An unflattering portrait of Germany’s most popular modern classical composer, mitigated by hearty appreciation for his musical genius. Richard Strauss (1864—1949) aspired to follow in the mighty footsteps of Beethoven and Wagner, and this forthright promoter of “New German” music certainly equaled the former in arrogance and the latter in distasteful (though decidedly intermittent) anti-Semitism. Best known today for the opening chords of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (brilliant or bombastic, depending on whom you ask) and several of the very few canonical 20th-century operas (most notably Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, and Ariadne auf Naxos), Strauss won fame early as a conductor as well as a composer; English music producer and editor Boyden offers an especially juicy depiction of the rancid infighting in Greater Germany’s musical capitals, from Berlin to Vienna, where the young artist made his name while undercutting ostensible friends like Gustav Mahler. The author also convincingly argues that, despite his reputation for shocking subjects and aggressively “modern” scores, Strauss was in fact the last of the 19th-century romantics, “an end, not a beginning” (though Boyden also makes a nice case for Rosenkavalier and Ariadne as postmodern works of pastiche and irony). Strauss emerges in this biography as self-absorbed and selfish, the musician-as-businessman more concerned with success than artistic integrity, unable to understand those less effortlessly populist than he. His collaboration with the Nazis, to whom he handed priceless propaganda opportunities by remaining in Germany and even substituting for conductors dismissed for political reasons, is evaluated by Boyden as more a matter of willed blindness than active evil, but nonetheless shameful. Although the author retains his admiration for Strauss as “one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music,” his solid but not especially vivid descriptions of the music may not convince all readers of this claim’s justice. Judicious, well-balanced, and thoughtfully argued, though its readability would be enhanced by a little more passion either for or against the unpleasant Herr Strauss. (illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 28, 1999
ISBN: 1-55553-418-X
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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