For violin fans -- the fourth book in the trilogy
74.105.57.126 |
||
| Posted on June 21, 2015 at 16:04:12 | ||
|
We recently had a good thread on classical music books (thanks for the many good suggestions, all). I recommended a trilogy by the late NY Times music critic Harold Schonberg: Lives of the Great Composers (1970), The Great Conductors (1967) and The Great Pianists (1963). Looking through some of my late father's music books, I found another old favorite: Franz Farga's Violins and Violinists, first published in 1950, and every bit as fascinating and readable as the Schonberg Trio. With these supplying an excellent background, one can move on to more recent histories, memoirs and biographies that cover the mid- to late-20th century. A recent one I greatly enjoyed was The Leonard Bernstein Letters. The editor rightly mourns the end of the days when prominent people routinely wrote lengthy letters. I doubt we'll find many more collections as great as Bernstein's. None of this is quite on a level that would earn one a PhD in musicology. But it is great fun to read.
|
||
