Alex Ross’ The Rest Is Noise could be considered as one of the most important and comprehesive survey of modern music in recent history.  The author looks back more than 100 years, starting from Richard Strauss and Gustave Mahler of Vienna in the transitional period of 19th and the following century.  Readers will be amazed by the amounts of information on the composers’ lives, styles, and contemporaries.  Intriguing stories of eccentricities and scandals revolving towering figures such as Sibelius, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Britten, etc. sometimes read like tabloids, but give significant insights into their creativity and long-lasting influences.  Sporadic musical analyses (such as ones for Strauss’ Salome and Britten’s Peter Grimes,) remind readers of CD liner notes.  Chronically arranged, the book starts with the German masters of Berlin and Vienna at the end of 19th century, then to Stravinsky and the Serialists (Schoenberg, Webern, Berg), nationalists (Bartók, Sibelius, Copland), to the suppressed (Shostakovitch, Prokofiev), minimalists (Young, Reich, Stockhausen), and latest contemporaries (Adams, Pärt, Glass.)  In 623 pages, The Rest Is Noise is quite fun to read and offers readers of all levels and expertises a concise but clear and complete understanding of modern music.

* Read more about 20th-Century Music

* Check out Listen To This by Alex Ross