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TEMPERAMENT

Name: TEMPERAMENT
Author: Stuart M. Isacoff
ISBN: 0-375-40355-8

THE IDEA THAT SOLVED MUSIC’S GREATEST RIDDLE

by Stuart M. Isacoff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 24, 2001

Well-meaning but disappointing: a history in search of a subject. (45 b&w illustrations)

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Pianist and composer Isacoff delves into “equal temperament,” the18th-century tuning system that carved the octave into 12 equal intervals.

When a Renaissance musician tuned a musical instrument according to the dictates of the Church-approved ancient Greeks, it could be played only in certain keys and was limited to intervals of the octave, fifth, and fourth. This was not a problem until keyboard instruments came into prominence and composers made increasing use of the third and sixth intervals. Unpleasant sonorities resulted from the old tuning, and compositions were rendered unplayable. Kepler, Newton, and Rousseau were among the period’s leading thinkers who took part in the search for a better tuning system. Many elaborate and convoluted solutions were proposed, but equal temperament was the least elegant and most pragmatic, dividing the 12 tones within the octave into 12 equal intervals. Flying as it did in the face of tradition, this solution unsurprisingly drew fierce opposition, but it ultimately prevailed. Painting a vast backdrop for his arcane subject, Isacoff often strays too far afield. He devotes page after page to other admittedly fascinating intellectual issues, from perspective to planetary motion, and although he writes well and lovingly about almost all of them, it’s jarring when he realizes he must return to the matter at hand and thus wrenches the narrative back to the more mundane topic of temperament. And he betrays an anachronistically secular view when he describes early harmonic compositions as the result of “bored monks in search of amusement” without providing any evidence of this alleged boredom. Most difficult to fathom is Isacoff's mere passing reference to Bach's “Well-Tempered Clavier,” surely the most eloquent and staggeringly ingenious endorsement of equal temperament and surely worthy of a few more lines of commentary.

Well-meaning but disappointing: a history in search of a subject. (45 b&w illustrations)

Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2001

ISBN: 0-375-40355-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.