Publish Date |
August 10, 2021 |
Category |
History / Modern / 19th Century History / Europe |
Price |
$24.99 |
ISBN: 9781501188725
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: August 10, 2021
“It is almost impossible for me to imagine a world in which [Chopin’s ‘Funeral March’] is both fresh and tragic, where its death is real. Annik LaFarge’s charming and loving new book attempts to recover this world…This book took me into many unexpected corners…For a book about death, it’s bursting with life and lively research.”"The lurid fantasies foisted on the composer since his death have made him almost unrecognisable — though Annik LaFarge does much to dispel them...an intensely personal journey through time, place and politics....LaFarge is weighty (and great) on the importance and singularity of Chopin’s friend and patron Astolphe de Custine...she has a good eye and ear for her subject, choosing her anecdotes with care."“[LaFarge's] loving pursuit of the man behind such music is an intriguing collage of people, places, relationships, instruments, and national struggles ... well worth reading. It is instructive, engaging, and sincere.”“Annik LaFarge’s Chasing Chopin is a slim book but it stands out because it’s a hybrid work—biography and journalism—with utterly lovely, vivid descriptions of Chopin’s music.”"[A] wonderful book...LaFarge's intellectual curiosity, free of any musical or ideological agenda, is infectious, and she brings the broad analysis of a polymath to her subject...[a companion] website is replete with pertinent videos and recordings that raises the bar on how music-themed books will be expected to incorporate multimedia henceforth.”“LaFarge delves passionately into the history and culture—up to the present day—surrounding Chopin's legendary Opus 35 sonata, whose third movement contains ‘the world’s most famous funeral march’…a singular work…a seamless blend of the musical and literary verve, with just enough research to ground and elucidate.”“This slender but wide-ranging volume is impeccably researched....never seems overly scholarly and will appeal to a variety of general readers.”“[An] entertaining dual music history and memoir...LaFarge’s affectionate fan’s notes flow as melodiously as a Chopin opus.”“A luminous book, rich with reporting and reflection and marvelously animated by LaFarge’s passion for the subject. Whether you love Chopin doesn’t matter: This is an irresistible journey into history and the nature of genius.” “Annik LaFarge brilliantly traces the footsteps of Chopin’s life in a way that is thoroughly engrossing for the layman and professional musician alike. My only regret is that there is not an Annik LaFarge book on the life of every important composer in the classical canon. Her virtuosic linguistic talent is put to good use in this fascinating book.”“Annik LaFarge’s wonderful Chasing Chopin, like the music that inspired it, is a tour-de-force and journey of the soul. Attempting to unpack the awe she experienced hearing Chopin’s Funeral March Sonata at a concert years ago, LaFarge does much more than recount the story of the music and its composer. She tells us why they matter, now, deeply and in all sorts of ways, to her and us. Traveling with a backpack from New York to Paris to Majorca, interrogating musicians, scholars, software developers, piano makers — going where the music and inspiration take her — she produces a diary of discovery that’s a joy to read.”“Come for the finely drawn portrait of a musical genius, stay for the evocative recreation of the world he knew. By immersing herself in the creative context that nurtured Chopin’s famous sonata, Annik LaFarge makes him live again. Chasing Chopin is infused with a roving curiosity and passion worthy of its subject.”“Like everyone else, you have heard Chopin’s funeral march, whether in a symphony hall or in a cartoon. Annik LaFarge heard it in both places and got to thinking. The result of those thoughts was her drive to make sense of the cultural journey of a single melody. The result of that drive is not just the fascinating story of a single musical composition, and not even just a thoughtful and satisfying meditation on the way a culture creates itself. LaFarge has documented a story that is itself, as she notes, ‘an antidote to the culture of virtuosity, celebrity, and noise that today envelops us.’”