Irving Kolodin (1908–1988)

Probably no-one's first choice for a history of the Metropolitan Opera, that most venerable of large opera houses which has played a key role in operatic history for 140 years. But this is mostly just a reality of time having passed (this volume was published for the Met's 70th birthday, so we're the same period of time along again!).

Still, Kolodin's book is highly useful for those who are interested in delving into the company's history. Having clearly been allowed great access to the archives, he is able to dig up a range of interesting items - at least interesting to those of us who don't mind stats, old singers, and so on. There is much to learn here, and Kolodin isn't afraid to throw his own opinions into the mix. Glad to have this one.… (mais)

An engaging anthology of writings by composers about music, in particular about other composers, other people's music, their own work, and performance and interpretation. As always with an anthology, there are things in the selection you could quibble about, but there's a lot of interesting and entertaining material to dip into. Kolodin has clearly done his best not to overload the reader with dry discussions of music theory. There are some articles that get quite technical — for instance Berlioz's essay on Beethoven's nine symphonies — but generally the writing is such that you can follow the argument even with only a fairly basic understanding of musical terminology.

The stars of the show are undoubtedly Robert Schumann and Berlioz, both of whom were journalists in their "day jobs". Schumann-the-writer is probably a bit flamboyant and theatrical for modern tastes, especially when he brings in his personae Eusebius and Florestan or when he's duelling with Wagner. All the same, he often has intelligent things to say. Berlioz was clearly a talented writer. He can be flippant and satirical when he chooses, but he also does a very good job of engaging the reader with his passionate enthusiasms, relying on solid arguments as much as much as on clever rhetoric. His piece on the Paris claque (from Nuits de l'orchestre) is a classic piece of satire. Neither Wagner nor Liszt comes out of the selection very well: Wagner because the only subject he can write about for more than a sentence or two is himself (although his piece on conducting is worth a look), whilst Liszt appears as a fond grandmother, praising everything the children do without any discrimination. Tchaikovsky is quite entertaining, in a slightly bitchy sort of way (there's a bizarre piece where he explains how much he admires Brahms physically, whilst dismissing his music in a couple of paragraphs); Clara Schumann seems to combine intelligence with the very un-nineteenth-century virtue of conciseness.

One thing that really leaps out, looking at the book fifty years on, is how much the selection of texts is based on a narrow "great composers" view of music history as something that happened in Austria-Germany, France, and Russia, in the 200 years up to 1914. There are brief acknowledgements here and there that for certain special purposes we ought to be aware of the influence of J.S. Bach and Palestrina, and a passing hint that one or two Italians may have written operas at some point. There is no mention of any other country having a musical tradition (Grieg sneaks in as an honorary German, and Chopin as French). Only one British composer gets a mention: bizarrely, it's Sir Arthur Sullivan, in a rather pointless interview he gave in old age. A couple of twentieth-century composers (Schoenberg and Richard Strauss) get in as writers, but none as subjects.… (mais)