Aug. 24th, 2021

qatsi: (sewell)
Book Review: Understanding Music, by Antony Hopkins
One of the more disagreeable features of the recent Dominic Sandbrook volume I read was the ghastly quotations from the diaries of the arch-reactionary - or so he seems now - James Lees-Milne. Unfortunately, this book shares to some extent that persona. It's odd, because I think this is another re-read, and it seems quite different to the relaxed commentary by the same author on Beethoven's symphonies I read last year. It's not that Hopkins sets out to be bad; rather, I think it's that his writing style has dated rapidly, and perhaps there is a premonition of, and over-reaction against, dumbing down. Perhaps being moved from the Third Programme to Radio 4 was the start of a slippery slope. There is certainly some useful material here, in a survey of musical foundations and history, but some of the later sections feel more hectoring. There are probably easier introductions to the subject available today.

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