Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers since Beethoven's Time FROM OUR EDITORS
Who says the world of classical music is sedate or even dull? Certainly not anyone who has read Nicolas Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective! This funny, irascible little book details contemporary critical attacks on virtually all of the great musical figures of the past 200 years. Beethoven is here, along with Liszt, Mahler, Schumann, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner -- all of whom were skewered by the critics at some point in their careers. No classical music lover (or hater!) will want to live without it.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Nicolas Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective is an anthology of critical assaults on well-known composers and their works. Here the reader will find biased, unfair, ill-tempered, and singularly unprophetic judgments by musicians and reviewers. Also included is the author's "Invecticon." an index to the nasty words and phrases found in the book.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
``The music of a demented eunuch,'' writes one 19th-century critic of Wagner in this remarkable anthology of vitriolic reviews. (June)
Booknews
An anthology of critical assaults on well-known composers and their works written by the late Nicolas Slonimskywriter, lexicographer, pianist, composer, conductor, teacher, and in his own words, "legendary...musicologist of manifold endeavors [and] failed wunderkind." It also includes his "Invecticon," an index to the nasty words and phrases found in the book. This is a reprint of the 1953 edition with a new foreword by Peter Schickele who describes the collection as "funny and instructive." Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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