The Rest Is Noise

"The Rest Is Noise is a work of immense scope and ambition. The idea is not simply to conduct a survey of 20th-century classical composition but to come up with a history of that century as refracted through its music . . . With its key figures reappearing like motifs in a symphony, The Rest Is Noise is a considerable feat of orchestration and arrangement . . . a great achievement. Rilke once wrote of how he learned to stand ‘more seeingly' in front of certain paintings. Ross enables us to listen more hearingly."—Geoff Dyer, The New York Times

"In Ross's book, by far the liveliest and smartest popular introduction yet written to a century of diverse music, history winds through the pages like those highway signs and mountains. We linger over some; others whiz by. For a dozen years or so Ross has been the catholic-minded critic for The New Yorker, writing about new music without a chip on his shoulder or a tone of condescension and not as a defensive apologist for a supposedly embattled culture—but instead fluently, as if taking for granted that new music were on its own terms every bit as relevant and vital as contemporary art or literature. His prose is notable in a discipline that frets too much about its obsolescence . . . When he writes his way, Ross leads you to imagine you really are, to borrow his subtitle, listening to the twentieth century."—Michael Kimmelman, The New York Review of Books

"What powers this amazingly ambitious book and endows it with authority are the author's expansive curiosity and refined openness of mind."—Jamie James, Los Angeles Times

"An impressive, invigorating achievement . . . This is the best general study of a complex history too often claimed by academic specialists on the one hand and candid populists on the other. Ross plows his own broad furrow, beholden to neither side, drawing on both."—Stephen Walsh, The Washington Post

"Readers love The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by New Yorker critic Alex Ross. It was that most rare literary beast—both a lively read and an authoritative overview of a complex topic. In its sweep Ross' book offered a bird's-eye view of a massive arc of time and space that ranged from Imperial Vienna and Mahler's monumental symphonies to Silicon Valley and John Adams' 'Nixon in China.'"—Wynne Delacoma, Chicago Sun-Times

"Impressively omnivorous . . . The critic can be a maestro with his turns of phrase."—James Sullivan, The Boston Globe

"Readers of The New Yorker are already familiar with music critic Alex Ross's insightful writing and his ability to bring sounds and styles alive through erudite yet passionate consideration. The Rest Is Noise, his long-awaited tome on 20th-century music, is, not surprisingly, a brilliant, hugely enjoyable, cultural history viewed—and heard—through, as he puts it, 'the chaotic beauty' of music from this past chaotic century . . . By creating a cultural history rather than a pure history of composers and their music, Ross shows how much of 20th-century music was inextricably linked to the times and places and events during which it was written and premiered . . . Today's composers, he concludes, 'may never match their popular counterparts in instant impact, but in the freedom of their solitude, they can communicate experiences of singular intensity.'"—Susan Miron, The Christian Science Monitor

"It would be hard to imagine a better guide to the maelstrom of recent music than Mr. Ross, who worked on this book for a decade. He has an almost uncanny gift for putting music into words. No other critic writing in English can so effectively explain why you like a piece, or beguile you to reconsider it, or prompt you to hurry online and buy a recording."—The Economist

"Ross is a supremely gifted writer who brings together the political and technological richness of the world inside the magic circle of the concert hall, so that each illuminates the other."—Lev Grossman, Time

"Ross writes so engagingly and evocatively that the tale flows, and the spirit of the music shines through."—Fred Kaplan, Slate

"Just occasionally someone writes a book you've waited your life to read. Alex Ross's enthralling history of twentieth-century music is, for me, one of those books."—Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian (UK)

"In his stunning narrative, visionary music critic Alex Ross comes closer than anyone to describing the spellbinding sensations music provokes."—Blair Tindall, Financial Times

"A towering accomplishment—an essential book for anyone trying to understand and appreciate one of the most fertile and explosive centuries in the history of classical music . . . A genuine page-turner . . . A fresh, eloquent, and superbly researched book."—Kyle MacMillan, The Denver Post

"The music critic for The New Yorker tells the story of the 20th century through its music. Ross explores 'the cultural predicament of the composer,' tracking how the composer's role has changed from its privileged status in fin-de-siecle Europe, where people like Mahler were celebrated like rock stars, to the composer's current status, compromised by the advent of mass communication, the Great Depression, World War II and America's rise as a global superpower. The author is a careful historian aware of the pitfalls of conventional histories about music since 1900. He calls such histories 'teleological tales,' narratives under the shadow of Arnold Schoenberg—the German composer and champion of atonality—that myopically focus on a particular goal of the study of music history and omit that which doesn't fit into the achievement of that goal . . . In choosing to eschew the convenience of these streamlined teleological tales, the author is faced with a complicated matrix of styles, ideas and personalities. But this is no plodding history. With his typically lyrical and attentive style, the author presents a lucid, often gripping story of a complex century. A must-read for those who have struggled with understanding modern music and a benchmark book that should eventually become a classic history of the 20th century."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Ross, the classical music critic for the New Yorker, leads a whirlwind tour from the Viennese premiere of Richard Strauss's Salome in 1906 to minimalist Steve Reich's downtown Manhattan apartment . . . Readers new to classical music will quickly seek out the recordings Ross recommends, especially the works by less prominent composers, and even avid fans will find themselves hearing familiar favorites with new ears."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)