Rosen's prize-winning study The Classical Style
was a wide-ranging look at music history. His latest book originated in seminars given to piano students at an Italian festival, and is divided into two sections, "Formal Principles" (considerations of phrasing and tempo, for example) and "The Sonatas" (analyses of the 18th- and early-19th-century sonatas). Rosen points out that though Beethoven wrote his sonatas at a time when such works were meant for amateur performances at home, he consistently made them too difficult for this purpose. He also observes that Beethoven rarely used simple indications of tempo, such as allegro
(quickly) or lento
(slowly); instead, he saddled his interpreters with complex and debatable instructions like allegro vivace e con brio
(quickly, lively, and with gusto). How fast should the opening of the famous Moonlight
sonata, which is "often taken at too slow a pace," be played? And what about the knuckle-busting Hammerklavier
sonata, about which Rosen notes, "high-minded pianists consider the very fast tempo vulgar... [but] more than anything else, it is an explosion of energy"? Rosen addresses many such practical questions, and, in the accompanying CD, he plays excerpts from some of the sonatas to illustrate his points. Mostly steering clear of the kind of catty comments about performers and fellow critics that pepper his journalism, Rosen keeps his eye on the subject, and the result is measured and sane. A nice complement to, if not a substitute for, earlier books by Timothy Jones, Kenneth Drake and Robert Taub, this book's musical examples and occasional technical language should not turn off Ludwig-o-maniacs. (Mar.)
Forecast:Sure to get endless plugs in the tony lit-crit rags where Rosen is omnipresent, like the
New York Review of Books, this book will no doubt also benefit from Rosen's penchant for radio appearances as both interviewee and performer.
