Here, music-journalist Lebrecht (Mahler Remembered, 1987—not reviewed) cannonades world-famous, power-hungry conductors for their facades and for placing money over the welfare of orchestras. Lebrecht bolsters his thesis with an anecdotal history of conducting since Beethoven's Ninth. The first conductor of great fame, he says, was Hans von BÅlow, Wagner's protÇgÇ, who was necessary for organizing Wagner's gigantic operas. Unhappily for von BÅlow, Wagner stole his wife, Cosima Liszt, in the summer of 1865, following which the humiliated conductor led the four-hour premiere of Tristan und Isolde. Then Wagner cast von BÅlow out of his service and von BÅlow went on to become the first internationally acclaimed wandering conductor, despite bad nerves and mental problems. According to Lebrecht, von BÅlow set the style that led to Leonard Bernstein, once the most traveled conductor on earth. Lebrecht sets forth the good example of Mahler, who exhausted himself trying to forge a great opera house out of Vienna Court Opera: ``He set the standard by which all operatic regimes are judged,'' Lebrecht says. The early great conductors, from Arthur Nikisch up to Wilhelm FurtwÑngler, had a sense of family with their players and, like Mahler, focused on the growth of their home orchestra. But post-WW II conductors, Lebrecht argues, have spread themselves thin and become divorced from the players while building mythic images and raking in fees from recording companies. Lebrecht scores lacerating cuts to the reputations of Bruno Walter (``a pig''), Arturo Toscanini (the icon whose brutality became widely imitated), Herbert von Karajan (the ex-Nazi who became the richest classical musician in history), Leonard Bernstein, and many others. Vital, delicious—and dangerous to imposters behind the baton.
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 1-55972-108-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Birch Lane Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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