quinta-feira, setembro 16, 2010
Notes on music, by Alex Ross, oh yeah
"A panoramic vision of Bob Dylan, his music, his shifting place in American culture, from multiple angles. In fact, reading Sean Wilentz’ Bob Dylan in America is as thrilling and surprising as listening to a great Dylan song."
—Martin Scorsese
"All the American connections that Wilentz draws to explain the appearance of Dylan’s music are fascinating, particularly at the outset the connection to Aaron Copland. The writing is strong, the thinking is strong – the book is dense and strong everywhere you look."
—Philip Roth
ALEX ROSS: I was fascinated by your decision to begin your book with a chapter on Aaron Copland. What led you to start there?
SEAN WILENTZ: I wanted to explore Dylan’s roots in the musical world of the Popular Front, but didn’t want to retell the stories about Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. I’d written an essay on Copland for a wholly different occasion, and started coming to grips with Copland’s Popular Front affiliations, which had helped spur his elevation of American folk music. I had a hunch that, somewhere, there must be links between Copland and Dylan.
Dois capítulos (?): new york times e new yorker.
My second book, Listen To This, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on Sept. 28th, 2010, with a UK edition by Fourth Estate following in November. It offers a panoramic view of the musical scene, taking in Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Verdi, Brahms, Marian Anderson, Frank Sinatra, Cecil Taylor, Led Zeppelin, Björk, Radiohead, Mitsuko Uchida, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Luther Adams, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Bob Dylan, and the Malcolm X Shabazz High School Marching Band. In the Preface, I say that the aim is to "approach music not as a self-sufficient sphere but as a way of knowing the world." I treat pop music as serious art and classical music as part of the wider culture. The book includes material already published in The New Yorker as well as pieces written or heavily revised for the occasion. The first chapter, from which the title comes, appeared in the magazine in 2004. The second chapter, "Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues," is entirely new—a rapid-moving history of music told through bass lines. The third chapter, "Infernal Machines," weaves together various thoughts on music and technology. And it goes from there. At the back of the book is a 4000-word survey of recommended recordings.
posted by Luís Miguel Dias quinta-feira, setembro 16, 2010
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