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Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10673-4. £30.00. 476pp, with two CDs 
"There has never been a project to rival this accomplishment," says Ned Rorem. He's right. Here are generous, lively, surprising, and often moving interviews with most of the giants of American music: Eubie Blake describes the birth of ragtime, Elliott Carter puzzles over the exact date when some of Charles Ives' scores received their last dose of dissonance and polyrhythm, John Adams speaks about Duke Ellington, Ellington speaks at length for himself, and Edgard Varèse discusses Charlie Parker's desire to study with him. Much background concerning Henry Cowell's imprisonment in San Quentin is given, and here are the thoughts of John Cage, Leo Ornstein, Carl Ruggles, Charles Seeger and Virgil Thompson.
More than two hours' worth of interviews is provided on the two accompanying CDs, giving us a truly golden opportunity to hear the actual voices of Nadia Boulanger, Roy Harris, Lou Harrison, Mel Powell and Dane Rudhyar.
Aaron Copland receives generous treatment, as does George Gershwin. Only a few words of Gershwin himself are available to us, but there are wonderful insights from his sister Frances, brother Arthur, George's aunt Kate Wolpin, and from others who were close: Morton Gould, Burton Lane, Kay Swift, and the original Bess and Porgy, Anne Wiggins Brown and Todd Duncan.
One surprise is who knew whom. Here's Copland, in Paris:
"Nadia [Boulanger] had these Wednesday afternoon so-called déchiffrage classes, where she read over new things at the piano and they'd be discussed or enthused about or dismissed. You'd find the latest scores of Stravinsky on her piano (still in manuscript) or those of Milhaud or Honegger, and you felt you were living right in the midst of live musical happenings in Paris in 1921. At the tea the musical greats came - I remember meeting Roussel there and Stravinsky, The group of Les Six - Poulenc was there, and I even shook hands with Saint-Saëns. I remember him very vividly. He seemed quite lively for so elderly a gentleman."
In my naivety, exactly how I used to imagine university might be!
At least I have the book - an essential purchase, unhesitatingly recommended.
This review first appeared in Classical Music magazine, June 10th, 2006. Reproduced by permission.
Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia - Richard CookPenguin Books. 2005. ISBN 0-141-00646-3. £30.00 
We all have our ways of testing reference books. Maybe one looks up one's friends, one's heroes, or musicians encountered in club or classroom, or those that one believes to be neglected or over-rated. And, just as here I feel that Graham Collier's entry is a tad too long, or I wish that, say, the unmentioned Chuck Israels had received some of the generous space allotted to the unreadable George Russell, you too will itch to re-shape the contents.
However, there is really little here to complain about, much to praise. A common reaction is to want more - impossible, of course, in a book that already approaches 700 pages. After checking that friends such as Dick Hawdon, Dan Morgenstern, Scott Robinson and Loren Schoenberg ('too young to go steady with modern jazz' - Loren will relish that!) had been given their due, I began by regretting, for instance, that David Newton's note is relatively short, and that Joseph Schillinger, Nikki Iles and Daryl Sherman are omitted completely.
But these were petty and debatable criticisms that faded as I was swayed by Cook's wisdom, kindness and consistency of voice, and his ear for the memorable or intriguing fact or phrase. Cook provides a generous flavour of the characters who constitute the jazz world, writing affectionately of Tony Coe's 'mildewed romanticism,' of cool musicians 'gloving the emotions,' of Martin Speake's 'cool, almost mentholated style', of Jane Ira Bloom's electronics 'hanging over her music like a glittering night sky,' and of Chick Corea having a 'pixilated' quality in his playing.
The index entries for Art Pepper's biography are said to read 'like a book about crime, not music'. Saxophonist Hans Koller is revealed to have been an abstract painter, as was Pee Wee Russell. Tony Scott is quoted as advising Eddie Daniels 'Stick to the tenor, son', and Don Lusher's modesty shines when he says: 'I'm a musical shop assistant, really, with being in sessions so much, and it doesn't hurt me to do that because I'm not a tremendous jazzer.' We are reminded of the late Eddie Thompson's wit, announcing: 'This one's called When Your Liver Has Gone,' and Tommy Dorsey's complaint that 'there are three evil people in the world - Adolf Hitler, Buddy Rich and Alvin Stoller - and I've had two of them in my band!' And Dave Cliff's remark that 'if you're just playing standards, you end up playing pizza joints for fifty quid', is spot on, a wise warning to give to young musicians.
Cook is commendably even-handed towards those figures who generally receive a critical mauling, such as Benny Goodman, Paul Whiteman, Acker Bilk, and even Kenny G. Indeed, saxophonist Gorelick receives as intelligent an assessment here as you'll see anywhere, and of Kenny Ball, Cook observes that the trumpeter, 'Has had a hard and unfair time of it with critics.'
Sixteen pages of black and white photographs range from 1890 to 2003, the two earliest ones, of Buddy Bolden's band and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, both showing string basses, food for thought for those folk who still believe that wind basses are emblematic of early jazz. Plainly, they're not. Here, the only time when roof preading came to mind, the John Coltrane photo shows both a left-handed saxophone and a jacket with buttons on the wrong side! Don't always believe your eyes.
If it's time you updated your collection of jazz reference books, this is high on the list of those to be considered.
Jazz Visions: Lennie Tristano and his Legacy - Peter Ind - Equinox, 2005ISBN 1-84553-045-4. Hardback. 214 pp. b&w illustrations. £16.99 
Ind's eye-witness view life in midtown Manhattan at the height of the bebop era is captivating. The sea voyage from England took five and a half days. American dollars were four to the pound. Stores such as Macy's and Gimbels had air conditioning, then unknown in Britain. On 52nd Street, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Bud Powell and Fats Navarro could be heard. Errol Garner was at the Three Deuces, Coleman Hawkins at the Famous Door and Lennie Tristano's sextet appeared at the Orchid Room. Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey were popular. Ind went to the December 1949 opening of Birdland, where he heard Charlie Parker playing with strings.
In 1950, on another of his trips, and having already taken lessons with Lennie Tristano, Ind was invited to play the first set with the pianist's sextet at Birdland. New York was so alluring that in 1951 Ind, taking three double basses, went to live there. Soon he was playing alongside Elvin Jones, Duke Jordan and Lennie Tristano, and rehearsing with Gerry Mulligan and Neal Hefti.
Lessons with Tristano are described. The blind pianist had an exceptional ear, a powerful memory and interpersonal directness. His students were required to memorise famous jazz solos, sing them, then write them down. Extensive work on scales and arpeggios was required. There was an emphasis on learning melodies. Tristano comes across as a dominant figure, though paradoxically 'needing' his students, in a psychological sense.
Along with many others in the New York community of the time, Tristano was influenced by the psychologist Wilhelm Reich. Ind spends several pages describing Tristano's respect for Reich's writing, and how Ind would read aloud to Tristano from Reich's books. In 1947, following a series of articles in The New Republic and Harpers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began an investigation into Reich's claims, winning an injunction against the promotion of his orgone therapy as a medical treatment. Charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction, Reich conducted his own defence. This involved sending the judge all his books to read! In 1956 Reich was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and died while serving his sentence. Frustratingly, Ind spends several pages on Reich, but only gives us part of the fascinating and instructive story. I have since discovered (not from Ind's book) that Kate Bush's song Cloudbusting is based on a book by Reich's son, Peter.
Ind never met Reich. He met and played with Bird, but Ind, as an immigrant, 'felt wary of becoming too involved with anyone associated with narcotics, knowing that I risked deportation should I find myself so accused.' The bassist also accompanied Billie Holiday, but tells us nothing about the experience. He worked with Buddy Rich. Apart from remarking that Rich was 'the proverbial pain in the arse,' nothing is revealed. In all instances Ind seems to have been present on the sidelines observing, but engaged only as a performer. He was not involved, or not prepared to tell us more.
The chapters dealing with the meaning of jazz and the appreciation of jazz improvisation are weaker, giving the opinions of Peter Ind rather than those of Lennie Tristano. The book then declines into less organised more repetitive discourse, being at times a rant. Simple but tedious George Russell-like expositions of improvisation theory as related to scales are followed by sections having no relevance to Lennie Tristano. Here are all-too-brief glimpses of Kenny Barron, Dudu Pukwana, Rufus Reid, Carmen Lundy and even Jamey Aebersold, with plenty of self-indulgent sideswipes at the modern world, at Free Jazz, Damien Hirst, Smooth Jazz, critics who rewrite jazz history and, of course, the need for a reappraisal of Lennie Tristano.
Ind says that he could never have written a standard biography, instead wanting the reader to find 'the melody in this improvised piece of writing'. Well, improvisation contains false starts, no second thoughts, no reshaping - and that's why most books aren't improvised, but are written with finesse and polish. The reader doesn't necessarily want to have to 'find the melody'. I don't wish to deter you from buying this valuable eye-witness account, but rigorous editing could have fashioned a more satisfying publication.
This review first appeared in Jazz Review magazine.
Take Five - The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
By Doug Ramsey Foreword by Dave Brubeck and Iola Brubeck Edited and designed by Malcolm S. Harris ISBN No 0-9617266-7-9 Post paid: $45 in USA / $70 outside USA 
The Dave Brubeck Quartet was the only jazz combo since the Swing Era to be a worldwide success in popular music. With the immense popularity of Desmond's composition Take Five the Brubeck Quartet became the first million-selling jazz group. A painting of Dave Brubeck was featured on the cover of Time magazine as early as November 1954. In contemporary reviews, saxophonist Desmond was frequently recognized as crucial to the band's success.
Paul Desmond died - far too early - at the age of 52, in May 1977, from lung cancer. For many he was one of the truly great melodic saxophonists and, crucially, one of the few to resist the power of Charlie Parker's influence. In the decades since his death his recognition has been dimmed by many forces, including fashion and thoughtlessness. This biography is timely. "Paul's playing and his recorded legacy are coming back into the frame a little bit more as we've had enough post-Coltrane," says Darius Brubeck, Dave's son. "The whole modal approach to playing is seen in perspective as, yes, an approach, but people are rediscovering the straight ahead mould, too." After reading Take Five, I agree with Darius. I'd go further, to suggest that the library of every music conservatoire, every serious saxophonist, and every jazz lover should own this book. It's that important. For me, as for many others, Paul Desmond has been neglected for too long. Guitarist Jim Hall was right: "He stayed true to himself through all that stuff in the sixties," he said. "The ironic thing is that guys were just imitating John Coltrane, and Paul was always searching. I thought he should get an award in a special category called Not Copying People."
Like other jazz books from Parkside - the recent biography of Buddy De Franco, for instance - Take Five is luxuriously produced in large (10 X 11 inches) format, with many illustrations throughout its 372 pages. Actually, its size - or rather, the format - is one of my few criticisms: the book makes an awkward companion. I lived with it for several days, schlepping it about from desk to rehearsal room to restaurant to cafe. Yes, this really is a coffee table book. One certainly needs a table on which to rest it when reading!
Several of Paul Desmond's talents had nothing to do with music or the saxophone. For instance, women adored him. This incredible appeal recurs repeatedly in Ramsey's book, though the accounts don't dwell on detail. Desmond was always a gentleman, never speaking about his many affairs, or his frequent casual encounters. He was even married for a while, a surprise to many who thought they knew him well. In Bud Shank's words, "Paul Desmond was a musical nobleman. He had class, intelligence, sophistication, evidence of much work, study and preparation (practice), and every other attribute implied by the word 'noble'. Add to that much wit and humour, and the result is Paul Desmond." One revelation is that at times the saxophonist was keen on rhythm and brews. Happily, for the most part he was able to conceal what was, by any standards, very heavy drinking. Paul Desmond loved literature. Much of his humour is in wordplay, as in his imaginary birth control pill for men, called 'I Kid You Not.' He constructed other elaborate puns, most famously the one about Vogue fashion models: "Sometimes they go around with guys who are scuffling - for a while," he observed. "But usually they end up marrying some cat with a factory. This is the way the world ends, not with a whim but a banker." His imaginary album of Irish songs included: 'Fitzhugh or No One,' 'Mahoney a Bird in a Gilded Cage,' and 'The Tralee Song.' Desmond's musical ability, and his fondness for mind games, from chess to scrabble to word puns, were combined in his remarkable skill at weaving musical quotations into his improvisations. Never one to strike up the bland, his quotes were oblique and witty. Some commentators expressed scepticism about the spontaneity of these quotations. Robert Rice was such a doubter. He wrote about this in the May 1961 edition of the New Yorker: "(Desmond's) most astonishing trick with quotations, though, is to tell a complicated story about something he has seen or experienced. At perhaps two o'clock one recent morning, while he was driving himself and Brubeck - at a speed considerably above the legal limit - through Pennsylvania after a concert, he overtook a black sedan, which was proceeding at a rather leisurely pace. Presently, he became aware that the sedan was right behind him. He assumed that it was being piloted by a prankster, and he accelerated to get away from him. With the gentle whirring of a siren, the sedan pulled up beside him, and one of its occupants motioned him to stop. Two men climbed out, wearing the broad-brimmed hats of Pennsylvania state troopers, and ordered Desmond to produce his documents, and to get out of the car and show them that he could walk in a straight line. Then they ordered him to get back in and follow them to "the Squire's." Presently, the two cars pulled into the driveway of a frame house, and one of the troopers called to an upstairs window that he had a speeder in custody. The group was admitted to a downstairs office, where the Squire sat down at a desk, inserted a long form in a typewriter, and for fifteen minutes filled it in with information that the troopers gave him. Then, Desmond pleaded guilty as charged, and was fined fifteen dollars and sent on his way. The quartet had a concert the following afternoon, and in his first solo in the first number - which was, appropriately, 'Gone With the Wind' - Desmond strung together, with precision and grace, excerpts from 'Pennsylvania Polka,' 'Me and My Shadow,' 'How Long Has this Been Going On?,' 'Where Did You Get That Hat?,' 'Would You Like to Take a Walk?,' 'Down by the Station Early in the Morning,' 'I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,' and 'I Could Write a Book,' followed by the phrase that comes from 'Sixteen Tons' that goes with 'I owe my soul to the company store.' " There is no space here to describe Desmond's early prowess as a clarinettist, to tell about his friendship with Charlie Parker, his remarkable relationship with his musician father, or the incredible ingratitude of the Red Cross after he bequeathed them millions of dollars. Gene Lees is quoted as saying he's never seen a biography like this one. I agree. It makes me wish that I could have known Paul Desmond. John Robert Brown
This review first appeared in Jazz Review, May 2005. Used by permission.
Calling on the Composer. A Guide to European Composer Houses and Museums Notwithstanding the 'European' in the title, the book's scope extends to Russia. Several pages are devoted to the commemoration of Tchaikovsky in Moscow and the Ukraine. An entry is included for Stravinsky's summer home at Ustyluh. There is no commemoration at Stravinsky's birthplace, now called Lomonosov. The dacha in which he was born in 1882 was pulled down to make way for an electricity substation! Several of the composers listed here will be unknown to all but the most well-informed music-lover. Nevertheless, part of the delight of this book is that attention is drawn to musicians such as the Erkel family in south-eastern Hungary, the Prague-born composer Hans Krása, or the Pole Karol Kurpiñski. No Glinka museum exists at Glinka, no Saint-Saëns one at Saint-Saëns, while Guido d'Arezzo is not celebrated at Arezzo. Having found out about Arezzo by going there, it's reassuring for me to learn that the authors did the same! Calling on the Composer also highlights some regrettable neglect. For instance, how can Merthyr Tydfil Council open a memorial cottage to Joseph Parry, composer of Blodwen, 'the first Welsh opera', while the City of Bradford continues to neglect Frederick Delius? If only steps could be taken to remedy that omission. Maybe the Lord Mayor of Bradford should receive a copy? John Robert Brown An edited version of this review appeared in Classical Music magazine, 17th February 2007. Reproduced by kind permission. The John Adams ReaderEssential Writings on an American Composer Thomas May Amadeus Press, 2006. $27.95 ISBN 1-57467-132-4 'Milton Babbitt speaks of his love for show tunes, but writes compositions that have no relationship to this love,' complained John Adams. 'I wanted to create a music, very much like Charles Ives, that reflected my genetic fabric and my genotype.' Well, Adams succeeded, to become the most frequently performed living American composer in classical music. Surprising, then, to learn that Thomas May's John Adams Reader is the first full-length book in English to be devoted to him. But it's an exceptional book; the wait was worthwhile, and the dust jacket blurb is correct to claim that this is: 'A window on the development of classical and art music in our time and the various cultural factors that shape it'. Robert Spano, music director of the Atlanta Symphony, says: 'In my musical world, Adams has become as important as Bach, Mozart, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky.' High acclaim - but such praise wasn't always plentiful. In 1978, Donald Henehan, in the New York Times, wrote that Adam's first opera, Nixon in China, 'does for the arpeggio what McDonald's did for the hamburger, grinding out one simple idea into eternity.' And, though the critical view later shifted diametrically, Adams, librettist Alice Goodman and director Peter Sellars came in for a critical drubbing in the wake of European performances of The Death of Klinghoffer. To the credit of Thomas May that political controversy is revisited in the chapter devoted to Goodman, where the critical views of Opera magazine, and of critic Andrew Clark, are reported and discussed. Adams' own essays are not here, which is a loss, for he writes well. However, revealing interviews with Adams are included, alongside essays by Ingram Marshall, Michael Steinberg, the excellent Alex Ross, Sarah Cahill, and Alan Rich. Thomas May's own essays include an informative interview with Peter Sellars, on working with Adams. There are no musical examples, no photographs, and only an index of names. Proofing is thorough, except that '1971' appears as '1871' on page 271, a couple of words are omitted on page 115, and 'Phrygian' is misspelt on page 274. But don't allow such inconsequential blemishes to deter you from reading this essential book. As Alex Ross concludes after interviewing Adams: 'I had just spent the morning with a man who was never going to die.' First published in Classical Music magazine, 8th June 2007. Used by kind permission. Edward Elgar, Modernist J.P.E. Harper-Scott Cambridge University Press ISBN-13 978-0-521-86200-4 Hardback ISBN-10 0-521-86200-0 Hardback Price: £50.00 (US$90.00) J.P.E. Harper-Scott is an academic with scholarly interests in Elgar, Walton, Schenker, Heidegger, and meaning in music. In Edward Elgar, Modernist Harper-Scott combines several of these interests, particularly Schenkerian Theory and meaning in music, explaining that his book grew from a belief in meaning, and the desirability of discovering it, in musical works and human life. He asserts that Edward Elgar, Modernist was written: "To satisfy a perceived need for musical criticism that retreats neither into conservative, narrowly formalist analysis nor into poststructural hermeneutics guided by nihilistic Foucaldian or Derridian dogma." Edward Elgar, Modernist claims to be the first full-length analytical study of Elgar's music, arguing - by blending existential and hermeneutic philosophy with the music-analytical method of Heinrich Schenker - that Elgar's music constitutes an authentically twentieth-century assessment of the nature of human being. Additionally, Harper-Scott also proposes a new analytical method for the study of late-romantic and early modernist music. The author uses terms which may be unfamiliar to educated musicians. Ecstasis, enframing, thrownness, eucatastrophe/dycatastrophe, prosopon, prosopoeia and telos all appear in the glossary, briefly defined. As Harper-Scott explains, it is in the nature of a glossary that definitions be gnomic. "A work of music, being an intentional object with a supratemporal form, is a mimesis of humankind's lived temporality, and lights up for us the structures of our own existence," he says, going on to sketch a musicological context in observing that: "In the last twenty years a number of Schenkerians have been persuaded by Robert Bailey's rejection of the classic monotonal view of the structure of neo-Romantic and early modernist music, and his proposal that it may be better understood in terms of the prolongation of a 'double-tonic complex'. In 1930, Edward Dent, Professor of Music at Cambridge, wrote a handful of cruel phrases about Elgar, describing him as a self-taught man whose music was not quite free of vulgarity. Maybe Edward Elgar, Modernist is another episode in the long history of ambivalence between Elgar and British university scholars? John Adams recently complained that in the post-war years, Milton Babbitt and his followers wrote publications: "Aping the style of scholarly papers delivered by physicists or mathematicians and which... made me think of a satire by Thomas Pynchon... fantastically ornate, mannerist prose etudes with baroque uses of the English language which revel in their own ellipses and obscurities." Could this be a contemporary example of what Adams describes? First published in Classical Music, 8th June 2007. Reproduced by kind permission. Chattanooga Choo Choo The Life and Times of the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra Richard Grudens 2004, Celebrity Profiles Publishing Company, Stonybrook, New York ISBN 1-57579-277-X USA $21.95 Saturday, the recent novel from Ian McEwan, has the hero Henry Perowne, a successful neurosurgeon, musing on biography: "At times [Perowne] was faintly depressed by the way a whole life could be contained by a few hundred pages - bottled, like homemade chutney. And how easily an existence, its ambitions, networks of family of friends, all its cherished stuff, solidly possessed, could so entirely vanish." McEwan's words apply well to Grudens' biography of Glenn Miller. The bandleader did 'entirely vanish', over the English Channel in December 1944. And these few hundred pages, 281 to be precise, do indeed have something of the homemade chutney about them. That is, they are familiar, made with love, tasty in parts, but with an ever-present amateurishness. In this instance, McEwan is right: it is faintly depressing. Published (a tad late) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Glenn Miller's life and the 60th anniversary of Miller's disappearance over the English Channel in 1944, Chattanooga Choo Choo is a piece of popular sociology rather than a book about music. Written for Glenn Miller fans, not for musicians, the homemade characteristics are seen in slips such as the spelling 'Beethovan', the plural 'phenomena' used as the singular, 'Fazzola' (one zed too many), 'solo's' as a plural, and we are told that Mel Powell was 'bespeckled'. I think Grudens means bespectacled! There is consistent confusion between 'score' and 'parts'. Two pages from Glenn Miller's book on arranging are given, with instrument ranges and transpositions, the sort of thing offered in every textbook on big bands, nothing special to Miller. Miller's original arranging method contained a score of The Song of the Volga Boatmen, with a clever canon across the saxes and brass, one of the few examples of a true canon up to that time in the big band world. It should have been included; an opportunity missed. Illustrations in Chattanooga Choo Choo have a cheap appearance by being printed onto plain paper rather than glossy plates - common in American paperbacks. Much of the content has the feel of a scrapbook. Reprints of the words of old songs, and posters, magazine articles and even record labels are reproduced. One article (unattributed) begins on one page in a minuscule point size - barely readable - then continues overleaf in a different font and larger print! Glenn Miller has had a poor deal from critics and players, but Richard Grudens' uncritical account, though commendably enthusiastic, won't weigh heavily in righting that wrong unless it goes into another edition, with the benefit of expert editing. Go to Gunther Schuller's excellent The Swing Era (OUP, 1989) where, in fifteen pages on Miller, there is more information, comment and analysis on Miller's music and his sonoric assemblage than in the whole of Grudens' book. Schuller (a first rate musician) offers several short scores, no mistakes of spelling or grammar, and no bespeckled pianists. Less homemade chutney, more a string of pearls. John Robert Brown Cage Talk. Dialogues with and about John Cage. Edited by Peter Dickinson. University of Rochester Press. 265 pp. Hardback. ISBN: 1580462375 First published: 2006 Price: 49.95 USD / 25.00 GBP Ten b/w illustrations, no musical examples. 'I have nothing to say and I am saying it,' said Cage in his 'Lecture on Nothing', part of his 1961 Silence: Lectures and Writings. In fact, one comes to the opinion that what Cage had to say was often more interesting than what he composed. Cage was certainly articulate. During the late 1980s, Peter Dickinson conducted a series of interviews for a BBC Radio Three documentary. These fascinating broadcasts now provide the main source of material for Cage Talk. To add to the value, friends and colleagues are interviewed, giving a warts-and-all view from Earle Brown, Merce Cunningham, Otto Luening, Virgil Thomson and a dozen more of Cage's contemporaries. Cage's engaging manner radiates from these pages. Undoubtedly, his attractive personality helped his cause. Stockhausen's remark that Cage was a composer who drew attention to himself more by his actions than his productions, or Boulez's view that Cage was a clown are just as faithful as Eric Mottram's description of Cage as a sort of Buster Keaton of indeterminacy! Whatever Stockhausen's later view, here David Tudor - who gave the first performance of 4' 33'' - recalls that Stockhausen was 'very struck by the sounds and then by the continuity' when Cage's music was first played to him by Tudor in 1954. Interestingly, Stockhausen doubted Cage's musicianship. 'He has no inner vision: he doesn't hear,' he said. '...a musician begins to be a musician when he hears something nobody else hears.' Cage's contrariness resulted in the famous revolt by the members of the New York Philharmonic in 1964, performing Atlas Eclipticalis, which Earle Brown describes: 'The rehearsals started out with the musicians being very careful and concerned. Then, after a little while they discovered that their microphone might be on or off according to a chance procedure. So the player could be playing his five notes with diligent application, then to find his microphone was turned off...the players wondered why they were trying so hard if nobody could hear them... they really got angry.' Donal Henehan concluded that Cage 'raised contrariness to the state of art'. Nevertheless, Cage Talk is excellent, leaving one with feelings of affection towards its subject. John Robert Brown Boosey and Hawkes: The Publishing Story Helen Wallace. Boosey and Hawkes, 2007. ISBN 978-0-85162-514-0 256 pages. £12.99p Helen Wallace is consultant editor of the BBC Music Magazine, having been the editor of that publication from 1999-2004. In Boosey and Hawkes, the Publishing Story, Wallace has written a readable account. Though I found the small print to be a strain at times (I read the book during a very long air journey), the narrative offers much important and fascinating background to the history of the publication and promotion of serious music in Britain during the last 80 years. Lesley Boosey and Ralph Hawkes merged their rival businesses in 1930. They then signed Bartok, Strauss, Britten and Copland, and acquired Serge Koussevitzky's Russian catalogue with its masterpieces by Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and Prokofieff. Rapidly, the company had offices all over the world. To this day, B&H remains an important force in serious music. Wallace concentrates on the serious music side of the business as it was run from London. The history of Boosey and Hawkes as an instrument manufacturer - a story of interest to all clarinettists - is dealt with in this volume only when it directly affected the publishing business. Nevertheless, the fortunes of contemporary composers and publishers have great bearing on the professional lives of single-reed players. Much of interest and relevance is revealed, including a particularly valuable account of the period from 1945 onwards. The characters involved including Bartók, Britten (whose annual royalties had reached £41,000 by 1963), Copland, Strauss and Stravinsky. Their various relationships were always lively, and sometimes frosty. Of course, the tale doesn't end there. The account continues to 2005 and the 70th birthday celebrations for Steve Reich. Included here are John Adams, Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter, Karl Jenkins, James MacMillan and Mark-Anthony Turnage, together with the Australian composer Don Banks - whom Wallace wrongly describes as American! Wallace is to be congratulated on creating a useful addition to the reference library of twentieth-century music. John Robert Brown |
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