Our critics cast their eyes over this month’s selection of books on classical music
The Bear, the Piano, the Dog and the Fiddle David Litchfield Lincoln Children’s Books
978-1-847-80917-9; 40pp (hb) £11.99
This is the sequel to the awardwinning 2015 The Bear and the Piano, and it’s every bit as poignant and joyful. Yes, it’s aimed at a young picture-book audience, but this is a treat for any age. As David Litchfield neatly puts it, ‘good friendship, just like good music, lasts a lifetime’.
At the heart of the tale are the elderly fiddle-playing Hector and his faithful dog Hugo. Hector has given up performing, feeling downcast that he is ‘yesterday’s news’ when compared to a world-famous piano-playing bear – our hero from the original book. Hugo secretly learns to play his friend’s violin, and embarks on a life-changing concert tour with Bear’s Big Band. Can Hector learn to be happy for Hugo, and will Hugo remember his old friend?
Litchfield’s warm, richly coloured images are filled with gentle humour, while he packs plenty of emotion and nuance into his succinct text – and music has a starring role. You can read it as a standalone book, or in tandem with the earlier volume – which went on to become a bestseller, as this might well do too. Guaranteed to light up the darkest of winter evenings. Rebecca Franks ★★★★★
Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times Alan Walker Faber & Faber 978-0-571-34855-8; 727pp (hb) £30
This absorbing study places Chopin’s life very much within the context of the political and social background of his time. It presents an in-depth analysis of the composer’s complex personality, taking into account invaluable primary sources, particularly concerning his early life in Poland, some of which were not available to previous biographers. Such material is expertly harnessed with the objective of dispelling many longstanding misconceptions, not least those surrounding his turbulent relationship with the novelist George Sand. Working in tandem with this narrative is a detailed appraisal of Chopin’s compositional development, probing the most striking influences on his style, discussing in considerable detail aspects of his pianism, including his favoured instruments and approach to fingering, and assessing his achievement against that of his greatest contemporaries.
Following the structural pattern adopted in his mammoth threevolume study of Liszt, Alan Walker integrates these very different aspects into an entirely convincing entity. It’s a measure of Walker’s achievement that even in such a lengthy book, he keeps the reader fully engaged, presenting accessible and illuminating comments backed up with the full weight of scholarly authority. Erik Levi ★★★★★
The Classical Music Book Gareth Jones (Ed.) Dorling Kindersley 978-0-241-30197-5; 352pp (hb) £17.99
What’s the best way to cover the 1,000-year history of classical music in 350-or-so pages? Rather than simply begin at 1000AD and plod a joyless chronological narrative from there, this Dorling Kindersley guide introduces each period with a set of essays on pieces of music that in some way encapsulate the era in which they were written.
The Baroque section, for instance, includes an exploration of why Bach’s
St Matthew Passion is almost operatic in style, while the Modern section introduces the 12-tone scale via a look at Webern’s Symphonie Op. 21. Clearly and concisely written throughout – and, hurrah, without pretension – the essays can be enjoyed on their own but also knit together coherently as a whole, and there’s an admirable consistency of tone and style. Admittedly, the design takes some getting used to. Every page is stuffed as full as a fridge at Christmas – a bit of breathing space might have been nice – and the shouty caps-lock page titles may not to be everyone’s taste. It is, however, an engaging and informative read.
Jeremy Pound ★★★★
Angela Gheorghiu: A Life for Art Angela Gheorghiu with Jon Tolansky Fore Edge 978-1-611-68912-9; 229pp (hb) £30
‘Angela, of whom you may have heard a thing or two, is a continuation of Gina, of whom you are about to read... and reciprocally, Gina is a continuation of Angela’, announces Angela Gheorghiu in the preface to her memoir, asserting ‘for the first time, the libretto is all mine’. Somewhere, Craig Brown sharpens his pencil.
A Life for Art is co-written with Jon Tolansky, and presented as a book-long Q&A. The prose jars (when Gheorghiu muses on her mother’s imposed role as a housewife, the follow-up question is
‘did your parents sing?’) and the boxed-out marketing-style ‘Angela feedback’ offered by friends, family and colleagues (eg Bryn Terfel) does little to improve matters.
That said, the content isn’t just PR puff. Gheorghiu shares insightful and interesting commentary on life in Communist Romania (including criticising a key establishment figure who sounds like a conservatoire’s answer to Miss Trunchbull), her arrival at Covent Garden and work with notable musicians – with just enough information about her private life. Some readers will find the soprano’s constant self-belief irritating but, judging by the success of her career, she may be onto something.
Claire Jackson ★★★