Alex Ross's Blog, page 266

Listen cover

I'm happy to present the cover for my next book, Listen To This, which Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish on September 28th. The table of contents will be as follows:

Part I

1. Listen to This: Crossing the Border from Classical to Pop

2. Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: Bass Lines of Music
History

3. Infernal Machines: How Recordings Changed Music

Part II

4. The Storm of Style: Mozart's Golden Mean

5. Orbiting: Radiohead's Grand Tour

6. The Anti-Maestro: Esa-Pekka...

Listen To This

I have a habit of finishing books in hotels. I sent off The Rest Is Noise from the downtown Omni in Los Angeles; Listen To This, which Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish at the end of September, went forth last week from a Marriott in Park City, Utah. The new book is a panoramic tour of the musical world, touching variously on Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Verdi, Brahms, Marian Anderson, Frank Sinatra, Cecil Taylor, Led Zeppelin, Björk, Radiohead, Mitsuko Uchida, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John...

Noise everywhere

The phrase "The rest is noise" keeps showing up in unexpected places. Earlier I noted the opening of the club The Rest Is Noise in Brixton, London:

The Armed Forces, a Nashville-based gutter-pop band, has released its debut album:

And don't miss this mix tape by Bodega Bamz:

 

Korova, an Alabama hardcore band that has listed John Cage and Philip Glass among its influences, has a song called "The Rest Is Noise,"
which ends thus:

    The tragic sovereignty of adult life
    Has fought us tooth...

Happy New Year

In praise of SeatGuru

Some time ago I stumbled across SeatGuru.com, and it has made me a happier traveler. It's a site that allows you to investigate the internal properties of various airplanes and locate more favorable seats. For example, with regard to the Boeing 767-200, one is told that seats 16K and 16L "have some extra legroom due to a cutout in the bulkhead," and that "many flyers enjoy the quiet and private feel of this mini-cabin," although "it can get very cold" and there is some danger of a baby...

Spanish noise

I'm pleased and amazed that El ruido eterno, as The Rest Is Noise is known in Spain, is currently listed as the No. 1 non-fiction bestseller (castellano) by La Vanguardia. I will make a brief trip to Spain next week, appearing at the Spanish National Library in Madrid at 7 PM on Nov. 2; the International Institute in Madrid at 7 PM on Nov. 3; and Librería La Central in Barcelona at 1 PM on Nov. 4. I'm tremendously grateful to my Spanish publisher, Seix Barral, and also to the U.S. Embassy...

Audio guide reminder (EU edition)

Audio-Samples zum Buch The Rest Is Noise: Das 20. Jahrhundert hören finden Sie hier.

Para los ejemplos de audio relacionados con el libro El ruido eterno, vaya aquí.

Per esempi musicali dal libro Il resto è rumore vai qui.

End and beginning

Today I'm launching a new blog on the New Yorker website. It's called Unquiet Thoughts, after the John Dowland part-song, and it will offer many of the features that readers have come to expect from this site: the hilarity, the profundity, the delicious recipes. Given the close relationship between my New Yorker writing and my adventures in blogging, it makes more sense to bring all of my activity under the magazine's exacting aegis. The present site will remain intact, with a focus on my...

For Suzanne Fiol

Tragic news from Brooklyn: Suzanne Fiol, the founder of the experimental music venue ISSUE Project Room, has died of cancer at the age of forty-nine. She will be desperately missed.

Dudamel begins

 

Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a firework-enhanced encore of the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth, at the Hollywood Bowl.