![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book Review
Mar. 21st, 2013 12:00 amFirst Nights: Five Musical Premieres
by Thomas Forrest Kelly
This engaging book looks at Western art music through the lens of the premieres of five significant pieces: Monteverdi's opera Orfeo, Handel's oratorio Messiah, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, and Stravinsky's Le Sacre de Printemps. Kelly discusses the piece, the composer and where he was in his career, the conditions and circumstances surrounding the performance itself, and the reaction to the piece and its performance. He includes illustrations and extensive quotes from relevant primary sources.
The great strength of this book, in addition to the inherent interest of the subject matter, is the way Kelly balances the content and tone in such a way as to appeal and be useful to both the general public and the serious musician. His brief discussions of the musical features of each work and aspects of performance practice are illuminating without ever getting technical. There's plenty of detail, but the prose and the story never get bogged down. I also really appreciated his emphasis on the primary sources. Each part contains plenty of lengthy quotes from letters, diaries, reviews, etc. Plus, Kelly appends a longer excerpt of each source (including the quote used initially) to the end of each part. This really grounds the whole book in the times and places it is attempting to bring to the reader. Furthermore, First Nights has one of the hallmarks of success for any book about music: it made me want to go listen to each of the pieces covered.
by Thomas Forrest Kelly
This engaging book looks at Western art music through the lens of the premieres of five significant pieces: Monteverdi's opera Orfeo, Handel's oratorio Messiah, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, and Stravinsky's Le Sacre de Printemps. Kelly discusses the piece, the composer and where he was in his career, the conditions and circumstances surrounding the performance itself, and the reaction to the piece and its performance. He includes illustrations and extensive quotes from relevant primary sources.
The great strength of this book, in addition to the inherent interest of the subject matter, is the way Kelly balances the content and tone in such a way as to appeal and be useful to both the general public and the serious musician. His brief discussions of the musical features of each work and aspects of performance practice are illuminating without ever getting technical. There's plenty of detail, but the prose and the story never get bogged down. I also really appreciated his emphasis on the primary sources. Each part contains plenty of lengthy quotes from letters, diaries, reviews, etc. Plus, Kelly appends a longer excerpt of each source (including the quote used initially) to the end of each part. This really grounds the whole book in the times and places it is attempting to bring to the reader. Furthermore, First Nights has one of the hallmarks of success for any book about music: it made me want to go listen to each of the pieces covered.
