Concerto Conversations: 6 (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) - Softcover

Kerman, J

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674006739 ISBN 13: 9780674006737

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2002

Synopsis

The concerto has attracted relatively little attention as a genre, Joseph Kerman observes, and his urbane and wide-ranging Norton Lectures fill the gap in a way that will delight all music listeners. Kerman addresses the full range of the concerto repertory, treating both the general and particular. His perceptive commentary on individual works - with illustrative performances on the accompanying CD - is alive with enthusiasm, intimations, and insights into the spirit of concerto. Concertos model human relationships, according to Kerman, and his description of the conversation between solo instrument and orchestra brings this observation vividly to life. What does the solo instrument do when it first enters in a concerto? how to composers balance claims of solo-orchestra contrast and solo virtuosity? when do they deploy the sumptuous musical textures that only concertos can provide? Kerman's unexpected answers offer a new understanding of the concerto and a stimulus to enhanced listening. In language that the "Boston Globe's" Richard Dyer calls "always delightfully vivid", Kerman conducts readers and listeners into the conversations that concertos so eloquently enact. Amid the musical forces at play, he renews the dialogue of music lovers with the language of the concerto - the familiar, the lesser-known, the cherished, and the undervalued. The CD packaged with the book contains movements from works that Kerman treats most intensively - by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Bartok, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev.

About this title

Review

"Splendid, entertaining, original, and often profound... Kerman speaks directly and informally to a literate and educated public deeply interested in music." -Charles Rosen, New York Review of Books; "Concerto Conversations is valuable, even crucial, for its unprepossessing manner, its casual movement from one example to the next, its elegance... and lucidity... [Kerman's] evocations of particular musical moments are immediate and magical. His gift is so uncommon as to make one sad." -Alex Ross, New Republic; "Kerman brings to the discussion of concertos his distinctive vision of American musicology, taking account of its adventures, its limitations and its excesses... [with] vivid analytic description that at its best can change how we hear." -Edward Rothstein, New York Times

About the Author

Joseph Kerman is Professor Emeritus of Music, University of California at Berkeley, and the Charles Eliot Norton Lecturer at Harvard University for 1997-98.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674006739
• ISBN 13: 9780674006737
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192