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Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's
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Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time Paperback - 2000

by Nicolas Slonimsky

A snakeful of critical venom aimed at the composers and the classics of 19th- and 20th-century music, this collection of nasty barbs culled mostly from newspapers and magazines makes for hilarious reading and belongs on the shelf of everyone who loves---or hates--classical music.


From the publisher

A snakeful of critical venom aimed at the composers and the classics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music. Who wrote advanced cat music? What commonplace theme is very much like Yankee Doodle? Which composer is a scoundrel and a giftless bastard? What opera would His Satanic Majesty turn out? Whose name suggests fierce whiskers stained with vodka? And finally, what third movement begins with a dog howling at midnight, then imitates the regurgitations of the less-refined or lower-middle-class type of water-closet cistern, and ends with the cello reproducing the screech of an ungreased wheelbarrow? For the answers to these and other questions, readers need only consult the Invecticon at the back of this inspired book and then turn to the full passage, in all its vituperation. Among the eminent reviewers are George Bernard Shaw, Virgil Thomson, Hans von Blow, Friedrich Nietzsche, Eduard Hanslick, Olin Downes, Deems Taylor, Paul Rosenfeld, and Oscar Wilde. Itself a classic, this collection of nasty barbs about composers and their works, culled mostly from contemporaneous newspapers and magazines, makes for hilarious reading and belongs on the shelf of everyone who loves--or hates --classical music. With a new foreword by Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach).

First line

I suffered more than upon any occasion in my life apart from an incident or two connected with 'painless dentistry.'

Details

  • Title Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time
  • Author Nicolas Slonimsky
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition New Ed
  • Pages 336
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York
  • Date August 28, 2000
  • ISBN 9780393320091 / 039332009X
  • Weight 0.65 lbs (0.29 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.4 x 5.54 x 0.89 in (21.34 x 14.07 x 2.26 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Composers, Musical criticism
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2001266586
  • Dewey Decimal Code 780.9

Media reviews

Citations

  • Reference and Research Bk News, 08/01/2001, Page 196
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Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time

Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time

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Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time

Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time

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Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time

by Slonimsky, Nicolas

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by Slonimsky, Nicolas

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