A valuable guide to one of the most remarkable works of a musical giant whose undeniable genius continues to resonate...
Novelist and nonfiction author Hamilton-Paterson (Blackbird: The Story of the Lockheed SR-71 Spy Plane, 2017, etc.) delves into the cultural and historical impact of Beethoven's groundbreaking third symphony, the “Eroica.”
It is difficult to imagine what it must have felt like for the first listeners of the legendary composer’s third symphony, a work that changed the game for all music thereafter. To modern ears, it may not sound radically different to previous "classical" works of Mozart or Haydn. However, at the time of its first performance in 1804, nothing like it had ever been heard before, to the extent that even the musicians thought there must be mistakes in the score. The author takes readers back to that time, and earlier, with a detailed history and biography of the composer and the events and people who shaped his writing. Hamilton-Paterson addresses the ongoing question of Napoleon's influence on the composition—which, at one point, was dedicated to him by Beethoven—acknowledging the difficulty of interpreting the composer's intent while maintaining that understanding the historical and personal context "adds much interest" to the work for its audience. Along with the shadow of Napoleon, the myth of Prometheus and the personal tragedy of Beethoven's worsening deafness loom over the creation of the “Eroica,” which the author traces from before its composition, through its initial reception, to its lasting influence. Hamilton-Paterson also offers detailed musical analysis of the work, and though he helpfully provides definitions and background for many of the musical forms and structures discussed, a working knowledge of music theory and classical music history will serve readers well—though novices with an interest in the material should not be deterred.
A valuable guide to one of the most remarkable works of a musical giant whose undeniable genius continues to resonate centuries after his death.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5416-9736-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2017
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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