What are you reading now?

[Stanfordian]

Just finished Vol 3 of Alan Walker's magnificent biography of Liszt. The fourth biography of him I've read - a composer who has always fascinated and puzzled me, both as man and musician.

I read Ernest Newman's disgraceful and wholly misleading character assassination "The Man Liszt" many years ago, and more recently inherited an old copy of Sacheverell Sitwell's affectionate but similarly inaccurate one. Earlier this year I read Eleanor Perenyi's, picked up in a second hand bookshop, again loads of inaccuracies, no good on the music, and it stops dead at the end of the Weimar years in 1861, with a large chunk of Liszt's life and work still to come. I'm grateful to ostuni, up-thread, for alerting me to the Walker which somehow I'd missed. At last Liszt leaps into focus, over three fine volumes, the seeming mysteries and inconsistencies in his life making sense at last. The scholarship is immense, many topics which would slow down the narrative are continued in absorbing footnotes. A central, pivotal figure in 19th century musical history - the importance of his relationships with Berlioz and Wagner cannot be exaggerated.

Hello RT, Yes Alan Walker's superb biography of Liszt; its a greatly informative read. I have all three volumes in the set. I agree that Liszt and Wagner were great influences on each other. I was also struck thsat Liszt spoke and wrote in French which I guess was the language of the educated classes of much of Europe. I should know which language Wagner used but I dont.

[verismissimo]

... I should know which language Wagner used but I dont.

German?

[Stanfordian]

German?

Hiya verismissimo,

I suppose that looking at a range of his letters is the best of determining what language Wagner used in the main. I imagine it was German.

[verismissimo]

Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy. Australian novel of 1989. A boy has an Austrian piano teacher, a refugee and a Leschetizky pupil. (I've been studying Australian connections with Leschetizky recently.)

[Petrushka]

The Gothic Line by Douglas Orgill. The war in Northern Italy in the autumn of 1944.

A Pan paperback I've had since 1969 and ashamed to say, never read until now. It is an excellently written account of this forgotten campaign and I regret never picking it up in 44 years. This is how I like my military history to be written. Our only family casualty of either of the two great wars (as far as I can establish) died near Anzio in 1944 and it was fascinating to track his place of burial from the sketchy details I had heard from my mother, via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. A wonderful resource.

[Beef Oven]

Going to read a a few political biographies over the summer.

Reading this at the moment.

[ahinton]

Going to read a a few political biographies over the summer.

Reading this at the moment.

I hope that you may discover from it, among other things, the reason for its title in the light of its apparent incompatibility with the author's once notorious catchphrase "on yer bike" (although perhaps our member Sir Velo might already know the answer to that one).

In the meantime, I wonder if, for the sake of balance, you might also dip into https://www.google.co.uk/#q=tony+ben...w=1606&bih=918...

[Beef Oven]

The Rest Is Noise: Listening To The Twentieth Century. Alex Ross.

[clive heath]

It is maybe a month ago and I am reading a scrip to a little kid concerning a Gum-Chewing young doll who blows up like a balloon and later I am reading in the blatts about how many green-backs you are needing to see the same scrip on Broadway and as I am on vacation from the Big-Apple I happen to have along some reading matter and what should one of them be but Damon Runyan's collection of stories. On the cover of this book is a quote from some scribe called Roald Dahl, "Neat, short, crisp and incredibly funny.."and furthermore on page 127 of the other book I have with me is this: "A flight of Hurricanes sent to attack a French airfield made their first low-level pass without firing when the pilots glimpsed on the ground Vichy airmen entertaining girlfriends to aperitifs beside their planes. In consequence on a second pass heavy ground fire damaged several Hurricanes including that of Roald Dahl, later famous as a writer"

The second book is Max Hastings' "All Hell Let Loose", "Furthermore" is the name of the second set of stories in the Runyon collection. The first set, "More Than Somewhat", contains a scene where a swimmer's head pops up in the middle of the waterway on which the Harvard and Yale rowers are competing, an oar hits his head, breaks and the unfavoured team wins. Sounds familiar?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Underworld / Don DeLillo

Inspired by DracoM's post, I've just spent the last four weeks reading this great novel. Beautifully written, insightful and deeply moving; and frequently hilarious (watching one of his colleagues trying to work out a deeply convoluted problem, one of the characters is moved to observe that he looked "like a bulldog taking a crap") - a wonderful panorama of the United States from the 1950s to the '90s, highly recommended.

[french frank]

Waiting in anticipation for the secondhand copy of Otto Erich Deutsch's Mozart: a documentary biography to arrive. What this forum gets you into, eh!

[french frank]

Waiting in anticipation for the secondhand copy of Otto Erich Deutsch's Mozart: a documentary biography to arrive. What this forum gets you into, eh!

Now arrived in pristine 'gift quality' condition. In a day or two I'll be able to answer any questions about the 'real' Mozart!

[Sydney Grew]

The most noteworthy book I have recently read is "An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin," an autobiography written by Gad Beck. It contains much detail about the circumstances and bravery of his life there right up to 1945 - also a striking characterization of his beloved Uncle Paul. An interview with Gad Beck is incorporated in the film "Paragraph 175." So much truth! He expired only last year, back in Berlin, at the age of eighty-eight. A summary of his "underground life" may be read at the Wiki-pædia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gad_Beck

[vinteuil]

One thing leads to another. I enjoyed that tele programme on the Castles of Ludwig of Bavaria the other day - but was a little confused as to what happened after his death : recourse to the various editions of the Almanach de Gotha on the shelves here indicated that he was succeeded by his brother Othon (Otto)-Guillaume-Luitpold-Adalbert-Woldemar - but under the regency of the uncle Luitpold-Charles-Joseph-Guillaume-Louis. Wiki provided further information regarding the insanity of the younger brother and hence the continued regency of the devious uncle - but I realised I didn't really have a clue as to how the various states came together to form Germany - and so - am now reading Gordon A Craig 'Germany 1866-1945' [Oxford History of Modern Europe] - and am much enjoying it.

[umslopogaas]

#861 Thropplenoggin, I've read Musil's 'Man without Qualities' and I think I posted about it way back on this thread. It reminded me of Proust, in that the plot isnt really the point, its just a space to discuss anything and everything that Musil thought worth discussing. Well worth a try, in my opinion.