On Ross's "The Rest is Noise"

I've just finished The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross. Surprisingly I found it a tough read even though it was on the top of my Christmas wish-list, I had high expectations. What I can't quite put my finger on is how and why he chose to discuss some composers and essentially ignored others. Perhaps it was too broad a brush and too much for one book.

In particular, I was interested in his comments on the last 30 years of the 20th century. I was looking for pointers to new compositions and composers, but I wonder if I really want to hear some of them. Of La Mont Young, he suggests the Berkley music department gave him money 'to get him out of town', then quotes 3 supposed compositions. Do I really want to listen to him? There's a lot on Pierre Boulez and John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and of course Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, but tonal composers? He groups John Taverner and Michael Gorecki but says nothing about them. Gorecki's 3rd Symphony was a big commercial hit, but nothing more is said of him. There are interesting details about Stravinsky, Shostokovich, Copland, Sibelius, Britten and Richard Strauss and the effects of the world around them on their music.

I'm not a musician, so when Ross talks says it "ends in unambigous B-flat major" or "D-flat major, D major with B attached, E-flat major and the notes C and E" he leaves me cold. I can't imagine it and would need a keyboard to sound it out. Perhaps it's meaningful to a real musician, but it's nothing to me.

The historical coverage of the World War II impact on music was insightful. In an earlier post, I noticed the lack of broadcasting of Bruckner's symphonies. Perhaps I now understand it differently. Ross points out how frequently during the Nazi era Bruckner's works were performed. Apparently he was almost as popular as Wagner and Strauss. Is there some anti-German bias creeping into the broadcast selections? I've always concluded his omission had more to do with the length of the symphonies, but now I wonder a bit.

I'm lending my copy to a friend with similar interests. Let's see what he has to say, assuming that he takes the time to plow through the full 543 pages.