Our critics cast their eyes over this month’s selection of books on classical music
Beethoven’s Conversation Books, Vol. 2
Ed. Theodore Albrecht
Boydell & Brewer 978-1-783-27151-1
451pp (hb) £45
Here is the second volume in Theodore Albrecht’s fastidiously annotated translation of the little books in which Beethoven’s life was scribbled as his hearing ebbed away. Friends could write their side of conversations without being overheard as they sat with the composer in restaurants, and he could do likewise. This is a heroic feat of scholarship, but why no facsimile illustration? And why no biographical context at the start? We have to infer that at this time Beethoven was composing the Missa solemnis, and obsessing about the guardianship of his nephew. It’s hard to see the wood for the trees.
But these truncated conversations are extraordinarily revealing. Some reflect tortuous negotiations over a possible new piano, customised to profit from what remains of Beethoven’s hearing. Some are memos-to-self: ‘Ink. Salt.
Weiss. Vest. Rat poison. Cloth for underpants.’ Some reflect Beethoven’s healthy appetite:
‘Wild duck – large’. And some are gloriously off-the-wall: ‘Swimming belt, invented by someone in Verona early in 1820. The swimming belt is strapped over the hips and around the body, inflated, and then put in place.’ He actually wanted one! Michael Church ★★★★
Rough Ideas – Reflections on Music and More
Stephen Hough
Faber & Faber 978-0-571-35047-6 443pp (hb) £18.99
Rough ideas is a collection of short essays penned by pianist Stephen Hough (‘rhymes with rough’). The format and content will be familiar to followers of Hough’s former Telegraph blog, although there are extended articles, too. It covers the gamut of pianistic topics – the role of the pianist-composer, pedalling, piano rolls – and subjects pertaining to music more broadly: thrills and spills from the recording studio, plus specifics on various composers (‘Debussy and Ravel: chalk and cheese’). There are also musings on religion (Hough is a Catholic) and ethics.
The text is littered with delightful anecdotes: such as the time Hough failed to recognise his own recording of Britten’s Sonatina Romantica or when he and a group of music student friends got thrown out of a piano recital for bad behaviour. The prose is carefully paced and often poetic (‘music as disposable noise to cover the embarrassment of silence, like some vibrating figleaf’). The book’s structure echoes that of Hough’s novel, The Retreat, which also comprises short chapters.
These bursts of brilliance suffer only because they are exactly that: at times we want more than the given glimpse. Claire Jackson ★★★★
Sir Henry Wood –
Champion of JS Bach
Hannah French
Boydell Press 978-1-783-27385-0
327pp (hb) £55
Footnotes are often overlooked, yet in this meticulously researched exposé on Sir Henry Wood’s devotion to Bach’s music, they become a vital part of the reading experience. Out of countless examples, a mention on p58 of Hungarian violinist Adila Fachiri’s 1937 appearance in Brandenburg five, inspires a fascinating 300word footnote that explores Fachiri’s appearances at the Proms, including performances of the Double Violin Concerto with her sister Jelly d’arányi, and an insightful critique of a rare recording held in the British Library Sound Archive.
The extensive appendix includes all manner of absorbing information, including a transcription of an affectionately colourful biographical lecture on Bach given by Wood in Nottingham in 1901. Wood is often portrayed as an instinctive musician first and foremost, rather than a scholarly thinker. Yet through her painstaking sifting of the available sources and engaging prose style, French reveals a fascinating dichotomy of meticulous preparation and ‘on-thenight’ spontaneous delight. Most importantly, Wood’s vital role in the English Bach revival is revealed for the first time in all its considerable glory. Julian Haylock ★★★★★
The Karl Muck Scandal Melissa D Burrage
University of Rochester Press 978-1-58046950-0 368pp (hb) £25
When German conductor Karl Muck arrived on American shores in 1906 he was feted as ‘the uncrowned king of Boston and the idol of the whole nation.’ Some 12 years later, during his celebrated tenure as the musical director of the Boston Symphony, Muck was escorted from the podium to be interrogated, arrested as a ‘dangerous enemy alien’ and, in due course, deported.
This incisive, powerful book is not so much a biography as a broader cultural history. Certainly, the work fleshes out the rather onedimensional narrative that history has afforded Muck (as a once high-profile musician who, in 1917, refused to conduct ‘The Starspangled Banner’ at a concert and therefore became a victim of ‘anti-foreign sentiment’) but more crucially, Burrage situates Muck as a ‘prism’ through which to examine the shadow of prejudice, paranoia and reckless journalism that engulfed cultural relations in America during World War I. The resulting work is an exemplary piece of scholarship. It is painstakingly written, offering a compelling (and terrifyingly relevant) discussion of the power-play between culture, politics and the darker forces of humanity. Kate Wakeling ★★★★★