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Alex Ross's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Alex Ross recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Alex Ross's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
The subject of this book is accurately defined by its subtitle. Music in a New Found Land does not pretend to be a comprehensive history of American music. Nor does Mellers strive to catalog what he considers to be authentic American music. Instead, he deals, in some detail, with comparatively few composers, most of whom have wellestablished reputations.

It has always been difficult to separate American music from its immediate relevance to the twentieth century. Mellers' theme involves the relationship between "art" music, jazz and pop music; he sees the segregation of...
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Recommended by Alex Ross, Alex Ross, and 2 others.

Alex RossThis is one of the greatest books ever written about American music. It’s fantastically vivid and passionate writing about music of all kinds. (Source)

Alex RossThis is one of the greatest books ever written about American music. It’s fantastically vivid and passionate writing about music of all kinds. (Source)

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2
Silence, A Year from Monday, M, Empty Words and X (in this order) form the five parts of a series of books in which Cage tries, as he says, to find a way of writing which comes from ideas, is not about them, but which produces them. Often these writings include mesostics and essays created by subjecting the work of other writers to chance procedures using the I Ching (what Cage called writing through). less
Recommended by Alex Ross, Alex Ross, Kyle Chayka, and 3 others.

Alex RossSilence is one of the great music books. Purely on a literary level, there’s something about Cage’s style which is tremendously unique. (Source)

Alex RossSilence is one of the great music books. Purely on a literary level, there’s something about Cage’s style which is tremendously unique. (Source)

Kyle ChaykaJohn Cage is one of the composers most associated with minimalism. He’s a kind of pioneer, not just in music, but also for the arts, and for philosophy as well. In the 1940s and 1950s, he had already cultivated an interest in Zen philosophy. He experimented with these forms of emptiness in art that were very radical at the time. (Source)

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3
The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was Nietzsche's 1st book. Its youthful faults were exposed by him in the brilliant 'Attempt at a Self-Criticism' which he added to the new edition of 1886. But the book, whatever its excesses, remains one of the most relevant statements on tragedy ever penned. It exploded the conception of Greek culture that was prevalent down thru the Victorian era. It sounded themes developed in the 20th century by classicists, existentialists, psychoanalysts & others. The Case of Wagner (1888) was one his last books & his wittiest. In attitude & style it's... more
Recommended by Alex Ross, Alex Ross, and 2 others.

Alex RossNietzsche as a young man was completely besotted with Wagner, and had to fight his way out of this obsession. (Source)

Alex RossNietzsche as a young man was completely besotted with Wagner, and had to fight his way out of this obsession. (Source)

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4

The Infinite Variety of Music

With style, wit, and expertise, Leonard Bernstein shares his love and appreciation for music in all its varied forms in The Infinite Variety of Music, illuminating the deep pleasure and sometimes subtle beauty it offers. He begins with an "imaginary conversation" with George Washington entitled "The Muzak Muse " in which he argues the values of actively listening to music by learning how to read notes, as opposed to simply hearing music in a concert hall. The book also features the reproduction of five television scripts from Bernstein on the influence of jazz, the timeless appeal of Mozart,... more
Recommended by Alex Ross, Alex Ross, and 2 others.

Alex RossBernstein was a genius. As I got older, these essays became the foundation of how I think and talk about music. (Source)

Alex RossBernstein was a genius. As I got older, these essays became the foundation of how I think and talk about music. (Source)

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5

Doctor Faustus

Thomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil. Mann's protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility. In return for twenty-four years of unparalleled musical accomplishment, he bargains away his soul - and the ability to love his fellow man.

Leverkühn's life...
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Alex RossThere’s an extraordinary sense of plausibility in how Mann described these fictional compositions of Leverkühn. (Source)

Alex RossThere’s an extraordinary sense of plausibility in how Mann described these fictional compositions of Leverkühn. (Source)

Michael FriedI almost surprised myself when I included this. But it’s a book I love. Writing during World War Two, Mann reflects on modernism in the arts, the tragic history of modern Germany and the persistence of Nietzsche in the German imagination. It’s a work of extraordinary intellectual seriousness and ambition. (Source)

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