Review of 'The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Although this is mainly a book where white guys from the twentieth century are concerned, it's a lot more exciting than that.
I'm not from a classical music background, and as such, I don't know much about these composers, and I hardly know anything about musical theory.
Having stated that, I must say that this book really comes alive from being well-written, but first and foremost, it's really well researched; Ross is very passionate about presenting the contents, and there's fire all around. He even made me pay attention during the bits about bebop, of which I don't give a toss.
I learned - in a good and fun way - about these composers and how they opted to not give a flying fawk about rules, regulations and what one SHOULD do, but rather created a post-modern punk ethos and just recreated stuff from zilch. It's very refreshing. And yes, …
Although this is mainly a book where white guys from the twentieth century are concerned, it's a lot more exciting than that.
I'm not from a classical music background, and as such, I don't know much about these composers, and I hardly know anything about musical theory.
Having stated that, I must say that this book really comes alive from being well-written, but first and foremost, it's really well researched; Ross is very passionate about presenting the contents, and there's fire all around. He even made me pay attention during the bits about bebop, of which I don't give a toss.
I learned - in a good and fun way - about these composers and how they opted to not give a flying fawk about rules, regulations and what one SHOULD do, but rather created a post-modern punk ethos and just recreated stuff from zilch. It's very refreshing. And yes, the next generation of composers just turns everything on its head once again.
All in all: it's a long book. But don't be frightened of it. There's a web site - www.therestisnoise.com/2007/01/book-audiofiles.html - that complements the book very well, and Ross' tips at the end of the book could be great.