Rossian Mechanics
I want YOU! to know!
There are few journalists, in any field, writing today that I admire so dearly as Alex Ross of the New Yorker. His undying resilience to prove that music of the classical class is as relevant, malleable, and transparent today as ever is matched only by his ability to do so in an informed, well-balanced, erudite, and accessible way. He writes with enthusiasm and hope. Please be good to yourself and pick up a copy of The Rest Is Noise. It is a compelling and thorough expose on the development and cross pollination of musical ideas and movements in the twentieth century. It identifies and examines in a coherent and linear way the cataclysmic myriad of fragments that characterize the past 100 years of musical growth. Not only does he succeed in providing in-depth analysis and expository information on every major, and most minor, musical figures, he achieves his goal of convincing his reader the unity these fragments have found is as self-aware and confident as possible. And he contextuales everything on the page the same way the ideas he writes about did. You discover why Shostakovich wrote the music he did, why Strauss remained his austere self to his bitter old end, why you have never heard the great majority of hybrid genres formed throughout the mid-century avant garde, and how faithfully and beautifully John Adams holds the reins to the 21st century chariot. Enjoy.
