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The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

(The Rest Is Noise)

Alex Ross

4.08 · Rating details · 13,492 ratings · 760 reviews

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is a voyage into the labyrinth of modern music, which remains an obscure world for most people. While paintings of Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, and lines from T. S. Eliot are quoted on the yearbook pages of alienated teenagers across the land, twentieth-century classical music ...more

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Hardcover, 640 pages

Published October 16th 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 2007)

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Mar 11, 2015 Tony rated it really liked it

Shelves: music, top-10-2015

You know how you can watch a foreign language movie, without subtitles, and still enjoy the film? You may not speak German but can still tell that Hitler's pissed off. You may not speak French, but you can tell that Juliette Binoche has reached a point of existential doubt in a meretricious relationship.

This book was like that for me. I may not, even now, be able to articulate a difference between atonality and twelve-tone music (is there one?), but I love being told that "some stabbing single ...more

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Jan 01, 2008 Greg rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-about-music

This book took me way too long to read, which is a little strange because I found it very interesting and quite inspiring. I'm tempted to give it five stars, but I'm too much of a dilettante when it comes to cough, serious music to not necessarily take everything that the author is saying at face value. I do have two complaints about the books though, the first is that the author clearly dislikes the one of the few people I probably do count as an actual hero of mine. I don't hold it strongly ag This book took me way too long to read, which is a little strange because I found it very interesting and quite inspiring. I'm tempted to give it five stars, but I'm too much of a dilettante when it comes to cough, serious music to not necessarily take everything that the author is saying at face value. I do have two complaints about the books though, the first is that the author clearly dislikes the one of the few people I probably do count as an actual hero of mine. I don't hold it strongly against him that he finds Adorno to (what's the word), not necessarily wrong, but some kind of extremist snob for lack of a better word. Every time Adorno makes an appearance on these pages he comes across like a rapid attack dog of anti-everything except for strict Schoenberg non-mass appeal. Which might be true, I've never really delved into his music writings too deeply, but the picture of him as an enfant terrible is I like a bit of a cartoonish exaggeration.
The second complaint I would have of the book is that it kind of stops short of being a history of 20th century music and kind of peters out around 1976 with Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. A few other composers are talked about and works that they release in the same year, but all talk of the last quarter of the century is treated in a very fragmentary and stilted manner. Maybe there isn't much to talk about, but the style of the book changes in the last fifty pages or so in a way that makes the very end of the book read like a series of notes the author made on a handful of composers and records. In this last section there are also name droppings of pop artists like Radiohead, Sonic Youth and Bjork, which pulls together the history of serious music with pop music, but without doing much more than dropping the names in the swirl of the kind of chaotic finish.
The author also uses the phrase 'moshpit of the mind' which is almost totally inexcusable in the context it's given in, and actually shouldn't be used by anyone. It's moments like that which seem to make the author trying to hard to sound hip, but there isn't anything hip about using the word moshpit, and really the only people who would ever say something like that are someone's dad who heard the word and thinks it's what with it people are saying. I can't hold this against the author too strongly though.
All in all I really enjoyed this book, and it's treatment of pre-World War 2 music especially in Germany was very informative to me. I have a feeling that anyone seriously into modern music will find the book to be missing some of their favorites, or think the book treats certain movements too quickly, but as a general overview of a chaotic century's musical trends this book seems to do it's job just fine. ...more

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Aug 26, 2018 Paul Christensen rated it liked it

Shelves: music

This book could be subtitled: ‘Musicians who did stuff after Wagner, with wildly varied results’. Wagner hovers like a ghost over this work, the Great Father whose achievements couldn’t be surpassed in toto, only in miniature via crazier and crazier endeavours.

The composers range from deep genius (Debussy, Sibelius) to sterile fapping (too many to name), but whether one loves or hates their music is irrelevant as this is primarily a work of social history.

The author describes ‘classical’ music ...more

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Dec 06, 2013 Jonathan Barry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, music

I think this book is best read and listened to at the same time; it really adds to it. As such, I created a Youtube playlist to go along with your read, which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...

If you're looking for a listen with better sound quality and don't mind finding them yourselves (I can't blame you), then here is the list of songs that I thought captured the book:

Richard Strauss – Also Sprach Zarathustra
Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 8
Claude Debussy – Arabesque I
Cl ...more

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Oct 13, 2014 kaelan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: music

This isn't something I say lightly, but pretty much everyone should consider reading Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise.* Why? Because (a) it makes for a riveting work of political and cultural history, and (b) it provides a layman's entry point into that most venerable of Western art forms—classical music.

I first became acquainted with this book in my late teens. By that time, I'd already immersed myself quite heavily in free jazz, noise, and the like. But classical music—especially the 20th century This isn't something I say lightly, but pretty much everyone should consider reading Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise.* Why? Because (a) it makes for a riveting work of political and cultural history, and (b) it provides a layman's entry point into that most venerable of Western art forms—classical music.

I first became acquainted with this book in my late teens. By that time, I'd already immersed myself quite heavily in free jazz, noise, and the like. But classical music—especially the 20th century variety—had thus far eluded my understanding. Like many otherwise adventurous young listeners, I felt overwhelmed by the plethora of composers, performers and recordings to choose from. And in this regard, avant-jazz was—comparatively speaking—pretty straightforward: all you needed to do was track yourself down a copy of Interstellar Space or Free Jazz or Spiritual Unity. With composed music, the problem was knowing where the hell you should even start.

Enter The Rest Is Noise. Over the course of fifteen chapters, which trace the development of modern classical from Strauss and Mahler up until the present age, Ross examines the seminal musical works of the 20th century, as well as the social and political contexts that birthed them. It's all terribly fascinating stuff. But history only makes up one side of the coin, and the book concludes with a list of recommended recordings (a more comprehensive list may be found on Ross' website) to guide the inexperienced listener through the disorienting terrain of aural source material.

Yet this book doesn't only tell you what to listen to; it also teaches you how to listen. Gifted with an arresting propensity for translating sounds into words, Ross occasionally devotes a few pages to a single piece of music, explaining how a particular snare drum pattern in a Shostakovich symphony, say, might function as a subtle critique of authoritarianism, or how the retrograde rhythms in a Messiaen chamber work serve to hinder the audience's perception of time. And by means of these descriptions, Ross deftly inculcates the art of deep listening, of knowing how to successfully parse a swirling miasma of tones, textures and timbres.

In short, The Rest Is Noise is an effective gateway drug into the wild and mystifying world of 20th century classical music. And so I say, "Bravo, bravo!," as I rise for a standing ovation.

(P.S. If anyone would like some classical recommendations, shoot me a message and I'd be more than happy to oblige!)

* Save for perhaps the illiterate and the hopelessly tone-deaf. ...more

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Jul 15, 2019 Barry Pierce rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2019, music

Alex Ross is one of my must-read New Yorker writers. Whenever a new piece of his comes out I know I'm going to be smarter than I was before. To me, he is the music critic. The Rest Is Noise is often referred to as the book on 20th century classical music. And I can only further perpetrate that sentiment. ...more

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Jul 18, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, history, musician-bio, classical-music

Who says history is boring? And who says classical music died with Wagner? Well I have actually always liked history but was largely unfamiliar with 20c classical music until I read Ross' excellent The Rest is Noise. Alex Ross does an amazing job of writing the history of the 20c in classical music starting at the waning but overwhelming influence of Wagner on early 20c composers like Schoenberg and Stravinsky through the onset of atonal music and on through the wars and the crazy 60's. I had NO ...more

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Dec 29, 2007 Gary rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: cultural creatives, anyone interested in 20th century music / art

alex ross is one of the few remaining music critics for a major american periodical (there used to be many more, but it's a dwindling profession/art), in his case, the new yorker. he attends a concert more than once if possible, with the score and without, in order to both understand the music and feel it. and he's young, so his ears aren't burdened with decades of ear wax, "received wisdom," archaic prejudice, etc.

how rare is it to ever find anyone who can write about music!? (an impossible cha ...more

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Nov 18, 2007 Tosh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: the music adventurer and who credit at Amoeba Music

Shelves: books-bought

Alex Ross' wonderful trip to the 20th Century via the world of classical music and it's composers. As I mentioned I had very little knowledge of classical music - especially modern. I knew Glass, Reich, Satie, but overall this is pretty much a new world music wise.

Saying that this is also the history of cultural life in the 20th Century. The best chapeters deal with Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia and how they used music -and how it affected the composers of that place and time.

In a distant way ...more

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Jun 08, 2012 lark benobi rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, history

This book is made so much more enjoyable because of the Internet--one of the few books you can say that about--because of the availability of samples of the music on the book's web site. I enjoyed the first chapters best because the author allowed me to imagine what a momentous event it must have been, in an age before recorded music, to be in the audience when a composer's music first premiered. ...more

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Jun 10, 2011 Caroline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction

This is a comprehensive overview of Western music in the twentieth century. I was lucky enough to live in Los Angeles in the last decade when Disney Hall opened, so I heard music by many of these composers played by both the full orchestra and by smaller groups in the Green Umbrella series. Plus there was Jacaranda in Santa Monica. Those two sources taught me to appreciate modern music, so I read this with much more experience and curiosity than I would have had fifteen years ago.

But the operati This is a comprehensive overview of Western music in the twentieth century. I was lucky enough to live in Los Angeles in the last decade when Disney Hall opened, so I heard music by many of these composers played by both the full orchestra and by smaller groups in the Green Umbrella series. Plus there was Jacaranda in Santa Monica. Those two sources taught me to appreciate modern music, so I read this with much more experience and curiosity than I would have had fifteen years ago.

But the operative word is ‘read’. In fact I listened to an audiobook, but it wasn’t much different than reading the book. What a lost opportunity--there were no interspersed audio examples of what Ross was writing about. I have heard perhaps 5 percent of the music he describes. I am not a musician, so I was unable to ‘hear’ in my head most of the pieces he describes with substantial verbal ’notation’. I suppose the problem was one of getting rights to that many recordings, but even one example for the major composers would have helped, especially for the last half of the century.

You can go to Ross’s website to get audio samples, which is an essential service if you’re reading the book, but it does seem as if integrating them into the audiobook woudl have been a no-brainer.

Tony has also done a wonderful service in assembling some websites to compensate for this lack; see his review at
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Part of the reason I enjoyed the book so much is that Ross’s own music preferences are on display, and they are very similar my own, excepting Britten. He is acidic on Pierre Boulez’s despotic rule in mid-Century, in particular on his devastating dismissal of earlier innovators like Sibelius. So one notes with a different attitude than before the tributes to Boulez in Sunday’s New York Times (and in fact, some of the ‘tributes’ are given with qualifications) and this years focus on Boulez in Berlin’s Festtage festival. He’s also a bit dismissive of Glass; I do like his Satyagraha nevertheless.

The book is written clearly, for readers of varying musical knowledge. I took two or three years of music lessons, and was able to follow a little of the discussion, but even a complete novice can follow much of the ‘plot’: the various developmental strands of composing schools as well as episodes featuring the full renegades like Henry Cowell. There are plenty of anecdotes to hold one’s interest. For someone with more musical knowledge there is plenty of information about the evolution of the Vienna School and the American avant garde as they invented more and more abstruse systems until the whole thing collapsed. Now we have Salonen and Ades and Adams and Saariiaho and Golijov (loved the Mass from the first moment I heard it years ago) and dozens more going off in all directions. What a cornucopia of ’noise'! ...more

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Nov 06, 2008 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read09, favorites, music

This is hands down the best book I have read about music. Alex Ross writes about composers, their relationship with each other, and how they survive the culture swirling around them, in a way that really captured me, and I work with music for a living. It took me a long time to read because I felt obligated to listen to all the pieces he referenced.

Worth reading no matter how familiar you are with classical music. It is practically a history of the 20th century shown through the music of its cl ...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Lobstergirl rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Suri Cruise

Shelves: music

Ross weaves biography, history, and musical description into a pleasing synthesis, in accessible nonacademic language. He does for 20th century classical music what Niall Ferguson did for the British Empire, in Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World. Both authors are terrific storytellers.

Among the interesting subplots are the relationships (at times close, friendly, grudgingly respectful, rivalrous, prickly, or downright hostile) between various composer pairs: Strauss and Mahler, Prokofiev Ross weaves biography, history, and musical description into a pleasing synthesis, in accessible nonacademic language. He does for 20th century classical music what Niall Ferguson did for the British Empire, in Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World. Both authors are terrific storytellers.

Among the interesting subplots are the relationships (at times close, friendly, grudgingly respectful, rivalrous, prickly, or downright hostile) between various composer pairs: Strauss and Mahler, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Britten and Shostakovich, Messiaen and Boulez, Boulez and Cage, Stravinsky and Boulez. (Boulez comes across as the asshole of the book.) After Mahler's death, Strauss said that "Mahler had been his 'antipode,' his worthy adversary." A colleague once heard this exchange between Prokofiev and Shostakovich:

Prokofiev: You know, I'm really going to get down to work on my Sixth Symphony. I've written the first movement...and now I'm writing the second, with three themes: the third movement will probably be in sonata form. I feel the need to compensate for the absence of sonata form in the previous movements.

Shostakovich: So, is the weather here always like this?

Schoenberg and Stravinsky, "the twin giants of modernism" and exiles of Europe, lived eight miles apart in Los Angeles, yet apparently never met or spoke. (This fascinating expatriate L.A. community also included Rachmaninov, conductors Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer, Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel, and writers Thomas Mann and Aldous Huxley.) It was only after Schoenberg's death that Stravinsky began to investigate twelve-tone composition for himself; he had been "deeply moved" after seeing Schoenberg's death mask at a dinner at Alma Werfel's house.

Messiaen was one of the few deeply religious modern composers. "Fellow composers would sometimes drop by Holy Trinity [in Paris] to find out what kind of music Messiaen played for the parishioners on an ordinary Sunday. Aaron Copland wrote in his 1949 diary: "Visited Messiaen in the organ loft at the Trinité. Heard him improvise at noon. Everything from the 'devil' in the bass, to Radio City Music Hall harmonies in the treble. Why the Church allows it during service is a mystery." ...more

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Dec 20, 2007 Alex rated it really liked it

Ross, whose articles in the New Yorker I have followed religiously for years, and continue to anticipate with a zeal otherwise reserved for The Wire, delivers a multi-layered and exhaustively researched portrait of a century's music and its reception. His account includes not only a collection of nuanced miniature biographies of composers—both the duly celebrated and the tragically neglected—and sweeping, intertextual analyses of "the music"—from jazz rags and pop songs to symphonic masterworks— ...more

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Jan 28, 2008 Tom Choi rated it liked it

This is a tremendous work which dares to tell the great history of music in the 20th Century. But in that it aims so high, it also falls short of its promise.

There are some great "stories" that are recounted here, in particular, the portions concerning the premiere of Strauss' "Salome"; and the spirited rivalry between Strauss and Mahler; the unlikely journeys of Schoenberg and Shostakovich in the New World; and the drama surrounding Messiaen's "Quartet". With these stories, Alex Ross demonstrat ...more

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Jan 05, 2008 Joe rated it really liked it

I began this book almost wholly ignorant of most of its central figures. I knew that "twelve-tone music" was something controversial and supposedly inaccessible, but I didn't know what it was or if I'd ever heard any. So there may be major composers skipped, controversies skirted, opinions presented as fact; I probably wouldn't know.

What I do know is that Alex Ross is a wonderfully passionate music writer, and he did a great job tying the history of 20th century music into the cultures it came f ...more

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Jun 06, 2020 Bon Tom rated it it was amazing

Incredible resource for music lovers. I only regret I didn't follow audio guide, because I didn't know it existed. So be mindful of that.

I believe some basic knowledge about music is necessary to follow and appreciate it, though, to full extent.

Interesting to learn was that even composers, who in my mind are wizards holding all secrets of music in their magic wand, are not immune to perfectly good questions that every layperson probably asks when starting to study any instrument: why is there 1 ...more

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Sep 20, 2016 Sharon Barrow Wilfong rated it liked it

Many things I liked about this book. Ross writes in a chummy, almost stream of conscious style. It gives a good overview of twentieth century music, which I love. However, I felt he spent too much time on certain composers or even some composer's works, devoting entire chapters to them while barely acknowledging others. All and all worth reading but certainly not the most scholarly source out there. ...more

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Aug 06, 2017 martina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: must-read-again, readings-in-musique

I could never make sense of 20th century classical music, especially the stuff from 50's and on. Whenever I picked a random piece, I felt it was hermetically closed in itself, as if created only for the composer's own pleasure, so I often felt I needed some kind of special initiation into this music that I could never obtain. But since there were a few exceptions (most notably Arvo Pärt), I didn't want to give up on it. Then I found out that this book existed.

It took a few weeks, a few breaks, a I could never make sense of 20th century classical music, especially the stuff from 50's and on. Whenever I picked a random piece, I felt it was hermetically closed in itself, as if created only for the composer's own pleasure, so I often felt I needed some kind of special initiation into this music that I could never obtain. But since there were a few exceptions (most notably Arvo Pärt), I didn't want to give up on it. Then I found out that this book existed.

It took a few weeks, a few breaks, a few mental shocks that felt like overdose on information and a few forced returns, but I'm finished with it. Or am I?

Alex Ross is an impeccably thorough critic who decided to look at 20th century classical music in light of historical events, manifestos, policies, ideologies and technological advances. Although the musical life is still messy, the realia serve as a key to understanding of various sub-genres that emerged as reactions to historical events, distastes for certain composers's approaches or struggles in people's personal lives. That way even Ligeti started to make sense to me. Also, I particularly enjoyed how Ross highlights the links between classical and jazz, world music, rock, electronic music, mainstream pop, etc.. He manages to convincingly show how classical is still relevant in current musical landscape, informing other genres (even unknowingly), borrowing from them as well and transforming itself into something that could not have been foreseen in any way before the world wars.

While it seemed to me at at times I was fighting this thick study, in the end I realize that I absolutely loved it. Ross is brilliant when it comes to lively descriptions of compositions, their sound and technical parameters, but he is definitely not patronizing. The book is a sensitively compiled, though not too exhaustive, guide into 20th century pluralism, which leaves the reader free to search through this vast field alone with confidence. In addition, it comes with a link handy resource of online database of excerpts of every major work Ross discusses on its pages, including additional information and free music databases.

All things considered, I think this is a book to have on your shelf for revisiting as you listen through the 20th century at your own pace and according to your own preferences. Quite a nifty achievement. ...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Barnaby Thieme rated it it was amazing

Shelves: music

This ambitious, thrilling guide to notational music in the twentieth century admirably succeeds in its many goals. Alex Ross, recent recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, is an accomplished music critic of the New Yorker. He maintains one of the most readable blogs on the internet: http://www.therestisniose.com.

In this his first book Ross traces the development of music from Strauss's epoch-inaugurating "Salome" through to the work of John Adams, considering modernism, jazz, neo-classicism, This ambitious, thrilling guide to notational music in the twentieth century admirably succeeds in its many goals. Alex Ross, recent recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, is an accomplished music critic of the New Yorker. He maintains one of the most readable blogs on the internet: http://www.therestisniose.com.

In this his first book Ross traces the development of music from Strauss's epoch-inaugurating "Salome" through to the work of John Adams, considering modernism, jazz, neo-classicism, the avant-garde, serialism, experimental music, and minimalism along the way. Special attention is payed to Sibelius, Schoenberg, Britten, Shostakovich, Cage, Reich, and Adams, but no relevant composer goes un-noted. Ross considers nearly every figure I could name, from the infamous (Stravinsky, Ellington) to the obscure (Kagel, Adès ... even Einstuerzende Neubauten gets a mention).

"The Rest is Noise" is a vivid and extraordinarily entertaining retrospective look at the century. Music becomes a template for considering the great social, historical, and psychological currents that defined the period. One of many examples: the fury and sorrow this reader felt learning of the debasement of Shostakovich by petty Soviet bureaucrats gives way to a deeply disquieting sense of unease when Aaron Copland received nearly identical at the hands of the McCarthy subcommittee.

I hoped this book would provide a context for understanding the more bewildering forms of music the last century produced, and it surpassed my high expectations. It does not require a degree in music theory to follow the evolution of chromaticism from Strauss to Stravinsky to Bartok to Schoenberg -- one needs only ears, a half-dozen CDs, and willingness to go on the journey. The rewards are many and profound.

This book is written for the layperson. It contains no musical notation at all, and very little close analysis. Ross's judicious and restrained use of technical terminology is carefully explained. A basic knowledge of the rudiments of theory and some of the broad threads of the history of notational music probably enhance reading this book. Other than that mild disclaimer, I heartily recommend it to anyone with interest in the subject matter. ...more

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Dec 04, 2008 Bob King rated it really liked it

I heard many positive comments on this book, and being a lover of contemporary classical music, finally picked up a used copy. What's unique about the writing is that Ross mixes in just the right amount of historical context to the lively music scene of the past hundred years. You get into the heads of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Strauss and Copland -- just to name a few -- and come to understand that their musical styles were tightly woven into the politics of the time. Schoenberg and his students I heard many positive comments on this book, and being a lover of contemporary classical music, finally picked up a used copy. What's unique about the writing is that Ross mixes in just the right amount of historical context to the lively music scene of the past hundred years. You get into the heads of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Strauss and Copland -- just to name a few -- and come to understand that their musical styles were tightly woven into the politics of the time. Schoenberg and his students totally broke with the traditions of tonality in reaction to the decadent 19th century museum culture that romantic classical music had become. We learn about the influence of jazz on classical music (Stravinsky and Copland loved it, and you'll hear shades of jazz in a number of their works.), how Aaron Copland's leftist political stance helped lead him to develop his populist, American style of music, John Cage and his introduction of chance elements to music composition, electronic music and minimalism's return to tonality and "easy listening" after the thorny paths of 12-tone composition. The author's descriptions of various pieces of music are wonderful. My only criticism is how much time he spends explaining various parts of operas. Maybe that's because I don't care much for opera. As you read the book, you'll want to listen to many of the pieces, which are described so enticingly. I found my CD collection growing throughout. Some of the greatest discoveries for me were the music of Alban Berg and Anton Webern, pupils of Arnold Schoenberg, and Sibelius' 5th Symphony. Webern's "funeral march" in his Six Pieces for Large Orchestra is one of the most frightening five minutes of music I've ever heard. The other movements around it show off amazing and unusual orchestral color you've never dreamed of hearing. Then there's the joyful main theme of Sibelius' 5th symphony that just takes your heart away. If nothing else, Ross's book introduced me to some of the finest music I've ever heard. ...more

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Feb 26, 2016 David M rated it really liked it

I myself know very little about music, but I do like to listen to it. I like to listen to it, and I find the xxth century debates over tonality fascinating. Ross unsurprisingly takes the liberal, ecumenical point of view (he does write for the New Yorker after all); I myself want to be able appreciate a wide variety of different kinds of art, and to my untrained ear it's not obvious why Schoenberg should represent revolution and Stravinsky reaction. Nonetheless, part of me can't help admiring th ...more

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Mar 03, 2008 Pia rated it it was amazing

I'm gobbling this up. I grew up with musician parents but we never talked about music. So Alex Ross feels like the family I always wanted. My copy's studded with 3M markers and I've been on a Mahler binge since I started reading this. I want to hear every piece he mentions, which will keep me busy and happy and moved for the rest of the year. The writing's accessible, generous, and the vivid lives of the composers he discusses make for better reading than People Magazine. ...more

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Apr 11, 2019 In-ho Yi rated it it was amazing

Finally finished reading this masterpiece. My idea of music has matured so much as a result.

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Sep 18, 2019 Thomas rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, history, music

Alright, three stars is actually a pretty good rating considering that, unlike many readers who reviewed this book, I’m neither a music student or a lifelong fan of classical music. I’m just one of those philistines whose knowledge of 20th-century music is basically about the popular variety. Still, I learned a lot and I absolutely don’t blame anyone for giving this five stars. It’s an amazing book and I’ll bet a truly knowledgeable reader would get a whole lot more out of it than I did.

When I f Alright, three stars is actually a pretty good rating considering that, unlike many readers who reviewed this book, I’m neither a music student or a lifelong fan of classical music. I’m just one of those philistines whose knowledge of 20th-century music is basically about the popular variety. Still, I learned a lot and I absolutely don’t blame anyone for giving this five stars. It’s an amazing book and I’ll bet a truly knowledgeable reader would get a whole lot more out of it than I did.

When I first got this book I thought it was going to be a history of all music in the 20th-century and it turned out, instead, to be basically about classical music. When I think of classical music, I usually think of long-dead composers such as Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. When I heard names such as Strauss, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Sibelius, and Prokofiev, it never occurred to me that any of them were still breathing in the twentieth century.

My chief problem, uneducated bore that I am, is the long descriptions of various musical pieces filled with all kinds of technical jargon that render them mostly unintelligible to me. I got through all of them out of a vague sense that it was all very meaningful. This is part of the history of the twentieth century, part of the world we inherited. It’s important, even if I don’t understand it all.

I enjoyed it when the lives of these composers intersect with the history of the modern world that I was already familiar with. I also enjoyed it when the influences on the popular music I grew up with were brought out.

It was a fun point when he describes classical music as the sort of thing that villains in movies are popularly seen as enjoying. The link between Hitler’s love of Wagner and that phenomenon had never occurred to me. I always assumed that the villains were showing off how cultured they were as a way of saying, “See? I’m not so bad. I may be planning on destroying the world, but at least beautiful music will survive.”

I won’t say I’m a total ignoramus, I have heard of Scott Joplin, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein. I probably heard a bit of modern classical music occasionally on CBC Radio being introduced by a host speaking in low tones as if he were afraid that he might accidentally sound like a commercial DJ.

Anyway, it was a bit of a slog for me at times, but I think it was worth it. These were indeed an important part of the sounds of the 20th-century. ...more

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Feb 14, 2020 Caleb rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I am a huge music fan and have really been on a long kick of 20th Century classical and experimental music the past few months, so this book felt like a bit of a no-brainer to read. For the most part, I think it's a great book too, covering all of the various movements and important personages of classical music across the previous century.

If I could leverage any actual complaints at this one, I would maybe criticize it for spending too much time on certain composers that the author clearly favo I am a huge music fan and have really been on a long kick of 20th Century classical and experimental music the past few months, so this book felt like a bit of a no-brainer to read. For the most part, I think it's a great book too, covering all of the various movements and important personages of classical music across the previous century.

If I could leverage any actual complaints at this one, I would maybe criticize it for spending too much time on certain composers that the author clearly favors like Britten (there is a large chapter devoted almost entirely to him that feels a bit overly detailed) and not enough time on others that also had huge impacts like John Cage and Edgard Varese (they're here but more as occasional mentions than anything else).

I might also accuse the author of spending more time on the first 50 years and then rushing through the rest of the century. I know the book can only be so long, but it does spend way more time with topics up until the end of World War II (the first 380 or so pages), and then really starts cramming stuff in after that (the next 200 pages, with nearly a fifth of those devoted to Britten). I would really love to learn more about the latter half of the century and will be looking for a book that covers that more in detail later.

Oh, I suppose the complaint could also be made that this is strictly devoted to classical music, but I didn't actually care about this. There are books out there devoted to the history of jazz and popular musics of the last century so the author really had no reason to cover them here except in mention when say, The Beatles or Frank Zappa did something that related to or affected the classical music world.

That said, this is still a great book. I gleamed a lot of random new stuff to listen to from it, and will surely go back to read certain chapters if I need more recommendations for a time period that I didn't have time to check out this time (there is a ton of music mentioned here and I didn't have time to listen to all of it as I read this). The amount of stuff I learned about composers I like, and even new composers that I'm now appreciating, made this a more than worthwhile read and I'd recommend it to any music lover that wants to understand where classical music went in the previous century, and why. ...more

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Jul 23, 2019 Thom rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

Very complete examination of twentieth century classical music, including the effects from and on people, politics, and other forms of music - from jazz and musicals to punk and hip-hop. The effects of World War II (many composers were Jewish, gay, or both) is strongly felt, but the impact of other politics is also shown.

This is very much an examination of western music, and while influences from Africa color many earlier compositions, Asian countries don't come into play until the end. But this ...more

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Mar 20, 2020 Markus rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: music, non-fiction

It's a good book, don't get me wrong. But it does fall into a number of annoying tarpits along its journey through the 20th century. The amounts of text composers or movements get seems very volatile, the euro-centrism is strong, the political parts make me want to scream sometimes, composers become little animals in Ross' zoo and the last chapter, instead of explaining any movement coherently just glosses over them like a term paper handed in a day after the deadline.
But on the upside, you pro ...more

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Sep 05, 2017 Rudy rated it it was amazing

How do you even write about music? During most of my reading I turn all forms of melodious interferences off. For the most part, I did the same with this book. Sometimes if Ross discussed a piece at length, I'd look it up online and give it a listen on the side. But for the most part, Ross describes the music in such a succinct way. Talking vividly of the specific chords, melodies and instrumentation used and how even the tiniest changes in the pieces reflected the composer's world, personality ...more

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Jan 22, 2021 Valerie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, nonfiction, books-i-own

I learned a lot and don't feel so stupid about music anymore! I'm looking forward to listening to more of the pieces discussed in this book and figuring out what the fuck he's talking about. ...more

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Alex Ross

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Alex Ross has been the music critic of The New Yorker since 1996. From 1992 to 1996 he wrote for the New York Times. His first book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, was published in 2007 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and became a national bestseller. It ...more

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