The Rest Is Noise: Listening To The Twentieth Century by Alex Ross - 2009 - paperback - 640 pages
Writing about music isn’t always easy. Writing about “difficult” abstract modern music may be even harder. And weaving a book about it together in such a way as to retain the interest of the common man, the musical luddite, for well over 600 pages might appear a Herculean task indeed. But Alex Ross seems to have something of a gift. The author has been the classical music critic at the New Yorker since 1996 and it may well be this magazine grounding that gives his non-fiction a warm accessible human touch.
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is a book that is no stranger to the Augean stables. Its remit is to trace the progress of modern classical composition – the book is a sort of history of the last 100 years through a musical lens. No small task. Yet Alex Ross manages to trace these major changes back through to specific meetings, performances or events, and the key people who were there – in itself a skillful and delicate opperation.
Praise for Alex Ross’ first book has been abundant. It has thus far been named Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism and of the 2008 Guardian First Book Award; finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction; shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; one of the New York Times’s 10 Best Books of 2007; also on best-of-the-year lists in the Washington Post, the LA Times, New York, Time, The Economist, Slate, and Newsweek. A New York Times, LA Times, and Boston Globe bestseller.
Also Bjork called it “Incredibly nourishing”. So there.
But can a book about the more difficult or inaccessible realms of the modern classical music genre really generate lasting appeal to a wider reading or music-consuming audience? Or is this just a book strictly for the high-brow?
What better source of answers (other than the book) than the man himself?
Alex Ross is appearing live at The Sydney Writers’ Festival on the Thursday, May 21st betwen 6.30 and 7.30pm at the Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay. Here he will be in discussion with Ramona Koval presenter of the Book Show on ABC Radio National. Bookings for this event cost a paltry $25/$20 and can be made either on (02) 9250 1988 or via the Sydney Theatre Box Office.
In case seeing Alex Ross live in person on May 21st isn’t enough, there is another chance to see him discuss the place of classical music in the modern age of youtube and mp3 at the Opera House on May 24th. Here he will discuss whether classical music dying or infact enjoying a subtle revival – or maybe it will always just be there? At this Sydney Writers’ Festival event he and Rowena Danziger will nut out the classical nitty-gritty. This talk takes place at the Sydney Opera House, Drama Theatre on Sunday, May 24 between 14:00 - 15:00 and will set you back $30/$28.
Again, bookings can be made through the Opera House at (02) 9250 7777 or via the Sydney Opera House website.
If you’ve no time to read The Rest Is Noise before the author makes his live appearances in Sydney, you can at least read the first chapter of The Rest Is Noise at the New York Times.
It is also worth noting what a valuable resource the official The Rest Is Noise website of the book is. It offers a wealth of audio segments to illuminate the points and examples made in the book. This resource goes a long way to counter the obvious inherent problems using the written word to describe the audible medium.
The book is as good an attempt as you will find at taking you gently by the hand and saying “oh hey, come meet my friend Classical Music – don’t be afraid – it’s really very interesting and not as complicated as you might think”.
It is peculiar that we seem so ready to endure endless crude assault on our visual world but will tollerate only so much in our auditory one. The Rest Is Noise is I guess an attempt t0 educat the mind to listen to more complicated music that we may not fully understand in much the same was as we might look at modern sculpture or abstract art and feel we might like or dislike it without needing fully to appreciate its every subtler nuance.
Also he seems like a nice guy.
Some additional The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross related resources:
The AmazonWire podcast interview from November 2007 in which Alex Ross talks about how he managed to get to the age of 16 without exposure to rock music, how his love of Brahms can sit quite comfortably along side his love of Sonic Youth, how classical music is a bit like baseball, why it’s better live and how music can reflect the temperature of the culture that surrounds it. Listen here (29 minutes):
A short interview with thunder-voiced Charlie Rose in which Alex Ross breaks down the three main areas and themes of The Rest Is Noise (3.47 mins):
There’s also a short video by Alex Ross himself in which he bignotes the music scene in New York, covers his musical tastes, talks about where the title of the book came from and OMG look at all those books! (3.53 mins)
http://www.mattswan.com/books/audio/alex-ross-the-rest-is-noise.flvAnd finally here is The New York Times review.
