Musical Revolutions: How the Sounds of the Western World Changed

by Stuart Isacoff

From the critically acclaimed author of Temperament, a narrative account of the most defining moments in musical history—classical and jazz—all of which forever altered Western culture "A fascinating journey that begins with the origins of musical notation and travels through the centuries reaching all the way to our time.”—Semyon Bychkov, chief conductor and music director of the Czech PhilharmonicThe invention of music notation by a skittish Italian monk in the eleventh century. The introduction of multilayered hymns in the Middle Ages. The birth of opera in a Venice rebelling against the church’s pious restraints. Baroque, Romantic, and atonal music; bebop and cool jazz; Bach and Liszt; Miles Davis and John Coltrane. In telling the exciting story of Western music’s evolution, Stuart Isacoff explains how music became entangled in politics, culture, and economics, giving rise to new eruptions at every turn, from the early church’s attempts to bind its followers by teaching them to sing in unison to the global spread of American jazz through the Black platoons of the First World War. The author investigates questions When does noise become music? How do musical tones reflect the natural laws of the universe? Why did discord become the primary sound of modernity? Musical Revolutions is a book replete with the stories of our most renowned musical artists, including notable achievements of people of color and women, whose paths to success were the most difficult.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History

341 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 7, 2022

Reviews

[Shrike58 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gallop through a 1000 years of Western (mostly) musical history, Isacoff takes you from Guido of Arezzo (990-1050), who invented written musical notation as we know it, through the high points of "classical" music, with a parallel look at jazz, winding up with some side stories such as the fate of women in serious music and the how the Western classical tradition became world music; particularly in the Far East. Isacoff has done a lot of magazine writing, and the breezy overall tone reflects that, leading me to wonder who this book was written for. My level of ignorance is such that I got quite a bit out of it, but the overall feel is breathless, verging a little on the slight. I can imagine the parent of a serious music student picking this book to get a sense of what it's all about.

Given the option I could give this book a 3.5.

[Martha Anne Toll]

Here’s my review of this book for the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outloo...

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I knew a lot about the history of Western music, having listened to a wide range of genres, played, and performed it since I was young. I thought perhaps this book would fill in some details. Instead, I was surprised by how much I did not know, even about periods where my background is especially strong--classical music from the seventeenth to early twentieth century. For example, I really did know how the cult of the virtuoso performer was transformed into an international cultural phenomenon from Paganini and Liszt, particularly after it came into contact with American audiences later in the nineteenth century.

I have read some jazz history, but Musical Revolutions does a better job of synthesizing the creative energy and consolidation of styles behind its development. And while I recognize individual composers and styles of modern classical music, I have never really understood the divergence and convergence of radically different approaches, and how they arose from the energies of many composers and performers who studied, collaborated, and sometimes competed with each other.

I could quibble with some omissions, but none of them would have changed the narrative.

[Stuart Isacoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review from The New Yorker --

Musical Revolutions, by Stuart Isacoff (Knopf). Attempting to chart the most important turning points in Western classical and jazz music, this history traverses immense territory, drawing unexpected connections between artists—for instance, the harmonic links between Debussy and Charlie Parker. The spirit of revolution reverberates most potently in an almost novelistic account of the eleventh-¬century monk Guido D’Arezzo’s crusade to standardize music notation. Isacoff’s descriptions frequently help us see anew things we might take for granted: in polyphony, tones are “coiled around” a cantus firmus “like climbing vines”; the lines of the musical staff that Guido invents are “like rungs of an imaginary ladder.”

[gpears · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF .. was inch resting but something about the writing was irritating to me 😔

[Richard Levine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have to agree with the GR reader who said "long on facts, short on insights."

[Elizabeth Fewtrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating book, and I now have added several pieces to my TBLT (To Be Listened To) list. As an academic, I wanted a little more information on some of his sources. I may not be the average reader, but it certainly made my time of the treadmill go by more quickly.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Temperament and I had high hopes for this book, but it just didn't do much for me. Musical Revolutions describes a dozen or so of what Isacoff sees as paradigm-changing points in Western music (the beginning of opera and the popularization of Miles Davis to name two). I thought the revolutionary points that Isacoff chose were reasonable, if necessarily incomplete. And I thought the writing itself was fine.

However, the book was focused on the "who/what/where/when" of each revolution with very little discussion of the "why". There was a constant stream of composers and their works without much of an attempt to put them into a larger context. For instance, Kind Of Blue was extraordinarily successful and Isacoff details that success. But why did it succeed? Was the work different than what other artists were doing at the time, or was the market just ready for it, or what? How did this success change jazz at the time? Did others try to copy it, or incorporate the style, or what? Other than a quick aside that Miles' sidemen were suddenly in demand there is little attempt to answer any such questions.

In the end the book was interesting but instantly forgettable. But if you want a simple history of these events you may like it better than I did.

[Casey Fischer · Rating 2 out of 5]

long on facts, short on insights.

isacoff’s passion for the subject exceeds his skill as a writer in this dry, pretentious exercise in namedropping. he rarely delves into any topic deep enough to find a compelling narrative, preferring to race through interminable lists of events—this pianist studied at that conservatory under that teacher with those classmates, and so on. i didn’t know why i was supposed to care about any of the artists he mentioned in this way, and often he says literally nothing about them other than their name and who they studied with—which is often just another name with no context!

it feels like the author is trying to prove his knowledge of the subject rather than say anything interesting about it. he tries to spruce up the writing by throwing in little anecdotes that have nothing to do with music, which i found annoying.

his perspective seemed a little misogynistic at times and he deadnames trans musicians multiple times, completely unnecessarily. the fact that his chapters about women musicians and classical music in china are jammed at the very end of the book (and especially fluffed up with namedropping) reveal that non-white-male perspectives are sort of an afterthought, despite the lip service he pays to equality.

on the whole, i was not impressed by this book and will not be likely to read anything else by this author.

[Rudy Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Musical Revolutions is an engaging, well-written, and deeply-researched account of the key inflection points that have shaped Western music. Accessible for both the casual reader and the musical history buff, this book zigs and zags through the centuries to provide a fascinating look at the people and breakthroughs that have created music as we know it today.

One note: I would disagree with the earlier comment about Miles Davis and his groundbreaking album Kind of Blue. I thought the author drew clear connections between this album and the French Impressionists. And he also credits the change of direction in jazz at the time to the influence of Ahmad Jamal and the switch from chord changes to coloristic scales. As a huge fan of this album, it was especially illuminating to learn more about what made it such a landmark, and I think Isacoff does a good job of explaining the "why" for this and the other revolutions throughout the book.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audiobook) This work looks at a history of music, with emphasis on those composers and performers that altered the course of how music was composed and performed. From advances in liturgical to jazz, this work looks at those artists who helped redefine how music was performed. A good overview of history and you will learn a great deal about individuals and groups that don’t always get the attention. Worth a read.

[jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this primer on the major developments of western music. The book is engagingly written, and highly opinionated as to who and what was, and is, "revolutionary", which is fine. I think he gets bogged down in the latter parts of the book when the discussion turns at length to experimental music. It may be too early to deem such "music" as revolutionary, provocative as it may be.

[Whitney Sheng · Rating 4 out of 5]

In art as in love making, heart felt ineptitude has its appeal. And so does heartless skill. What you want is passion, virtuosity. - John Barth