Since the beginning of last week, I've been reading The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, the first novel of New Yorker music critic Alex Ross. As hinted by the title, the book is a chronological examination of the society surrounding different parts of twentieth-century Europe and America as reflected in the works of the composers who lived during these (often tumultuous) times.
The book has certainly made its mark on the musicological world since its publication. In 2013, London's Southbank Centre hosted a year-long exhibition inspired by The Rest is Noise, featuring lectures on the history that shaped the works of twentieth century composers, interviews with those who lived in the eras of twentieth century music (including modern-day composers and musicians), as well as a great number of performances of twentieth century works, presented by renowned musicians from all around the world. Furthermore, as the book cover proudly states, The Rest is Noise was chosen as one of The New York Times' top 10 books of the year for 2007.
My personal relationship with The Rest is Noise goes back to my first year of college: it was the very first textbook that I bought and used for my first undergraduate class. That course, titled Music and Politics in Europe since Wagner, focused primarily on a number of composers from two centers of twentieth-century upheaval in Germany and the Soviet Union, (Mahler, Shostakovich, and Kurt Weill, to name a few). Used for more contextual purposes, the readings from The Rest is Noise that were assigned were enough to want me to read the work cover-to-cover; sadly, I never got around to doing it. Finding myself now freshly graduated with a little more downtime than before, I dug this book out with the intention of realizing my old goal.
Now, because I'm quite a slow reader, I've so far only gotten through the first chapter. Titled "The Golden Age: Strauss, Mahler, and the Fin de Siècle," the chapter focuses on two figures of early-nineteenth-century Austro-German music: Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. Deemed worthy adversaries by the former after the latter's death, the two composers were equally pioneers of post-Wagner Romanticism in Germany, and their paths often collided throughout their careers due in part to their inter-competitiveness (I think the proper term to use is "frenemies").
Their individual paths to musical stardom, however, have their distinguishing marks. Born into a difficult family life, Strauss quickly kicked off his composing career, writing his breakthrough work Don Juan at twenty-four, and spent the majority of his life breaking from the Wagnerian unification of art and religious symbolism and focusing on "immoral" ideas such as rebellion against the collective, notably by writing vibrant tone-poems that contained never-before-heard orchestration schemes and harkened to works by anarchist philosophers such as Max Stirner and other literary figures "of questionable reputation" (Ross 17). By contrast, the Austrian Mahler, whose career as a composer was slower in progression, first adopted a similar form to Strauss' symphonic poems, though later sought to distance himself from his German counterpart by embracing more "traditional" Viennese music designs. Ultimately, however, Mahler's desire to push the limits of his audiences' approval quickly drew him back away from so-called convention, as embodied by his Fifth and Sixth symphonies, the latter of which calls for a massive hammer to be pounded.
What keeps me glued to The Rest is Noise is Ross' ability to draw parallels between the classical works presented and the situation of the composer and the world at the time, eloquently detailing the commentaries embedded within the music. While one might say that such analysis is on par for any music critic, Ross dives deeper and draws upon the active relationships between composers and the influences upon apprentice composers of the future. Here in Chapter 1, we see this not only in the focus on the complex camaraderie between Mahler and Strauss, but also in the forging of style within the minds of composers-to-come, having witnessed the greatness of their idols. For instance, at the premiere of Strauss' Salome, the attendance, as notes Ross, included young budding creators such as Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, obth of whom I can only guess will make an appearance later in the book.
The first 30-plus pages of Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise has been a packed and entertaining reading for me, as someone who was aware of many of the names included, but not much else. I hope that the rest of my reading, as I continue on to the second chapter: "Doctor Faust: Schoenberg, Debussy, and Atonality," will keep on with the riveting story-telling that Ross skillfully employs in the first. Given this first impression, I don't think I have too much to fear.