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
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Riveting and exquisitely crafted.
Musician, poet and visual artist Smith (Trois, 2008, etc.) chronicles her intense life with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe during the 1960s and ’70s, when both artists came of age in downtown New York.
Both born in 1946, Smith and Mapplethorpe would become widely celebrated—she for merging poetry with rock ’n’ roll in her punk-rock performances, he as the photographer who brought pornography into the realm of art. Upon meeting in the summer of 1967, they were hungry, lonely and gifted youths struggling to find their way and their art. Smith, a gangly loser and college dropout, had attended Bible school in New Jersey where she took solace in the poetry of Rimbaud. Mapplethorpe, a former altar boy turned LSD user, had grown up in middle-class Long Island. Writing with wonderful immediacy, Smith tells the affecting story of their entwined young lives as lovers, friends and muses to one another. Eating day-old bread and stew in dumpy East Village apartments, they forged fierce bonds as soul mates who were at their happiest when working together. To make money Smith clerked in bookstores, and Mapplethorpe hustled on 42nd Street. The author colorfully evokes their days at the shabbily elegant Hotel Chelsea, late nights at Max’s Kansas City and their growth and early celebrity as artists, with Smith winning initial serious attention at a St. Mark’s Poetry Project reading and Mapplethorpe attracting lovers and patrons who catapulted him into the arms of high society. The book abounds with stories about friends, including Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, William Burroughs, Sam Shepard, Gregory Corso and other luminaries, and it reveals Smith’s affection for the city—the “gritty innocence” of the couple’s beloved Coney Island, the “open atmosphere” and “simple freedom” of Washington Square. Despite separations, the duo remained friends until Mapplethorpe’s death in 1989. “Nobody sees as we do, Patti,” he once told her.
Riveting and exquisitely crafted.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-621131-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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