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kirkdean547's review against another edition
3.0
I think there are a few requirements to really enjoy and understand this book.
1. Listen to and know the Goldberg Variations well. Have a score handy to understand all of the minor details that the author wishes to point out.
2. Be a pianist. Any other musician who’s repertoire almost always requires another instrument to perform (woodwinds, brass, etc) cannot relate to the awe and sacredness that the author puts on practicing and preparing music alone on a keyboard. True music performance does not need to be shared with anyone. So, good luck to all of us folks who’s entire musical upbringing required ensemble play.
3. Play an instrument that was written for by Baroque composers. Anything else is sappy and does not aspire to what music actually seems to be to the author. An academic exercise devoid/separated from the listener’s own enjoyment or experience of it.
4. Have all the music you play memorized. It’s a moral failing if you use sheet music.
5. Ignore the amount of music specifically written for lament and mourning/thinking that people listen to music only to heal the soul. That will allow you to agree with the author’s ideas about music in general.
6. Don’t be religious. Otherwise you’ll listen to the author and struggle to comprehend why it took 52 years to come to terms with life’s insignificance in the grand scheme.
Overall, I disagree with most of the author’s thoughts on music and it’s performance or the experience of it in general. I’m not a pianist, I play woodwinds. So that has certainly affected my perception of music and what I both love and loathe about it. Everything not focused on the general idea of music was well-written and very poignant/personal. It’s hard to share the things that the author has and I commend him for it. I wish the author luck in all his continuing practice. Maybe one day we’ll be blessed with a recording-mess-ups and all.
1. Listen to and know the Goldberg Variations well. Have a score handy to understand all of the minor details that the author wishes to point out.
2. Be a pianist. Any other musician who’s repertoire almost always requires another instrument to perform (woodwinds, brass, etc) cannot relate to the awe and sacredness that the author puts on practicing and preparing music alone on a keyboard. True music performance does not need to be shared with anyone. So, good luck to all of us folks who’s entire musical upbringing required ensemble play.
3. Play an instrument that was written for by Baroque composers. Anything else is sappy and does not aspire to what music actually seems to be to the author. An academic exercise devoid/separated from the listener’s own enjoyment or experience of it.
4. Have all the music you play memorized. It’s a moral failing if you use sheet music.
5. Ignore the amount of music specifically written for lament and mourning/thinking that people listen to music only to heal the soul. That will allow you to agree with the author’s ideas about music in general.
6. Don’t be religious. Otherwise you’ll listen to the author and struggle to comprehend why it took 52 years to come to terms with life’s insignificance in the grand scheme.
Overall, I disagree with most of the author’s thoughts on music and it’s performance or the experience of it in general. I’m not a pianist, I play woodwinds. So that has certainly affected my perception of music and what I both love and loathe about it. Everything not focused on the general idea of music was well-written and very poignant/personal. It’s hard to share the things that the author has and I commend him for it. I wish the author luck in all his continuing practice. Maybe one day we’ll be blessed with a recording-mess-ups and all.
philipe's review against another edition
5.0
I loved every page of this book. Any musician who has ever experienced loss should pick this book up. It’s a beautiful and poignant look at how we know music as well as how we truly know a person. Reading this I don’t know if my description can really describe how meaningful and beautifully written this memoir is, but I can not recommend it enough.
zhzhang's review against another edition
5.0
I truly love every sentence of this book. It is so beautifully written, and I also cannot help listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations for the first time while I was reading it. I think it definitely won't be my last. I like his writing about his mom a little bit more than Bach, maybe for me, being a mom and a patient myself, it is more related to my ordinary life. I listen to my daughter's playing Bach for years while she was playing either piano or violin, and I can tell he is not her fan. But the paragraphs about grieving, or just about life itself, music in generally, oh, those words, have touched my heart so deeply!
vivacissimx's review against another edition
4.0
Two parallel threads run through this book, the "Bach" and the "Mother" respectively. As someone who knows almost nothing about the science of music there were parts of this that were hard to read, but as someone who was invested in completing this book, I nonetheless found the extended metaphors appropriate/understandable for the music philistine audience.
The author is my favorite art critic at WaPo, the newspaper I've read since childhood, so I was eager to read this. Having a more intimate view, sans art criticism, was exactly what I signed up for. And he delivered.
The author is my favorite art critic at WaPo, the newspaper I've read since childhood, so I was eager to read this. Having a more intimate view, sans art criticism, was exactly what I signed up for. And he delivered.
nastoulis's review against another edition
5.0
Beautifully written, informative, honest and very very moving. Absolutely loved it
cayley_graph's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
I learned a lot about Bach and also why some classical music recordings sound so dead — as if every note has been drilled beyond meaning — and amateur recitals sound so lively (the excitement of wrong notes and spontaneous expression).
Though the author concludes that Bach did not channel his grief better than angry birds, I would say that it gave him a lens through will to see his grief, as if it were the grief of someone else.
Though the author concludes that Bach did not channel his grief better than angry birds, I would say that it gave him a lens through will to see his grief, as if it were the grief of someone else.