Perfect Pitch by Nicolas Slonimsky
Nicolas Slonimsky, pianist, composer, conductor, author, and lexicographer, was born in St Petersburg, Russia, in 1894. Pronounced a genius by his mother, he seemed destined for a professional career in music, but the 1917 revolution brought an end to his hopes, and his errant life took him south to Kiev, Yalta, Constantinople, and finally Paris, where he was hired as rehearsal pianist by the renowned conductor Serge Koussevitsky. He went to the United States in 1923, spending many years in Boston where he gained a dazzling reputation for conducting first performances of difficult works by such composers as Ives, Varese, and Cowell. Since 1937 Slonimsky has developed an international reputation as a writer on music, especially of gargantuan reference works such as Music since 1900 and Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians , of which he has edited the last three editions. His Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patters , an exhaustive compendium of modernistic melodic patterns, unexpectedly became a bible to jazz and rock musicians, bringing him into contact with, among others, Frank Zappa. Perfect Pitch is an ironic commentary (or 'rueful autopsy' as the author calls it) on a life in which failure to fulfil the highest expectations of an over-ambitious mother is never allowed to obscure a story of real achievement in music. It is a book crowded with anecdotes, personal letters, and vignettes of his remarkable family and of the many famous men and women he has encountered. Slonimsky's relish for the odd, the arcane, the idiosyncratic is evident on every page, and the book is written with that blend of wit, spice, and irreverence which make Slonimsky's books, like his conversation, irresistable for the musical and non-musical reader alike. Readership: general readers, particularly those with an interest in musical life since 1900.Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995) was a well-known and renowned music critic. Born in the city of Saint. In his 101 years, he taught and coached music, directed the premieres of several twentieth-century masterpieces, produced works for piano and voice, and oversaw the 5th-8th editions of the renowned Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. He was born in Petersburg, Russia, in 1894. Slonimsky began living in the United States in 1926. He began writing challenging articles about contemporary music and musicians soon after his arrival, many of whom were personal acquaintances.
He accumulated a big file of reviews, essays, and even manuscripts for books that were never published while working as a freelance author. In four volumes, this compilation puts together the best of this material.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780193151550 |
| ISBN 10 | 0193151553 |
| Title | Perfect Pitch |
| Author | Nicolas Slonimsky |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 1988-05-19 |
| Number of pages | 272 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |