The Rest is Noise

[sawyl]

It's taken me a month or so, but I've finally finished The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross' excellent history of 20th century classical music, starting with the shock of Strauss' Salome and ending with John Adams' dazzling Nixon in China.

I really enjoyed the book — hardly surprising, given all the quotes I've blogged along the way — and I've learnt a alot, particular about the friendships and rivalries that developed between particular composers and particular schools of composition. And if there is a slight tendency to neglect British composers in favour of their American contemporaries — although Britten and, particularly, Peter Grimes, are covered in some detail — this is probably only a sign of provincialism on my part.

Just in case any further proof is needed as to the greatness of the book, I'll conclude with a short quote from the epilogue about the relationships between classical and popular music:

[S]ome of the liveliest reactions to twentieth-century and contemporary classical music have come from the pop arena, roughly defined. The microtonal tunings of Sonic Youth, the opulent harmonic designs of Radiohead, the fractured, fast-shifting time signatures of math rock and intelligent dance music, the elegaic orchestral arrangements that underpin songs by Sufjan Stevens and Joanna Newsom: all these carry on the long-running conversation between classical and popular traditions.

Amen.