The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross

I loved this book. I felt completely absorbed every time I sat down to read it. I'm not quite sure how to review the book, though, because I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It's 561 pages long, not counting notes and index, and packed with musical terminology (much of which went over my head), and it's just really not for every reader. Just like I wouldn't be all that inclined to pick up a book on, say, legal history or motorcycle maintenance or chemistry.

But this book was great for me. I have always had an interest in music, and as far as "classical" music goes, the twentieth century has always drawn me. A lot of 20th century composers are as inaccessible to me as they are to most people, but I also think the 20th century has produced some of the most interesting sounds, many beautiful pieces, as well as pieces that challenge my ear and force me to pay attention in a way that Bach and Mozart do not. Plus, it's surrounded by a fascinating context. Alex Ross begins with Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler and progresses through the beginning of the 21st century, placing composers and their compositions in all the complexity of their historical, social, and political contexts. Music blends and clashes with regimes and governments and the public and popular genres and wars and technological innovations, and by the end of the book I felt like I had a much better understanding of the twentieth century in its entirety (well, to be fair it was mainly the western part of the world in the twentieth century).

The only thing this book lacks is a soundtrack. Ross does an admirable job of describing the pieces he is writing about; I was able to understand the shape and texture of the music without ever listening to it. But I also felt that I was missing out on a great deal by reading the book in silence. I found myself actively seeking out pieces I was reading about. I listened (or sometimes re-listened) to Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Mahler, Villa Lobos, Milhaud, Messiaen, Bartok, Copland, Cage, Glass. I was taken back to the honors Survey of Music class I took my sophomore year, one of my absolute favorite classes at BYU, and I wanted the book to be like a deeper cut of that class, with the auditory experiences interwoven throughout. But it was too much and too fast. It would have taken years to give everything a proper listen, and of course one of the purposes of the book was to condense everything down so that you don't have to. I feel like it was meant to whet your appetite to learn more and to listen more. That is certainly what it did for me.

I think the reason I enjoyed this book so much is that it engaged me on so many levels - intellectual, aesthetic, literary, emotional. Reading it was fun and fulfilling at once, and completely worth all the time I put into it.