The Glorious Ones: Classical Music's Legendary Performers

by Harold C. Schonberg

The Pulitzer Prize-winning "New York Times" music critic provides anecdotal accounts of the lives and times of thirty-nine musical superstars--from the castrate to Pavarotti and Horowitz

Genres: Music, History, Classical Music

509 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Harold Charles Schonberg was an American music critic and journalist, most notably for The New York Times. He was the first music critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (1971). He was the author of a number of books on musical subjects, and also one on chess.

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Schonberg's writing lacks zest. This was a chore to finish - and this is subject matter I usually find pretty interesting. One of his flaws is the constant repetition of "It is said..." "So the famous story goes..." "The theory has been advanced..." "It is said by cynics..." "It is believed that..." "There were those who said..."

"Some physiologists have advanced the theory that where [tenors'] brains should be are, instead, acoustic cavities that enable them to throw tones higher, harder, and faster than members of the human race can." Huh?? But you know who did have a brain? Shockingly, tenor Lauritz Melchior's wife: "She also had brains inside that pretty head, could read and understand the small print in all contracts, and took care of the family finances."

Discussing a recording of Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody that Rachmaninoff supposedly recorded on the Victor label, but which has never been found, Schonberg writes, "it has been said that Victor, to help the war effort, donated all of its metal masters to be melted down, and among them was the Spanish Rhapsody." He was writing in the mid-1980s, with the war only 40 years in the past. Couldn't he have attempted to verify that claim?

He writes that Jenny Lind was buried at Westminster Abbey, which is wrong. She only has a monument there.

The one perhaps saving grace of the book is that Schonberg mentions early and important recordings of musicians, so that the reader can track them down. So, for example, he tells us to compare the recordings of two virtuosos: Pablo de Sarasate in 1904 playing the Prelude from Bach's Partita No. 3 in E major, played at top speed, as a showpiece: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEyHf...), and Joseph Joachim in 1903 playing from Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G minor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw998...), described by Schonberg as a "selfless, broad approach." The book has me listening to Enrico Caruso and Nellie Melba and Geraldine Farrar and Adelina Patti, who was 62 when her voice could first be recorded, and had been singing for 55 years; Rachmaninoff in 1927 at age 54 playing Strauss-Tausig Op. 167 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5yIv...), compared to the 70 year old Paderewski in 1930 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=694oV...).

In the chapter on Arthur Rubinstein, who himself in many ways departed from the 19th-century, Romantic ways of playing, Schonberg asks us to listen to the Chopin recordings of three Romantic giants. "...listen to the [Ignaz] Friedman performance of the E flat Nocturne (Op. 55, No. 2). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYuXY...] In its color, chord weightings, polyphony, control, and command of a singing line, it leaves even Rubinstein far behind. [Here's Rubinstein's for comparison - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbPDx...] Or listen to the tensile strength and classic, nonsentimental playing of [Josef] Hofmann in the familiar F sharp Nocturne. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVlnd...] Or listen to the majesty, sweep, and refinement of [Josef] Lhevinne in the A flat Polonaise. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDdjI...] ...These pianists were completely different and each had his own individuality, but they all had certain things in common - sound as an esthetic ideal, the organization of basses and inner voices that gave a pronounced polyphonic structure and a much richer harmonic texture to the music, and the way they were able to float a melodic line."

Schonberg writes about how Vladimir Horowitz's manner of playing changed, using the example of the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto. "Horowitz first recorded the work around 1928, with Albert Coates. This is a strong, unaffected, brilliant performance, very much in Rachmaninoff's own manner. It pursues a straight line from beginning to end, with confidence and strength. About thirty years later Horowitz made a recording with Fritz Reiner, and mannerisms enter - a teasing of the melodic lines, much more variation in tempo, and a slower feeling. Finally, in 1978, his recording with Eugene Ormandy was altogether a mannered, self-indulgent performance, overladen with sentimental lingerings and a lack of the grand design that Horowitz had displayed in his first recording and, to a large extent, in his second."

Horowitz, 1930 with Coates (this is what Schonberg refers to as "around 1928"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRvVk...
Horowitz, 1951 with Reiner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK6wR...
Horowitz, 1978 with Ormandy (a bootleg by an audience member): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=algw8...

(My personal opinion right now is that these recordings are holding my interest.)

To emphasize how doctored recordings could be, Schonberg repeats the "often told" story of the young pianist who recorded the two Chopin concertos with Artur Rodzinski. "During the recording sessions he would break down time and again. The music was too difficult for him. At each break the engineers would say, "Don't worry. We'll fix it." After a week or so of constant splicing a composite concerto was assembled. The pianist and Rodzinski went to the control room to listen, and the pianist was happy. "Not bad, eh?" he said to Rodzinski. "My boy," said Rodzinski, "it's very good. Don't you wish you could play like that?" Who knows if this is actually true. My research hints that this pianist is Paul Badura-Skoda...I'm enjoying the recording...

It reminds me of the rumor that Jan Lisiecki required dozens, or maybe hundreds of takes, to get through his disc of Chopin Etudes...

I'll hang on to this as a reference book, inspite of my disappointment with it.

[Violet · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Virtuosi by Harold Schoenberg was an intriguing book about the classical music superstars of history. I found this book when I had asked my dad for an informational book, and seeing how the only informational books (or any books, for that matter) that we have in the house are either about therapy or music, I went with the music one. It turned out to be a very interesting and refreshing read. The author, Schonberg, has a very unique style that makes nonfiction not tedious. Before this book, there hasn't really ever been a book about all the famous classical musicians and why they were famous and remembered. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who needs a nonfiction.

[Remo · Rating 5 out of 5]

40 biografías de músicos de los últimos 300 años. 40 relatos muy bien escritos y que mantienen totalmente el interés. 40 historias que maravillan y entretienen. 40 veces una buena lectura. Me encantó esta obra, que conservo entre mis más preciados libros. El autor reconoce desde el prólogo que no tenía ni idea de música (de historia de la música, pues el amigo Schonberg era nada menos que el crítico musical del New York Times) y que consideró que escribir un libro era una buena manera de aprender. Pues le salió redondo...