Book Reviews - MusicPick a book or just scroll at leisure.
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Deryck Cooke
The Language of Music
First published in 1959, this was a ground-breaking work in the field of musical psychology. Arguing against the claims of the likes of Stravinsky and Hindemith that the scales and idioms of western music are ultimately arbitrary, Cooke insists on the fundamental role of physical harmonics in music appreciation. His systematic description of each musical interval's emotional 'meaning' in terms of its notes' harmonic relation has not received universal favour, but to me his theory rings true. Very occasionally the exposition gets a bit heavy, especially if you're not familiar with either physics or musicology, but the thrust of his argument I found pretty compelling.
Paul Griffiths
The String Quartet
A pretty thorough history of this niche classical music form. Readable if you're one of the few dozen people in the world interested in chamber music. Arguably a bit dry, though.
Bernard Haggin
The Listener's Musical Companion
Starting with Beethoven, Bernard Haggin works his way through discussions of the major composers (and many minor ones), then explains the basics of musical form, and finally surveys historic recordings.
This is by far the best introduction I know of to classical music. Haggin is opinionated and idiosyncratic: he writes surprising surveys of the works of Bach and Brahms, alleging much of their output to be overrated; conversely he places Berlioz and Tchaikovsly among the greatest of all composers, very much against the grain of his contemporaries' views. But the controversial opinions are never gratuitous: he makes his cases carefully but forcefully, and like an expert lawyer usually ends up persuading his audience that he's right.
Haggin has the gift of being able to convey in a sentence what others would take three pages to say. That's why, despite being only 400 pages long, this is a truly encyclopaedic work in its scope. But its value is not just in the information it imparts: Haggin's prose is a perpetual pleasure to read for its own sake.
Haggin died in 1985. 'The Listener's Musical Companion' is available in a posthumous edition, edited by Thomas Hathaway to incorporate bits and pieces of Haggin's work that were absent from earlier editions. You can't actually tell where Haggin ends and Hathaway begins, which can only count as a recommendation.
Leonard B Meyer
Emotion and Meaning in Music
This book predates Deryck Cooke's 'The Language of Music' by a couple of years, and its discussion of the emotional resonances of tonality seems pretty obtuse in comparison (Meyer essentially maintaining that our associations of particular intervals with particular meanings is wholly arbitrary and culturally conditioned). Also, compared to Cooke's engaging prose, Meyer's is decidedly dry and academic. However, he does have interesting things to say about aspects of music such as rhythm and the role of psychological expectation, and he brings in the music of other cultures, in contrast to Cooke's focus on the European classical canon.
Muriel Nissel
Married to the Amadeus
Muriel Nissel was the wife of Siegmund Nissel, second violin of the celebrated Amadeus Quartet. She has interesting tales to tell, but unfortunately she fails to organise her material coherently, and doesn't display much real insight into either the personalities or the musical world of the players.