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Music

Franz Liszt: Musician, celebrity, superstar by Oliver Hilmes, translated by Stewart Spencer

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December 2016, no. 387
David Larkin reviews 'Franz Liszt: Musician, celebrity, superstar' by Oliver Hilmes, translated by Stewart Spencer

A century before Beatlemania there was Lisztomania. The symptoms were similar: fans driven to near delirium by their proximity to their musical idols, this mass hysteria finding involuntary physical release during performances. The Beatles may have been mobbed during their 1964 American tour, but Liszt left Berlin in March 1842 ‘not like a king, but a ...

Virtuosi Abroad: Soviet music and imperial competition during the early Cold War, 1945–1958 by Kiril Tomoff

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November 2016, no. 386
Sheila Fitzpatrick reviews 'Virtuosi Abroad: Soviet music and imperial competition during the early Cold War, 1945–1958' by Kiril Tomoff

The Soviet violinist David Oistrakh made a triumphant tour of Australia in 1959, a few years after his wildly successful New York début. Along with pianist Emil Gilels and cellist ...

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Conversations in Jazz: The Ralph J. Gleason interviews edited by Toby Gleason

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November 2016, no. 386
Des Cowley reviews 'Conversations in Jazz: The Ralph J. Gleason interviews' edited by Toby Gleason

It is a testament to Ralph J. Gleason’s standing in the jazz community, at the time these interviews were made, that a composer of the stature of Duke Ellington would consider ...

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1966 by Jon Savage & England’s Dreaming by Jon Savage

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October 2016, no. 385
Anwen Crawford reviews '1966: The year the decade exploded' and 'England’s Dreaming: Sex Pistols and punk rock' by Jon Savage

In March of 1966, Los Angeles rock group The Byrds released their sixth single, a song called 'Eight Miles High'. It was, writes Jon Savage, a song that combined 'two staples of sixties ...

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Iron in the Blood: A musical adaptation of Robert Hughes’s 'The Fatal Shore' by Jeremy Rose

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October 2016, no. 385
Geoff Page reviews 'Iron in the Blood: A musical adaptation of Robert Hughes’s The Fatal Shore' composed by Jeremy Rose

Iron in the Blood is jazz musician Jeremy Rose's ambitious and heartfelt tribute to Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore (1986). Although some academic historians may demur ...

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Green Room: Michael Shmith interviews Brett Dean

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September 2016, no. 384

Brett Dean, perhaps Australia's pre-eminent composer and certainly one of its most productive, is personable, witty, and engaging. He talks with heartfelt eloquence about ...

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Beethoven for a Later Age: The journey of a string quartet by Edward Dusinberre

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August 2016, no. 383
Paul Kildea reviews 'Beethoven for a Later Age: The journey of a string quartet' by Edward Dusinberre

There is a moment early in the 'Heiliger Dankgesang' movement of Beethoven's Quartet Op. 132 when, without ceremony, an alien, courtly trio is plonked down ...

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The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper

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June–July 2016, no. 382
Kate Hennessy reviews 'The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic' by Jessica Hopper

Chicago-based music critic Jessica Hopper disdains introductory tedium. Were I to mimic her style, we'd be off and running by now, or grappling with a question ...

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On Sondheim: An Opinionated Guide by Ethan Mordden

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May 2016, no. 381
Ian Dickson reviews 'On Sondheim: An Opinionated guide' by Ethan Mordden

Do we really need another slim volume on the great Stephen Sondheim? Along with innumerable reviews, essays, and articles, we have Craig Zadan's account of Sondheim's early career, Sondheim & Co (1974), Meryle Secrest's Stephen Sondheim: A Life (1998), and the promise of a definitive biography from the critic David Benedict. If that were not en ...

Yodelling Boundary Riders: Country Music in Australia since the 1920s by Toby Martin

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March 2016, no. 379
Doug Wallen reviews 'Yodelling Boundary Riders' by Toby Martin

The history of country music in Australia is in many ways the history of the specialisation of a genre,' writes Toby Martin, explaining how the style evolved from copying the American singing-cowboy model of the 1930s to incorporating Australian bush ballads and staking a 'unique claim to national authenticity'.

Notions of authenticity are among the many lin ...

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