Oh no, Schoenberg
January 11th, 2008
I’m not quite half way through Alex Ross’ excellent The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. With that frame in mind, I was struck dumb by an advertisement in yesterday’s New York Times arts section. “I Can’t Believe It’s Schoenberg!” was the copy line, promoting a concert that features Verklärte Nacht. Verklärte Nacht was written 108 years ago. What a sad comment on conservative musical taste.
If you’re thinking of reading Ross I’d recommend it only if you have a reasonably good musical background. The writing is excellent and the history is fascinating, but if you either haven’t heard the works he discusses or can’t follow some fairly basic musical discussion I think you’d find the book pretty frustrating.