Beethoven and Me: A Beginner's Guide to Classical Music

by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson is best known as an African-American commentator on politics, race and social issues. Yet, for decades he has inhabited another world that seemingly is as far removed from the day’s political and social conflicts that he specializes in discussing and writing about as the sun and the moon. It’s the world of Western Classical Music. He has long had an enduring love and passion for the music and has written and commented about it in his radio shows and columns. Now, in his forthcoming book, Beethoven and Me: A Beginner’s Guide to Classical Music, Hutchinson breaks through a hard barrier that has long separated politics and social commentary from music, in this case classical music.
He shares his many personal experiences in concert halls and his observations about the world of classical music. Beethoven and Me: A Beginner’s Guide to Classical Music is a fast paced, easy to understand survey of the music’s well-known and not so well-known composers, their music and their struggles for recognition. He brings a fresh and his very personal perspective in discussing them and their music.
Hutchinson makes it easy for the reader by deliberately minimizing using technical terms and language. Throughout the book, he provides the reader with a highly personal running commentary of his experiences in front of and behind the orchestra stage during two decades of active listening and commenting on classical music. Along the way, he details the influence and struggles of African-American, Hispanic and women composers in the classical music world who more often than not have been shamefully neglected or marginalized in the classical music tradition.
Beethoven and Me: A Beginner’s Guide to Classical Music is Hutchinson’s personal, and very selective, impressionistic walk through the history, tradition and experience of classical music. It’s a primer written for a very beginning listener. Hutchinson has boldly stepped out of his role of political and social commentator to show that music and the compelling social issues of the day need not be separate.

200 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2015

Reviews

[Necalli Calavera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a music performance major and I think this book is GREAT for those who aren’t like me and study classical music and want to get a sense of it.
The author did a wonderful job with this!

[Earl Ofari]

Review

Beethoven and Me-A Beginner’s Guide to Classical
Music

Earl Ofari Hutchinson



By Pedro Baez



First off, I’m not into classical music as I am into R&B, Rock N’ Roll, Jazz, and Salsa. In recent times, I have come to like classical music. Many of my friends through the years have dismissed classical music as bourgeoisie, elitist, upper crust, and white.



What many didn’t want to admit is that they didn’t understand the music. Perhaps like me the music scared them.



Scared?



Yes scared. It’s not uncommon that if we are unable to comprehend we develop a dislike or even a hatred towards what we consider the unknown.



That’s the way it was for me when it came to classical music. Most of the pieces that I had heard started out slow, then rose to a pulsating and rapid succession music that seemed to overpower me.



As we said back in the day, I didn’t dig it.



What Hutchinson has done is to take the reader through the history of the classical genre and offered examples that the reader to help understand and appreciate the music.



In other words now you can dig what Hutch has dug for a long time.



While I had gradually began to like classical, I really began to appreciate it more when I listened to the album “Bird with Strings.” When word came out that Charlie Parker was going to do this project, many said that he was a sellout to jazz. When the project was finished and people heard it, they said it was great, tremendous. It basically began to break the notion about classical being music for the elite. Later the myth was literally broken into more pieces when the late Leonard Bernstein began airing the “Young Peoples Concerts,” on Sunday afternoons after NFL football games.



Bernstein had assembled an orchestra of New York City schoolchildren that resembled the city. The orchestra, consisted of Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Whites. They played really well.



In essence what Hutchinson is attempting to do is to say to the skeptic is that you don’t have to be of European descent to appreciate the music. The book doesn’t just talk about Brahms, Mozart, and Beethoven. It also speaks of composers like Chavez, and Lara.



There is no need to fear that you are betraying your race or ethnic group if you go to hear classical music. Many of the greats in jazz learned their craft studying classical scales and sonatas.



Hutchinson feels that many are missing out on what is great music and never knowing the enjoyment that could be there’s.



It’s all in this book.

[Gatsbys OK · Rating 5 out of 5]

The conventional wisdom on classical music is that it’s for the white elite—essentially irrelevant to modern, younger, culturally diverse listeners and musicians. Hutchinson’s insightful, eye-opening book Beethoven and Me roundly debunks that myth, diving into the rich history of classical composition and racial/gender politics with the flair of a seasoned analyst and enthusiast. The book begins with his recollection of his unlikely introduction to classical music in college during the turbulent 1960s. This insight into his development as a young African American listener and lover of a “dead white guy’s” genre underscores the value of pursuing interests that buck mainstream stereotypes and expectations; a theme he amplifies in his evaluation of the influence of unsung African American and Latino composers. In chapter four, Hutchinson notes that, although there has been a “deep, varied and rich” history of composers and musicians of color, “the recognition of this has always come in relation to the work of a major (white) composer”. He cites the work of Saint-Saens and Dvorak as examples of how African American musical motifs and idioms have been appropriated by European composers. Dvorak’s flagship “New World” symphony incorporated elements of a “Negro” spiritual, while Saint-Saens traveled to Africa and wove North African idioms into at least two of his works. In this chapter he also recognizes the work of little known African American composers such as Florence Price, Ulysses Kay, Margaret Walker Allison and George Walker, while giving a shout out to contemporary “non-traditional” black composers Jonathan Bailey Holland George Lewis. In the next chapter, Hutchinson notes how Latino composers have challenged Western Eurocentric conventions in their music. In 1930, Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas pushed back on European orthodoxy in classical music, arguing that “I realize how much my music is bound to disagree with all norms established by these civilizations”. Revueltas challenged classical conventions by infusing his symphonies with the mariachi and brass instrument idioms of Mexican musical traditions, while using dissonance as tonal counterpoint in his work. The book’s effort to amplify the cultural relevance of these composers and traditions is a welcome departure from more assimilationist perspectives on non-Western or non-European classical traditions. On balance, Beethoven and Me has value for both aficionados and novices as an antidote to the largely segregated universe and rarefied scholarship of classical music.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book to introduce audiences to classical music. The author takes the reader through the full timeline of great composers and describes his experience with their music either through live concerts or internet media. Throughout the book he recommends either youtube videos or listening tracks to familiarize readers to the type of music the composer produced. What's nice about this author is he researches black, Latino and women's experiences with classical music providing many examples and reasons to listen and expand your repertoire to more than just the greats.

[Marisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really cool. I was interested in classical music when I was young and played Piano (self-taught) this made me remember why I had loved classical in the first place and brought me back to both practising and listening. Great book, especially when the current music coming out is remixed and lacking emotion and feeling like the great composers.