Before I start, though: a self-promo. My novel Grendul Rising (MadStones Tetralogy, Book One) features a lot of music: music used (iterally) as a weapon in chapter one, music in the context of nature in chapter two, and, later on, in the midst of a riot (I'm paraphrasing so it makes sense out of context), "Put your hands up and step away from the bagpipe!" (No, I don't actually dislike bagpipes.)
Okay, on to the books that are "really" about music.
by Alex Ross
A great collection of essays about music. The author not only talks about the when and where of music (including interviews with living artists), but goes deep into its analysis and aesthetics. The book helped me reconnect with some of my old favorites (Schubert, Cecil Taylor, Radiohead, John Luther Adams) as well as appreciate some that I haven't particularly liked before (Brahms, Verdi, Björk, Bob Dylan). It was also interesting to read his analysis of the reoccurrence of a particular motif throughout musical history, discussion of modern Chinese music, debunking of the Mozart myth, and the fact that "classical music is dying!" has been a trope for 700 years.
by David Toop
A brief, detailed (not opposite terms in this case!) overview of the state of music in the early 21st century. Among other things, there are chapters about improvisation, about composing with silence, about film music (including the dread-inducing soundscape of “Alien” and late 20th-century collaborations between Teshigahara and Takemitsu); about extremely large-scale compositions (one piece lasting more than 600 years, one lasting 1000 years), and about the incorporation of pre-recorded material into new works (including such use in both ambient and rap music, which would otherwise appear to be opposites). Mr. Toop seems to have had experience in all of these areas, and his knowledge is encyclopedic – the bibliography and discography themselves would keep the reader/listener occupied for months.
by Julian Barnes
Interesting biographical novel about the life of composer Shostakovitch and the ruinous effects of totalitarianism on art, told in flashbacks and stark but strangely beautiful prose. Makes me want to listen to the music again.
By David Stubbs
Not so much an overview as a series of detailed biographies and critiques of certain artists and their work, this is a fascinating book. All styles of electronic music are covered, from the most experimental avant-garde to the most mainstream pop (the author does not fall into the common trap of labelling all electronic music “experimental”). However, this book is overwritten; reading it is an exhausting slog through a swamp of breathless superlatives and affectedly hip verbosity. That said, it does make a compelling case for revisiting this music.
by Thomas Forrest Kelly
Fascinating, witty explanation of what at first seems an impenetrable topic (earlier methods of writing music were different in kind, not just in style, from today's scores and sheet music). The terms are explained: finally, it's easy to know the difference between a neume and a note (besides how it looks on a page) — as well as how a virga differs from a punctum and a breve from a semibreve, what a "perfection" was, and why the 14th-century pop-culture antihero Fauvel was always drawn with the head of a horse. The whole thousand-year-plus history is explained, mostly in its formative centuries, along with various geniuses (Guido the Monk, Philippe de Vitry) who invented ways of notating specific pitch or rhythm. There's also some commentary by the so-called Anonymous 4 (not the vocal group who are named after him), and the book ends with a complex operatic score: one page of "Wozzek" by Alban Berg. Since this system of notation was invented in Europe (mostly in France), all of the examples come from there; it would have been nice to see how the system has been adapted to write non-Euorpean music such as jazz and gamelan (as well as contemporary variations like graphic scores). But this history is interesting and explanatory as far as it goes. A side note: the accompanying CD is intended just as examples, but it is quite beautiful and I recommend listening to it on its own.
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