Music and More: Essays, 1975-1991

by Samuel Lipman

Overview

"Classical music today is in deep trouble." With these disturbing words, Samuel Lipman introduces us to his own testimony on the current condition of music-and of our culture itself. His bold essays passionately defend the best in this culture against what Lipman sees as its growing banalization and politicization. Lipman's expertise in music is unmistakable, but he writes with the general reader in mind-lucidly, nontechnically, arrestingly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810110519
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	09/30/1992
Edition description:	1
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Samuel Lipman is the publisher of The New Criterion, the music critic for Commentary, and the author of The House of Music: Art in an Era of Institutions; Arguing for Music, Arguing for Culture; and Music after Modernism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Culture of Classical Music Today

Part One: Composers
1. Music and Mao
2. Why Kurt Weill
3. American Music: The Years of Hope
4. Lenny on Our Minds
5. Hugo Weisgall's Six Characters
6. A New Look at Prokofiev

Part Two: Pianists
7. Rubinstein the Great Entertainer
8. Bartók at the Piano
9. Keith Jarrett Joins the Bach Parade
10. The Pupils of Clara Schumann and the Uses of Tradition
11. Does the Piano have a Future?

Part Three: Conductors
12. Willem Mengelberg at the Philharmoic
13. Pierre Monteux's Success
14. Toscanini and the Love of Great Music
15. Roger Norrington and Authentic Performance

Part Four: Critics and Writers
16. James William Davison of The (London) Times
17. James Huneker and America's Musical Coming-of-Age
18. Edward Said, Music Critic
19. But If the Artist Fail?

Part Five: Culture and Society
20. Ivy Litvinov: The Commissar's Wife
21. The Muse under Mussolini
22. Say No to Trash: Mapplethorpe and the NEA
23. Opera and Politics
24. Backward and Downward with the Arts

Notes

Editorial Reviews

"Much of the time, Lipman is not merely right, but readably, incisively, alone-in-his-time right. . . . Lipman is required reading for all who fear, quite rightly, for the survival of concert music and the cultural values it represents."
—Washington Post Book World



"Occasionally a critic will emerge who is aware that our civilization and its music are not two things but one, and that the preservation of musical taste is a task worthy of the greatest sacrifice. Such a critic is Samuel Lipman."
—National Review



"Concert pianist, critic, festival director, publisher of The New Criterion, and sometime member of the National Council on the Arts, Lipman has emerged in the United States over the past decade as one of its most influential defenders of conservative high culture."
—Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher

Lipman ( Arguing for Music, Arguing for Culture , LJ 10/15/90; The House of Music , LJ 8/84), always provocative, insightful, and highly opinionated, discusses and criticizes a wide range of music-related topics in this collection of 24 essays, all of which were previously published over the past 17 years. Composers and performers, critics and politics, audience and musicologists are all grist for Lipman's mill, and he treats them all with a combination of skepticism and respect. There is no question as to where the author's values lie; he states them clearly and defends them with a ferocity born of a deep love for the art. Readers may not agree with all of Lipman's opinions, but he will give them cause to re-evaluate their own positions. This challenging and thought-provoking work is strongly recommended.-- Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto

Library Journal