30-SECOND CLASSICAL MUSIC
Ivy Press ISBN 9781782404255; (hb) 160pp
‘The 50 most significant genres, composers and innovations, each explained in half a minute.’ It’s a bold claim made by 30-Second Classical Music , so I decided to put it to the test. All being equal, if I started at 11.35am, I should have done my whistlestop chronological tour of Western art music, from Pythagoras to Hans Zimmer, by midday. And I wasn’t so far off: after 25 minutes of reading, skipping the extra artist profiles and glossaries, I had reached the section on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A quarter of an hour more did the trick, averaging out at 48 seconds per explanation – far less catchy than the actual title. Still, the underlying point is that this history is neatly bitesize, if that’s what you want, and written in straightforward prose by well-respected writers. Each entry is illustrated on the facing page, sometimes helpfully, sometimes not.
That’s the format, how about the content? Great composers are interspersed with explorations of genre, although there’s no interrogation of how the Western canon has come about or exploration of who it leaves out. There are one or two questionable (if not downright wrong) claims: Stravinsky is named as one of the most notable symphonists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for instance. That same list doesn’t include Mahler or Bruckner. Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony is described as a tribute to Napoleon, without any discussion of the withdrawn dedication. In the ‘3-second biographies’ that accompany each entry, Anton Rubinstein and Franz Schubert appear twice, which seems rather redundant. And then let me return to those profiles and glossaries. Each era features an artist, presumably to encourage people to go and listen.
But Clara Schumann – oddly placed in the ‘Classical’ era to go with ‘The Piano’ entry – wasn’t around for the advent of recording, and when it comes to the six modern artists featured, there are no listening suggestions. The Rough Guide to Classical Music may take up more of your seconds, but it’s a much more useful volume. Rebecca Franks