Classical Convert

The Rest Is Noise on Holiday

I’m vacationing downsouth in the wildly wiles of South Carolina, currently, and to a general audience of surprise and satisfaction there is wireless in existence. Praise be! Simultaneously with this pleasing, non-lab, intermittent internetting, the stack of books that collects itself together over termtime (and even more so over the present-giving period) is getting partially digested. For one, this includes the ever so enlightening tome which is The Rest Is Noise, by Alex Ross.

Only up to about page 100 or so, so far, but it’s already an extremely inspiring experience. His descriptions of pieces are wonderful, a perfect blend of technical details with emotional feeling. As Emanuel Ax testifies in a blurb on the back:

“… Alex Ross has written a true rarity — a book about music that makes you want to run and listen to every note he talks about”

I wanna get my hands on Mahler 6, and even some of the particulrly uncomfortable sounding bits by Berg, if only to compare their notes to his written ones.

There are a bunch of other points which deserve talking about, but that’ll have to wait until another day as my head is too red-wined up, and full of food and sleep.