusive parents, exes, struggles to succeed, addiction and recovery, dramatic failures, and lifelong happiness. Some deliver minirants (a neuroscientist is especially curmudgeonly), and the children often provide the most (often unintended) humor. One little boy with a fishing pole talks about a monster fish. Toward the end, the images seem to lead us toward hope. But then…a final photograph turns the light out once again.
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05890-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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