The Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven’s Time, Nicolas Slonimsky, new foreword by Peter Schickele (W. W. Norton, New York). “Generally regarded as an incomprehensible production, the depths of which (if they really were depths) it was impossible to fathom” is from just one of hundreds of unfavorable reviews of classical music (in this case of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis) which Russian-American musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky collected together in 1953. The reviews in this book provide a fascinating look at how some reviewers intensely disliked musical works that are now widely regarded as masterpieces, and the “invecticon” at the end of the book lets you look up descriptions like “tortured mistuned cackling” and “topsy-turviest doggerel of sounds” in order to track down which reviews contained them. This book so intrigued Peter Schickele that he devoted an entire episode of Schickele Mix to it, and also contributed a new foreword to this more recent edition of the book published in 2000.
Chapter Listing: |
||
| Foreword by Peter Schickele Prelude: Non-Acceptance of the Unfamiliar Lexicon of Musical Invective Bartók Beethoven Berg Berlioz Bizet Bloch Brahms Bruckner Chopin Copland Cowell Debussy Franck Gershwin Gounod Harris D’Indy Krenek Liszt Mahler Milhaud |
Moussorgsky Prokofiev Puccini Rachmaninoff Ravel Reger Riegger Rimsky-Korsakov Ruggles Saint-Saëns Schoenberg Schumann Scriabin Shostakovitch Sibelius Strauss Stravinsky Tchaikovsky Varèse Verdi Wagner Webern Invecticon Index of Names and Titles Supplement |
| Return to Main Books Page | Go to Order Form |