Former Foreign Affairs editor Hyland sends an uninspired valentine to the music of his youth. Despite the subtitle, this is not an all-encompassing history of popular song from 1900 to 1950. Rather, Hyland focuses primarily on five of his favorite composers—Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers—and their lyricists. Beginning with Berlin's work at the turn of the century, he briefly sketches the period's theatrical history, then alternates among his chosen composers, examining their better songs and outlining their professional and personal lives. All of this has been well documented elsewhere, and Hyland draws on the usual sources (Alec Wilder's American Popular Song, not reviewed, and the many fine works of Gerald Bordman, including The American Musical Theatre, 1978) to flesh out his narrative and analyses. He tells once again the familiar stories of how Hammerstein and Kern's Show Boat and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! transformed the musical theater, relying on readily available published sources rather than any new research. Hyland brings no radical new thoughts to the table, and pop-song aficionados are likely to be familiar with most of the lore he recounts, so it's hard to say what purpose his overview might serve. Furthermore, the book virtually ignores the lasting contributions to popular music made by black composers and performers. Hyland's history of ragtime focuses on Irving Berlin and his famous pseudo-ragtime song, ``Alexander's Ragtime Band,'' while he spends a paltry three paragraphs discussing the contributions of Scott Joplin, and he barely acknowledges the fine popular songs of Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, and Eubie Blake, to name just a few. A trip down memory lane that turns out to be a critical dead end.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508611-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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