Music reviews and criticism Books

Book SynopsisRobert Carl is chair of Composition at the Hartt School, University of Hartford. His music is performed worldwide. His first teacher was Jonathan Kramer.Trade ReviewThe value and importance of the book is properly expressed in the conclusion of the preface by Jann Pasler ... Indeed a deep reading of this book will provoke an objective critical relationship towards postmodernism even among those (like myself) who cautiously use this term – if they use it at all. * International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music *Jonathan Kramer’s Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening reflects his voracious mind and offers the reader a highly original tour through the philosophy, aesthetics, and analysis of musical postmodernism. The book is both accessible and authoritative, and it fills an important gap in the musical literature. * Fred Lerdahl, Professor of Music, Columbia University, USA *A brilliant “both/and,” inclusive thinker, Jonathan Kramer has always been accessible and engaging, eclectic and learned. As a consummate writer, teacher and composer, he has astutely theorized postmodernism—that slippery, contentious beast—from the evidence of contemporary music itself and from the social values of its listeners, as well as creators. In this multi-layered, innovative study of music in our world of “social saturation”, the postmodern is neither a category nor an era: it is a way of hearing, a musical attitude shared by composers and listeners alike. This captivating book will make you rethink modernism, anti-modernism, and of course postmodernism. * Linda Hutcheon, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada *For years Jonathan Kramer has been the leading thinker on the vexed subject of postmodernism in music through his articles and lectures. Now his long-awaited book on the topic is finally posthumously out, and the subtlety and nuance with which he draws a consistent and reasonable argument from so much disparate and seemingly contradictory data is breathtaking. This is likely to be the standard work on musical postmodernism for a long time, and will vastly increase the depth of the discussion. * Kyle Gann, Hawver Professor of Music, Bard College, USA *Table of ContentsEditor’s Introduction by Robert Carl Preface by Jann Pasler Acknowledgements Foreword BOOK 1. IDEAS PART I. CHAPTERS ON POSTMODERN CONCEPTS OF MUSIC Chapter 1: The Nature and Origins of Musical Postmodernism Chapter 2: Postmodernism (Not) Defined Chapter 3: Modernism, Postmodernism, the Avant Garde, and Their Audiences PART II. CHAPTERS ON CONCEPTS OF POSTMODERN MUSIC Chapter 4: Postmodernism and Related Isms in Today’s Music Chapter 5: Unity, Organicism, and Challenges to Their Ubiquity Chapter 6: Beyond Unity Chapter 7: Postmodern Listening Chapter 8: Postmodern Musical Time Chapter 9: Surrealism, Neoclassicism, and Postmodernism PART III. POSTMODERN CHAPTERS ON THE CONCEPT OF MUSIC Chapter 10: Economics, Politics, Technology, and Appropriation Chapter 11: Beyond the Beyond: Postmodernism Exemplified BOOK II. CASE HISTORIES Chapter 12: Postmodernism in the Finale of Mahler's Seventh Symphony Chapter 13: Unity and Disunity in Nielsen’s Sixth Symphony BOOK III. ESSAYS ON POSTMODERNISM AND JONATHAN KRAMER Editor’s note 1. Postmodern Musings, Postmodern Performing by Deborah Bradley-Kramer 2. Are We Postmodern Yet? By Brad Garton 3. Music in the Anthropocene by John Luther Adams 4. On (re-) Hearing Kramer: Five Reactions to Postmodernism Music, Postmodern Listening by John Halle 5. Uncommon Kindness: Reflections on Jonathan Kramer by Duncan Neilson 6. Kramer Post Kramer by Martin Bresnick Biographies Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis international collection of eleven original essays on Australian Aboriginal literature provides a comprehensive critical companion that contextualizes the Aboriginal canon for scholars, researchers, students, and general readers. Australian Aboriginal literature, once relegated to the margins of Australian literary studies, now receives both national and international attention. Not only has the number of published texts by contemporary Australian Aboriginals risen sharply, but scholars and publishers have also recently begun recovering earlier published and unpublished Indigenous works. Writing by Australian Aboriginals is making a decisive impression in fiction, autobiography, biography, poetry, film, drama, and music, and has recently been anthologized in Oceania and North America. Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive critical companion that contextualizes the Aboriginal canon for scholars, researchers, students, and general readers. This international collection of eleven original essays fills this gap by discussing crucial aspects of Australian Aboriginal literature and tracing the development of Aboriginalliteracy from the oral tradition up until today, contextualizing the work of Aboriginal artists and writers and exploring aspects of Aboriginal life writing such as obstacles toward publishing, questions of editorial control (orthe lack thereof), intergenerational and interracial collaborations combining oral history and life writing, and the pros and cons of translation into European languages. Contributors: Katrin Althans, Maryrose Casey, Danica Cerce, Stuart Cooke, Paula Anca Farca, Michael R. Griffiths, Oliver Haag, Martina Horakova, Jennifer Jones, Nicholas Jose, Andrew King, Jeanine Leane, Theodore F. Sheckels, Belinda Wheeler. Belinda Wheeler is Associate Professor of English at Claflin University, Orangeburg, SC.Trade Review[The editor] and the contributors have used the book's position as one of the only international introductory texts on Australian Aboriginal literature as a gateway to understanding Aboriginal output more broadly. . . . * WASAFIRI *[C]hallenges the very notion of literature itself. . . . [I]nsist[s] on the literary quality and seriousness of Australian Aboriginal texts. . . . [H]ighly recommended. . . . [F]ills a large gap in Asia-Pacific literary and cultural studies. It will be of benefit to teachers and students, artists and critics, scholars and general readers, the indigenous and nonindigenous. * PACIFIC ASIA INQUIRY *This comprehensive anthology gives students and beginning researchers a clear overview of the issues at play in indigenous Australian literature today. . . . Handsomely produced and well indexed, this volume is a substantial contribution to the literature. . . . Highly recommended. * CHOICE *

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Book SynopsisAn examination of the role of the pedal clavichord in understanding the work of J. S. Bach, as well as its relevance to contemporary organ performances. Friederich Griepenkerl, in his 1844 introduction to Volume 1 of the first complete edition of J. S. Bach's organ works, wrote: "Actually the six Sonatas and the Passacaglia were written for a clavichord with two manuals and pedal,an instrument that, in those days, every beginning organist possessed, which they used beforehand, to practice playing with hands and feet in order to make effective use of them at the organ. It would be a good thing to let suchinstruments be made again, because actually no one who wants to study to be an organist can really do without one." What was the role of the pedal clavichord in music history? Was it a cheap practice instrument for organistsor was Griepenkerl right? Was it a teaching tool that helped contribute to the quality of organ playing in its golden age? Most twentieth-century commentary on the pedal clavichord as an historical phenomenon was written in a kindof vacuum, since there were no playable historical models with which to experiment and from which to make an informed judgment. At the heart of Bach and the Pedal Clavichord: An Organist's Guide are some extraordinary recentexperiments from the Göteborg Organ Art Center [GOArt] at Göteborg University. The Johan David Gerstenberg pedal clavichord from 1766, now in the Leipzig University museum, was documented and reconstructed; the new copy was thenused for several years as a living instrument for organ students and teachers to experience. On the basis of these experiments and experiences, the book explores, in new and artful ways, Bach's keyboard technique, a technique preserved by his first biographer, J. N. Forkel [1802], and by Forkel's own student, Griepenkerl.Trade ReviewThis is an extremely important study which brings together valuable musicological research and practical experimentation in a unique way -- every organist should read it! * CHOIR & ORGAN, September 2004 *Synthesizing a wealth of historical documentation along with the results of new, experimental studies, Speerstra [Eastman School of Music] has written a thorough analysis of the musicological and performance issues that surround the ambigious history and usage of the pedal clavichord. Despite its subtitle, this book should prove valuable for a broad audience not limited to organists; it speaks to all keyboardists interested in expanding their interpretation of Baroque literature. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Joel Speerstra's work presents a fascinating paradigm for the study of J.S. Bach's organ music that leads performance practice research in a new direction . . . [Speerstra] lays a path for a living performance practice that promotes an integral relationship between the organ and the pedal clavichord. * NOTES, March 2005 *There is much of brilliance in this book. * EARLY MUSIC, January 2005 *Joel Speerstra's book is a wide-ranging study of the pedal clavichord's role in the interpretation of Bach's organ music. Whether one accepts the author's premise or not, organists and clavichordists without access to such a rare instrument may discover new insights into baroque performance practice that can be applied to more readily available instruments. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC, 2005 [Stewart Pollens] Original and brilliant study . . . Anyone interested in keyboard instruments of any kind will find in it a great fund of information and insight into matters of general musical interest, especially the performance of Bach's music. * EARLY MUSIC TODAY *Table of ContentsThe Historical Pedal Clavichord J.S. Bach's Trip Sonatas: A Reception History of a Rumor Reconstructing the Gerstenberg Pedal Clavichord J.S. Bach and the Clavichord: A Reception History of a Technique Performance Practice at the Pedal Clavichord Musica Poetica and Figural Notation J.S. Bach's Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582: A Case Study The Pedal Clavichord and the Organ in Dialogue

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Book SynopsisAn engaging, practical, sometimes poetic account of the new world of percussion music -- from the 1930s (Varese, Cage) to today -- by one of its leading practitioners. In the beginning there was noise. Drumming, the world's most ancient instrumental tradition, re-emerged explosively in the concert music of the twentieth century as music for percussion, involving drums and many other kinds of noisemakers. The music that resulted has spanned an expressive and intellectual gamut: from Cage, Varèse, and Cowell came the first ear-splitting sounds of an American percussion revolution that began in the 1930s; from Stockhausen,Ferneyhough, and Xenakis we have music whose intellectual demands are matched by a vibrant physicality; Feldman gave us gently unfolding structures; John Luther Adams finds music within the earth itself. The Percussionist's Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams examines this music through the eyes of a performer. The book is a practical philosophy, looking not just at the big ideas behind these and other pieces, but also at how those ideas find expressionin sound. Foreword written by Paul Griffiths. Contains a Compact Disc of Steven Schick performing eight musical works that he discusses in detail in the book. Composers include John Luther Adams, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Edgard Varèse, Charles Wuorinen, and Iannis Xenakis. Steven Schick is the world's leading exponent of solo percussion music involving multiple instruments. He has commissioned more than one hundred piecesfrom renowned composers including David Lang, Brian Ferneyhough, and Roger Reynolds. He was a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (1992-2002) and Artistic Director of the Centre International de Percussion de Genève (Switzerland, 2002-4). He teaches at the University of California, San Diego, where he directs the percussion group "red fish blue fish."Trade ReviewA thoroughly impressive endeavour by master percussionist Steven Schick, The Percussionist's Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams is hugely informative and entertaining. Based entirely on Schick's first-hand experiences as a musician, The Percussionist's Art encompasses great insight into some of the great music written for solo percussion. A 'must read' for every breathing musician, The Percussionist's Art will also fascinate those curious to know more about the current explosion of interest in the percussion world. -- -- Dr. Evelyn Glennie, OBE, world-renowned solo percussionistThis is a really well-written, extremely knowledgeable, and thoroughly enjoyable book. . . . Incredible insights into and analysis of a huge array of important percussion music by one of our finest players. Highly recommended! -- -- Steve Reich, composer, and author of Writings on Music (1965-2000)Life-affirming. . . The 'Art' in the title is a massive understatement, it should ideally be 'The Percussionist's Philosophy, Psychology, Physiology, Theatricality, Choreography, Memory, Learning Process and Freedom of Choice' . . . Handsomely presented with copious score excerpts throughout and a CD of Schick's performances of seven of the pieces examined. -- Paul Sarcich, Music and Vision The full review can be consulted at http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2006/12/schick1.htmThis book gives scholars, composers, aficionados of percussion music, and percussion students and teachers an invaluable resource that can be considered the definitive source of information about the major works in the solo repertoire and the art of multiple percussion performance. One can scarcely turn the page without finding observations by the author that will help percussionists develop musically, intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. , 2006 * PERCUSSIVE NOTES *A magnificent work and indispensable book! [Magnifique ouvrage! Indispensable bouquin!] The production aspects (typography, page layout, readability of music examples) match the high standard of the writing. . . . A study written with rigor, but a rigor that leaves room for poetry. -- Michel Faligand * PERCU_INFOS 271 *Steven Schick's recent book The Percussionist's Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams is an extraordinary example of musical writing that comes from inside the action. -- -- Paul GriffithsTable of ContentsForeword by Paul Griffiths Preface Because the World is Round Learning Bone Alphabet The Affliction of memory Face the Music: A look at Percussion Playing Selected Discography This Is Not a Drum: Manipulating the Material of Percussion Music Same Bed, Different Dreams: A Personal Epilogue Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisUnlocks the secrets behind the images and music of an important Spanish musical manuscript compiled for a brotherhood of suspected heretics ca. 1500. The Rosary Cantoral is a rare and beautifully decorated manuscript of Latin plainchant for the Catholic Mass compiled in Toledo, Spain, around the year 1500. In an engaging and richly interdisciplinary essay, Lorenzo Candelaria approaches the Rosary Cantoral as a cultural artifact, unlocking the secrets behind its images and music to reveal the social history and rituals of an elite brotherhood dedicated to the rosary and aspects of the religious communityit served: the Dominicans of San Pedro Mártir de Toledo. The Rosary Cantoral: Ritual and Social Design in a Chantbook from Early Renaissance Toledo presents a model for realizing the fuller significance of illuminatedmusic manuscripts as cultural artifacts and offers unprecedented insights into the social and devotional life of Toledo, Spain, around the turn of the sixteenth century. After solving the mystery of the Rosary Cantoral's origins,subsequent essays probe the meaning and cultural significance of the manuscript's iconography (including a border decoration after Albrecht Dürer), its rare Spanish chants for the Mass, and two striking musical works for multiplevoices (one by Josquin Desprez and another on "L'homme armé"). Ultimately, this book focuses on the extraordinary circumstances that engendered the compilation of the Rosary Cantoral around 1500: a system of patronage between a brotherhood of suspected heretics and a religious house that was a key supporter of the Inquisition in Toledo. Lorenzo Candelaria (University of Texas at Austin) is co-author of American Music: A Panorama.Trade ReviewWinner of the American Musicological Society's Robert M. Stevenson Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Iberian Music, 2009 * . *Scholars such as [Candelaria], informed, analytical and well-balanced, deserve to reach as large a number of the interested academic world as possible. BIBLIOTHEQUE D'HUMANISME ET RENAISSANCE [Leonard R. N. Ashley] [An] impressive piece of historical detection...which successfully straddles the concerns of liturgy, polyphony, and manuscript illumination. [It] will stand as an intriguing contribution to a much-overlooked field. -- Iain Fenlon * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW *The scope of the book. . . makes this valuable reading for scholars in a wide variety of disciplines, while its lucid and clear writing style makes it accessible to anyone interested in Spanish cultural history, liturgy, or medieval and early-modern studies. -- James Boyce O.Carm. * SPECULUM *The author is to be applauded for shining a much-needed spotlight on the vast corpus of similar Spanish and New World cantorales that until very recently have been regarded as 'of very little interest. -- Michael Noone * MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTES *Few [interdisciplinary] studies have been more compelling. . . . [Candelaria] is equally at home when dealing with the finer points of art history or the sometimes murky nature of the antiquities market. . . . [He] crafts a story that rivals good detective fiction. It even has a surprise at the end that involves the dark halls of the Spanish Inqusition. -- Michael B. O'Connor * RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY *The book is in many ways a detective story which identifies the MS's provenance and function by fascinating and devious approaches: I won't try to summarise it and spoil the story. . . .This study throws light not only on this particular MS but on the usage of the Rosary in Spanish politics and history. And there is a moral for art historians studying MSS with music and vice-versa: see beyond your own discipline. -- Clifford Bartlett * EARLY MUSIC REVIEW *. . . one of the most attractive and intriguing books on Spanish music history to reach the market in recent years. . . . It is thoroughly to be recommended. -- Bernadette Nelson * EARLY MUSIC *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Mystery of the Rosary Cantoral San Pedro Mártir de Toledo "El Cavaller de Colunya": A Legend of the Rosary The Emblem of the Five Wounds Hercules and Albrecht Dürer's Das Meerwunder Roses for the Blessed Virgin: The Music The Confraternity of Toledo and Its Patronage Epilogue Appendices Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book is a philosophical tour through the experience of beauty: what it is, and how the composer, performer, and listener all contribute. It explores -- with insight, patience, and humor -- profound issues at the essence of our experience. A student performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, known as the "Harp," serves as a point of departure and a recurring theme. For the layperson the core of the book is five dialogues betweenIcarus, an inquiring student intensely concerned with fulfilling his highest potential as a musician, and Daedalus, a curmudgeonly, iconoclastic teacher who guides Icarus's search. Three technical articles, geared to the music professional and academic, treat the issues in greater depth. Supplementary online audio files and musical examples. Markand Thakar, music director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, is an internationally renownedpedagogue of conducting. A protégé of the legendary Sergiu Celibidache and former assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Thakar is author of On the Principles and Practice of Conducting (University of RochesterPress, 2016) and Counterpoint: Fundamentals of Music Making (Yale University Press, 1990).Trade ReviewThakar's ideas are valuable, his exposition of them is clear, and the book is supported by materials on his website, including sound files. . . . Would be useful as the main text in an upper-level or graduate seminar, or as a component of a survey of analytical techniques or aesthetics. The consideration of what constitutes musical objects and the transcendent experience of beauty would be of great value to students. The dialogue format provides a model for a healthy mentor/protégé relationship, and, at a time when the outlook frequently seems very dark, Thakar paints a hopeful picture for the future of art music. * MUSIC THEORY ONLINE Full review at: http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.15.21.4/mto.15.21.4.turner.html *A journey to discover where beauty lives in music. . . . It is rare for schooling to be this blissful. --Composer and radio host Kile Smith. See his full posting at http://www.kilesmith.com/2011/04/20/looking-for-the-harp-quartet * . *A thoughtful inquiry into the nature of beauty and the aesthetic experience. . . . Will serve not only those interested in exploring the 'transcendent' aesthetic experience, but also those who labor to embody their art through performance. * CHOICE *A 225-page tour de force. . . . An exercise in academic excellence and a seminal contribution for personal, professional, and academic Classical Music Studies reference collections and supplemental readings lists. * MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW *Markand Thakar's playful Socratic-like dialogue acts out a kind of performer's odyssey toward the ideal performance, toward making one particular strand of Western classical music all that it can be. * SCOTT BURNHAM, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY *Immensely stimulating and rewarding . . . buy a copy and read it twice, not necessarily in rapid succession, and keep it around for the time you may want to reach for it again. * BERKSHIRE REVIEW *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Note about Online Supporting Material Looking for the "Harp" Quartet Renoir and the Survival of Classical Music: On the Listener's Contribution Let's Be Mookie: On the Composer's Contribution Gurus: On the Performer's Contribution First, Last, and Always Remembrance of Things Future: On the Listener's Contribution Patterns of Energy: On the Composer's Contribution Dynamic Analysis: On the Performer's Contribution Appendix: Forms Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisQueen Ida. Danny Poullard. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank. Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records. These are names that are familiar to many fans of Cajun music and zydeco, and they have one other thing in common--longtime residence in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are all part of a vibrant scene of dancing and live Louisiana-French music that has evolved over several decades. Cajun and Zydeco Dance Music in Northern California traces how this region of California has been able to develop and sustain dances several times a week with more than a dozen bands. Description of this active regional scene opens into a discussion of several historical trends that have affected life and music in Louisiana and the nation. The book portrays the diversity of people who have come together to adopt Cajun and Creole dance music as a way to cope with a globalized, media-saturated world. Ethnomusicologist Mark F. DeWitt innovatively weaves together interviews with musicians and dancers (some from Louisiana, some not), analysis of popular media, participant observation as a musician and dancer, and historical perspectives from wartime black migration patterns, the civil rights movement, American folk and blues revivals, California counterculture, and the rise of cultural tourism in ""Cajun Country."" In so doing, he reveals the multifaceted appeal of celebrating life on the dance floor, Louisiana-French style.

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Book SynopsisThe Poetics of American Song Lyrics is the first collection of academic essays that regards songs as literature and that identifies intersections between the literary histories of poems and songs. The essays by well-known poets and scholars including Pulitzer Prize winner Claudia Emerson, Peter Guralnick, Adam Bradley, David Kirby, Kevin Young, and many others, locate points of synthesis and separation so as to better understand both genres and their crafts. The essayists share a desire to write on lyrics in a way that moves beyond sociological, historical, and autobiographical approaches and explicates songs in relation to poetics. Unique to this volume, the essays focus not on a single genre but on folk, rap, hip hop, country, rock, indie, soul, and blues.The first section of the book provides a variety of perspectives on the poetic history and techniques within songs and poems, and the second section focuses on a few prominent American songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Stipe. Through conversational yet in-depth analyses of songs, the essays discuss sonnet forms, dramatic monologues, Modernism, ballads, blues poems, confessionalism, Language poetry, Keatsian odes, unreliable narrators, personas, poetic sequences, rhythm, rhyme, transcription methods, the writing process, and more. While the strategies of explication differ from essay to essay, the nexus of each piece is an unveiling of the poetic history and poetic techniques within songs.Charlotte Pence of Knoxville, Tennessee, is the author of The Writer's Path: Creative Exercises for Meaningful Essays. She is also the winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition for her poetry chapbook The Branches, the Axe, the Missing.

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Book SynopsisCarter and Ralph Stanley--the Stanley Brothers--are comparable to Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs as important members of the earliest generation of bluegrass musicians. In this first biography of the brothers, author David W. Johnson documents that Carter (1925-1966) and Ralph (b 1927) were equally important contributors to the tradition of old-time country music. Together from 1946 to 1966, the Stanley Brothers began their careers performing in the schoolhouses of southwestern Virginia and expanded their popularity to the concert halls of Europe. In order to re-create this post-World War II journey through the changing landscape of American music, the author interviewed Ralph Stanley, the family of Carter Stanley, former members of the Clinch Mountain Boys, and dozens of musicians and friends who knew the Stanley Brothers as musicians and men. The late Mike Seeger allowed Johnson to use his invaluable 1966 interviews with the brothers. Notable old-time country and bluegrass musicians such as George Shuffler, Lester Woodie, Larry Sparks, and the late Wade Mainer shared their recollections of Carter and Ralph. Lonesome Melodies begins and ends in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. Carter and Ralph were born there and had an early publicity photograph taken at the Cumberland Gap. In December 1966, pallbearers walked up Smith Ridge to bring Carter to his final resting place. In the intervening years, the brothers performed thousands of in-person and radio shows, recorded hundreds of songs and tunes for half a dozen record labels, and tried to keep pace with changing times while remaining true to the spirit of old-time country music. As a result of their accomplishments, they have become a standard of musical authenticity.

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Book SynopsisA cello has no language, yet it possesses a vocabulary wide enough to tell, bear witness, and make connections across time and continentsa feat brought to life in this brilliant new book. In this luminous narrative, Kate Kennedy, a writer and cellist herself, weaves together the story of four cellists who suffered various forms of persecution, injury, and misfortune. The stories are those of the forgotten Jewish cellist Pl Hermann, who is likely to have been murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania during the Holocaust; Lise Cristiani, another forgotten performer, who is considered to be the first female professional cello soloist and who embarked on an epic concert tour of Siberia in the 1850s taking with her a Stradivarius cello that can be seen to this day in a museum in Cremona in northern Italy; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who played in the orchestra at Auschwitz and survived spells in both that camp and in Bergen-Belsen; and Amedeo Baldovino of the Trieste piano trio,

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Book SynopsisThat Thin, Wild Mercury Sound is the definitive treatment of Bob Dylan’s magnum opus, Blonde on Blonde, not only providing the most extensive account of the sessions that produced the trailblazing album, but also setting the record straight on much of the misinformation that has surrounded the story of how the masterpiece came to be made. Including many new details and eyewitness accounts never before published, as well as keen insight into the Nashville cats who helped Dylan reach rare artistic heights, it explores the lasting impact of rock’s first double album. Based on exhaustive research and in-depth interviews with the producer, the session musicians, studio personnel, management personnel, and others, Daryl Sanders chronicles the road that took Dylan from New York to Nashville in search of “that thin, wild mercury sound.” As Dylan told Playboy in 1978, the closest he ever came to capturing that sound was during the Blonde on Blonde sessions, where the voice of a generation was backed by musicians of the highest order.

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