(The) Art of Guido Cantelli

The Art Of Glenn Gould

Advantages: Very good price, brilliant quality of performance and recording
Disadvantages: None to note

There are moments in 'The Art of Fugue' that are much more valuable than just its incredible virtuosity. There are moments that surpass everything else that Bach wrote. I can't think of anything that moves me more deeply than the last fugue, the unfinished fugue. Not just because of all the emotional, sentimental views that we inevitably bring to it, not because we know that he died while half way through a bar. But because that last fugue has a sense of peace, that even for Bach, seems completely overwhelming. It's a still a serious world, deserted and rigid and without colour and without light and without motion. This piece reaches hundreds of years into the future. It creates an impression of an infinitely expanding universe. He literally signs his own name - by using the notes Bb A C B (H) for the theme - to the work he ...

Puck_4004 14.10.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Bach: (The) Art of Fugue

The Art of Death

Advantages: Good second half, some interesting details
Disadvantages: Clunky plot, a bit meandering

halfway through it was much better. The main character is Adelia - "The Mistress of the Art of Death" - i.e a forensic pathologist. Her struggle to conceal her profession is quite prominent in the plot as female doctors were unusual in the twelfth century. She is helping Simon of Naples discover the killer through the clues left on the bodies of the victims. I found this quite interesting although I'm not sure how realistic it would be in the twelfth century. The plot does wander a bit as it is so concerned with Adelia and her origins and training. The character of Rowley (the King's so-called tax inspector) is ok but the romance seems to have been thrown in as a bit of an afterthought and didn't add anything to the story for me. Mansur and Gyltha offered some light relief as the servants as did Gyltha's grandson Ulf. Simon of Naples was ...

mogdred1 27.01.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin

The Brutal Art - an incredible, gripping read

Advantages: Brilliant, gripping book
Disadvantages: You will need to break off to sleep!

OK, first things first: this is an odd book. No, really. It spins a dark and wonderful yarn spanning generations, with a heavy hint of menace, long-lost family secrets, shadowy and controlling people and a love story. Whew! I'll try to explain what the book's about, but it's complicated, so bear with me, OK? There's a New York art dealer called Ethan Muller, who's fast becoming disillusioned with the artists he shows, the art collectors he sells to and the whole art world. He has a very complicated, not to say twisted, relationship with his father, with whom he mainly communicates via his father's long-term friend and employee, Tony. One day Tony tells him he's found some amazing drawings in an abandoned apartment in Queens. Ethan reluctantly agrees to look at the pictures and is stunned by what he finds: a "map of reality as ...

Bitchqueenofneworleans 02.04.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Brutal Art - Jesse Kellerman