Advantages: The writing, the setting, the music Disadvantages: The characters are not sow ell defined or likable
married with a child and is going deaf. Their love is rekindled and the lives intermingle again professionally when Julia is asked to accompany the quartet on the piano for a performance in Vienna.
The countersubject is Michael?s love for his violin. The violin, a Toroni, has been loaned to him indefinitely by an elderly family friend, Mrs. Formby his inspiration to play. His possession of the violin is challenged by her money grabbing family who want the violin back.
To find out how the subjects progress and develop the book must be read. Will Michael and Julia remain together? Will Julia come to terms with her deafness? Will Michael lose his beloved violin?
Vikram Seth weaves the subjects together using music as the theme that links them all together. The music of Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Bach and Haydn are presented in pen ...
Advantages: Music of astonishing perfection; performances that are breathtaking and up to the task. Disadvantages: Cheesy cover art.
Certain compositions stand out in history as the quintessence, the ne plus ultra of their form. Think: Bach?s ?Goldberg Variations,? ?Mass in B Minor,? and ?Art of Fugue,? Mozart?s ?Requiem,? and Beethoven?s Ninth Symphony and Piano Sonatas, Opus 109-111. Among this company, Beethoven?s late stringquartets, two of which are featured on this Philips archival reissue, easily join the ranks of some of the loftiest creations of mankind. There is a touch of absurdity in ?rating? such works; they have been universally acknowledged as among the greatest in the Western canon. They are absolutely essential listening for any classical music devotee, and for anyone and all with a yen for discovering greatness in human achievements. The rating (I must remind myself) is for the recording and performances. Happily, these are also the ne plus ultra ...
Advantages: A new way to hear Beethoven Disadvantages: Surpassed by some later period cycles
INTRODUCTION
Beethoven's nine symphonies cover one of the major cornerstones of symphonic literature along with the likes of Haydn, Brahms and Sibelius. Beethoven was born in turbulent times when the common people's dissatisfaction toward the ruling monarchs in Europe was reaching new heights which finally culminated in the French Revolution in 1789. Against this came Beethoven, who was born into a family of musicians in Bonn in 1770. His father wanted to coin in on the child prodigy market created by Mozart whose father had exploited his genius in a similar way. But Beethoven was no Mozart. He wasn't born a child progidy and his performing skills were nowhere near as natural as they were with Mozart. Still he made rapid progress as a piano virtuoso and an amateur composer. He was even supposed to take some lessons with Mozart in Wien ...
