crich area community news
BOOK REVIEW (OR, HOW TO DISLIKE WAGNER A LITTLE LESS)
Music for the People by Gareth Malone
Published 2011 by Collins (ISBN 978-0-00-738305-4)
It might seem a little odd for someone like me to want this book, which aims to demystify classical music for the less initiated and point out where the fun and the pitfalls lie. However, with all my singing experience, I’ve never had any formal musical training, know little or nothing about opera and hadn’t heard of John Adams before.
Halfway through reading the book I was getting “wow” moments every couple of pages, and I soon saw that the book does exactly what it says on the tin. Even where I thought I knew a bit already, Malone’s insights gave me a whole new perspective, and, as an enthusiast for his TV series “The Choir”, I started to appreciate just how much this one man has done (and far less visibly than on TV) for music and communities. He is lively, witty and wise and his writing style is very accessible.
Perhaps the best tribute I can pay is that by the end I wanted an encore. Everyone, everyone should read this book. Let’s hope it goes paperback by late Autumn 2011 so that lots of people will buy it for Christmas, a time when many more people than usual reconnect with fondly-remembered tunes such as carols, Handel’s “Messiah” and so on.
Kate Smith