The Rest Is Noise

Listening to the 20th Century

De: Alex Ross

Narrado por: Grover Gardner

The Rest Is Noise takes the listener inside the labyrinth of modern music, from turn-of-the-century Vienna to downtown New York in the '60s and '70s. We meet the maverick personalities and follow the rise of mass culture on this sweeping tour of 20th-century history through its music.

Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, is the recipient of numerous awards for his work, including two ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for music criticism. In addition, he was named a 2008 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, given for achievements in creativity and potential for making important future cultural contributions.

©2007 Alex Ross (P)2007 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

• National Book Critics Circle Award, Criticism, 2007

He Writes What He Cares About and So I Care

If you could sum up The Rest Is Noise in three words, what would they be?

How fusty old composers overcame life's vicissitudes to produce meaning in sound -- Alex Ross's prose makes his critical ear accessible to me. Walking in the park, listening to his words, I could almost hear the tension of the notes that made the first listeners uneasy.

B-O-R-I-N-G!!!!!!!!!!!!

if it was intended to be a history book about music...for the general reader...it missed the mark by a mile....if you, like me, have absolutely zero knowledge about music....cannot play an instrument...don't know the difference between a sharp or a flat.....stay away from this book.....too technical for me....and I suspect the general public.

Excellent for serious music enthusiasts

This book is an important contribution to writings and analyses of 20th century music. It deals largely with 'serious' musical art forms and does so, for the most part, in great depth. By providing the political and social backgrounds during the lives of some composer, Ross enriches the book with valuable contexts that help us to understand the music of each period. He continually makes interesting connections between each composer with both their peers and mentors, providing some astonishing insights that are not commonly known. Fascinating stuff! The period in Europe between 1900 and 1945 is most effectively delivered and illuminating, as is American art music in the 50's and 60's.

Ross is a wonderful writer who employs rich descriptive language and a nice balance between facts and occasional humorous antidotes. The narrator does a fine job of endeavoring to bring the text to life without letting too much unnecessary drama get in the way. It's a large book, and he moves it along at a good pace.

As already indicated by several other reviewers, this book is not for everyone. It would be particularly relevant to the serious music enthusiast, students and music educators, and arts historians. Recommended.

Solid and Fun Listening

This audiobook is to classical music what Bill Bryson's A Brief History on Nearly Everything is to Cosmology. If you enjoyed that work, you will enjoy this. It is packed with insight not only into the masterworks of classical music, but the lives of the composers, their unique relationships with each other, and the history of the time. Its brilliant, and I could not get enough. The narrator is a perfect complement to the book.

I'd Read Ross Even He Just Wrote Warning Labels

When I began reading this book I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. I had the mistaken impression that this was a history of music of the 20th century across all musical genres. It is not that. This book focuses on the history of classical music of the 20th century. It covers jazz, but only how jazz affected and was affected by classical music.

I had half a mind to forego reading the rest of it. Boy am I glad I didn't. I'll be frank, I don't have a particular driving interest in the classical music of the 20th century and even after reading the book, while I am better informed, I have not suddenly become a fan of the genre. It was worth it to read this book just to hear Ross string words together. This guy can write. I kept reading just to find out what chain of words he was going to use next. He's that good.

This is the kind of guy you would quote without attribution at a dinner party to set yourself apart as the most erudite person in the room. I'd give anything to be able to write like this. Ross has a 10th degree black belt in the English language; that's the bottom line.

One note I'd like to add as a point of critique about the format. This audio book would be so much better served if excerpts from the pieces of music being described could be inserted at the proper points. I get that this probably isn't possible with the licencing of some of the music, but it would certainly bring the audio book full circle. It would be the entire package. For all that Ross is a master of using English to describe music, when he tells me that Charlie Parker "scribbled lightning in the air," I like the sound of the words. But what does that sound like in music? This book is great, set it to music and it would be a masterpiece.

It’s a lot to take in.

I love learning more about any type of music, but the more modern music sometimes leaves me mystified. Call me old fashioned, but I like music that means something. I appreciate John Cage, Arnold Schoenberg and the rest of the gang, but I can’t wring any meaning out of their compositions. They don’t write things that I would play when I’ve had a tough day. I would like to hear something that is at least memorable or reproducible. Many of the composers mentioned here do write music like that, and I can get with that. It doesn’t have to be tonal, just understandable.

It seems weird to me that many so called straight line composers such as Beethoven or Liszt were thought of as “way out there” in their time, but even weirder to think that someday people will look at a lot of this incomprehensible (to me) music and wonder why we couldn’t see the beauty of it and love it. So the world goes.

I have bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music and even at that, this book was hard to keep up with. If you don’t have some pretty good understanding of music and music history, don’t waste your time. It will bury you.

Disconnected series of factoids

I was really looking forward to this book, but it was impossible to get into. There really is no theme whatsover to each chapter. It's a laundry list of "interesting" facts that the author managed to unearth--the type of stuff you would hear an obnoxious music enthusiast using to try to impress people at a cocktail party.

The best book I've "read" on the subject

Being a music student, I am surrounded by information on my obsession of choice. However, I find that it is difficult to find good sources for more contemporary music development, style and history. This book provides more than an overview, as it carefully delves into nearly every imaginable aspect of western music in the last century.

Great, entertaining and very informative

But, The chapter on Brittin felt hella too long. Overall great though. Thanks for the knowledge

Excellent in all respects

What did you love best about The Rest Is Noise?

A superb combination of history, biography and musical analysis

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Rest Is Noise?

The extent to which the US government, in Germany after WW II, used music to shape the culture away from Aryan extremism.

Which character – as performed by Grover Gardner – was your favorite?

No characters, a nice piece of non-fiction. He's got a great, and well measured voice. Really appreciated it.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Not sure one would be made but how about Jazzing up the Repertory.

Any additional comments?

If you've got half an ear for classical music and haven't caught on to modernism (which is almost 100 years old now) this is the book for you. You'll refer back to it many times.