What do you think?
Rate this book
Serving Genius: Carlo Maria Giulini
Serving Genius tells the life story of Carlo Maria Giulini, one of the most renowned and beloved conductors of the twentieth century. Detailing Giulini's extraordinary professional career, Thomas D. Saler also chronicles Giulini's personal life, including his musical awakening while growing up amid the spectacular beauty of the Dolomite mountains, his years as a student in Rome's Academy of St. Cecilia, his conscription into the Italian army during World War II, his nine months in hiding for his anti-fascist and pacifist beliefs, and his selfless devotion to his wife, Marcella. A humble master who shunned the limelight, Giulini took a deeply emotional and subjective approach to making music. Saler provides uniquely detailed analysis of Giulini's nuanced musicianship and the way he conveyed that musicianship to the orchestra through physical gestures. Meditating on the very art of conducting at which Giulini excelled, Saler discusses each of the conductor's major musical appointments, including stints with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. The book also addresses his repertoire of choice, leadership style, and moral framework. Drawing on extensive interviews with Giulini's family, music critics, arts administrators, orchestra members, and collaborating soloists, Serving Genius draws out the personal amid the professional life of this giant among twentieth-century conductors.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 27, 2010
3 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 3, 2011
As a long-standing admirer of Carlo Maria Giulini, I found this book a pleasure to read from start to finish. To my knowledge, it is the only available biography of Giulini. The biographer has done an excellent job of recording the key events of Giulini's life and, perhaps more importantly, explaining what it was that made Giulini's music making so special.
The book is not particularly long – I finished it in just over a day. It is well-written and easy to read. The majority of the chapters take us chronologically through Giulini's life, focusing on his early life and the war years, his key relationships with orchestras in London, Chicago and Los Angeles, and his final years following the onset of his wife’s illness. The remaining chapters include discussions of his conducting style, his approach to music and choice of repertoire. The primary material for the book appears to be an extensive list of interviews that Thomas Saler has conducted with former colleagues.
The section on Giulini's wartime past was particularly interesting. While I was aware of his hostility to the Nazis and fascism, I was not aware of the level of danger that he endured. Under the fascists Giulini served as an officer in the Italian army, but apparently made strenuous efforts to avoid hitting the enemy when forced to fire in a combat situation. However, when Rome came under direct Nazi control, he spent 9 months holed up with a Jewish family in a tunnel underneath his uncle’s house. Meanwhile above ground posters were distributed with his photo and orders that he was to be shot on sight.
Thomas Saler is clearly a huge admirer of Giulini. Throughout the book he invests huge effort in fleshing out what constitutes the special Giulini sound. For example he discusses in detail Giulini’s approach to bowing in Beethoven, and explains that the Los Angeles Philharmonic kept separate copies of scores that had Giulini’s markings and that were only for use when the orchestra was working with the maestro. He also illustrates many of the aspects of Giulini’s personality and philosophy that made him such a unique conductor: his humanity, his dislike of autocracy, his complete focus on the music and lack of interest in peripheral concerns.
Nonetheless, Saler does not shy away from some of the inevitable controversies that surround any great conductor. For example, he quotes the leader of the LSO describing Giulini's relationship with the London Symphony Orchestra as "hate at first sight". He also describes the negotiations for his return to the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1975, which involved lofty discussions of art and life with Giulini while in another part of the room his wife drove the demands for his fee to astronomical levels.
In the preface, Saler articulates his own experience of a Giulini concert:
“Every phrase was shaped, yet sounded entirely natural. The music breathed as if driven by the human soul rather than by metronome. No detail was too small, yet the whole was not lost. The sound had an inner glow, with the viola and cello parts bathing the top and bottom lines with colour and warmth. Lyrical passages flowed with a transcendent beauty; fiery sections cut the air with knife-edged precision and power. Climaxes accomplished their purposes without skewing orchestral balances. Through it all, players eagerly and loving responded to Giulini’s overarching request: ‘Touch the heart.’”
Anyone who was privileged to experience Giulini in the concert hall is likely to concur. This book is heartily recommended to anyone with an interest in conducting or classical music performance and interpretation.
The book is not particularly long – I finished it in just over a day. It is well-written and easy to read. The majority of the chapters take us chronologically through Giulini's life, focusing on his early life and the war years, his key relationships with orchestras in London, Chicago and Los Angeles, and his final years following the onset of his wife’s illness. The remaining chapters include discussions of his conducting style, his approach to music and choice of repertoire. The primary material for the book appears to be an extensive list of interviews that Thomas Saler has conducted with former colleagues.
The section on Giulini's wartime past was particularly interesting. While I was aware of his hostility to the Nazis and fascism, I was not aware of the level of danger that he endured. Under the fascists Giulini served as an officer in the Italian army, but apparently made strenuous efforts to avoid hitting the enemy when forced to fire in a combat situation. However, when Rome came under direct Nazi control, he spent 9 months holed up with a Jewish family in a tunnel underneath his uncle’s house. Meanwhile above ground posters were distributed with his photo and orders that he was to be shot on sight.
Thomas Saler is clearly a huge admirer of Giulini. Throughout the book he invests huge effort in fleshing out what constitutes the special Giulini sound. For example he discusses in detail Giulini’s approach to bowing in Beethoven, and explains that the Los Angeles Philharmonic kept separate copies of scores that had Giulini’s markings and that were only for use when the orchestra was working with the maestro. He also illustrates many of the aspects of Giulini’s personality and philosophy that made him such a unique conductor: his humanity, his dislike of autocracy, his complete focus on the music and lack of interest in peripheral concerns.
Nonetheless, Saler does not shy away from some of the inevitable controversies that surround any great conductor. For example, he quotes the leader of the LSO describing Giulini's relationship with the London Symphony Orchestra as "hate at first sight". He also describes the negotiations for his return to the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1975, which involved lofty discussions of art and life with Giulini while in another part of the room his wife drove the demands for his fee to astronomical levels.
In the preface, Saler articulates his own experience of a Giulini concert:
“Every phrase was shaped, yet sounded entirely natural. The music breathed as if driven by the human soul rather than by metronome. No detail was too small, yet the whole was not lost. The sound had an inner glow, with the viola and cello parts bathing the top and bottom lines with colour and warmth. Lyrical passages flowed with a transcendent beauty; fiery sections cut the air with knife-edged precision and power. Climaxes accomplished their purposes without skewing orchestral balances. Through it all, players eagerly and loving responded to Giulini’s overarching request: ‘Touch the heart.’”
Anyone who was privileged to experience Giulini in the concert hall is likely to concur. This book is heartily recommended to anyone with an interest in conducting or classical music performance and interpretation.
February 12, 2017
When Maestro Giulini, came from Italy to make his debut with The Los Angeles Philharmonic in Oct. 1978, I had the privilege of singing in the Chorus of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, "Ode to Joy". The L.A. Master Chorale was joined by The University Singers of California State University, Fullerton at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion for 4 performances. It was also televised in Europe. I'll never forget driving into L.A. for the first rehearsal. The city was encircled by 10 wildfires due to the warm Santa Ana Winds off of the desert. I had just evacuated my home and smelled like smoke. I didn't know if I'd have a home to return to, but this was the opportunity of a lifetime! I remember the handsome, noble Giulini was so expressive in his gestures, from directing breathtaking pianissimo with his little finger to the bombastic, triumphant finish and he had tears in his eyes. A humble man, Giulini didn't mention that at about my age of 20, he had actually lived to see the triumph of this song of Brotherhood for mankind. I learned from this book, that Giulini had been a soldier for his beloved Italy and then in hiding for 9 months in a sewer pipe, rather than fight on the evil side of WWII. His beloved wife smuggled music scores to him, so he could practice his conducting even at the peril of his life. Giulini truly had a personal passion for the message of Beethoven's inspired work and gave his ALL to every detail. The L.A. Times concurred "It was a day to remember." You've got to see it, to believe it! (Search My Videos on You Tube Channel: Eileen Rose McAllister, which corresponds to p.149-150 in the book.) I am so grateful this compassionate, musical genius touched my life and so many others.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews