sohnesorge's review
4.0
While it did take me a little more than a year to read this, I thought it fascinating and compelling. I'm not a musician or a particularly adept listener, but I've always loved Bach, and Elie's point-of-view taught me to listen to Bach, and most music, differently. It also made me buy a lot of music, which was a nice bonus. You can't have enough different recordings of the Goldberg Variations ...
clss97's review
5.0
And the recognition that the dead continue to speak and that the sounds they make, amplified right, are a kind of music.
rbkegley's review
4.0
Let me start by saying that while I enjoyed this book, I would have liked it even better had it contained about 150 fewer pages. Elie's tale is at its best while discussing the circumstances and inventiveness of Bach's compositions, and his embrace of technological advances during his lifetime. Bach's story is interwoven with the stories of his major interpreters, like Albert Schweitzer, Pablo Casals, Glenn Gould, Yo-Yo Ma; even Wendy (Walter) Carlos' "Switched-On Bach" makes a brief appearance. The stories of each of these interpreters brings in the technologies that appear during their careers: the wax cylinder (Schweitzer), 78 rpm acetate discs (Casals), 33 1/3 LP vinyl (Gould), digital (Yo-Yo Ma.) For me, Elie's philosophical discussions are overlong and a bit overwrought, but the book's still worth reading.
clambook's review
3.0
Wonderful account of how certain technologies and certain artists -- Pablo Casals, Glenn Gould, Albert Schweitzer and Leopold Stokowski among them -- intersected to produce big moments in recorded music, and "reinvent" the music of Bach in the process. Heavy on the life of Bach, but those parts can be skipped if you already know the story. Provocative and intriguing.
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