JOURNEY TOWARDS MUSIC

Gollancz's many years as a reporter, biographer, and critic of music and musicians give him a tremendous scope of anecdotes. This book largely revolves around his own development as listener and observer: the earliest days of coming home from the Covent Garden gallery at a scandalous hour; the first glimmerings of his appreciation for Wagner's music (although an inner struggle was later determined ""decisively but with lingering regrets...in Verdi's favour""); his conclusions (backed up by uncommonly good analyses) that ""Wagner had a fascist side to him"" and that he does not care for opera in English; his memories of Destinn, Elisabeth Schumann, Chaliapin and Klemperer, and scores of other musical figures -- as well as some contemporary raptures over Callas and specific criticisms of the over-ornate productions of Zeffirelli. Virtually a whole education in the last century of opera performance, this makes happy reading for a musicologist at any level of expertise: it is intimate without being cloying. Recommended for gift-giving.