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 enlarge | Author: Stuart Isacoff
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy Used: $9.00
You Save: $14.00 (61%)
Used (12) Collectible (3) from $9.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 809294
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 0375403558
Dewey Decimal Number: 784.1928
EAN: 9780375403552
ASIN: 0375403558
Publication Date: November 13, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Nice try, but no cigar. January 15, 2004
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Isacoff has tried to write a book on musical temperament for the general public, and parts of it are fun to read. It does have two major flaws: 1) he greatly overstates his case and deliberately omits a whole lot of information that contradicts his central thesis, and 2), he bends over so far backward trying to keep things non-technical that he not only falls down but ties himself up in knots in the process.
As a harpsichordist, I'm perhaps a little more flexible on the subject of an ideal temperament that is all things to all people, because my experience says there's no such thing. Of the various solutions that have been tried along the way, most of them served the needs of those who used them at the time. In fact, I was disappointed that his website sound samples included Chopin in just intonation and equal temperament, but no Byrd or Frescobaldi in meantone or Faenza Codex in Pythagorean, just to show us what all of those systems CAN do--especially on instruments other than the Steinway grand piano. Believe me, it's a revelation! Suddenly a lot about how that music was written in the first place begins to make sense! Which is one reason that I found myself objecting to the sweep of the presentation. In the 21st century, unlike in the 16 and 17th centuries, we DO draw a distinction between music and science, and part of that distinction is that science is a cumulative discipline (meaning that the state of the art does in fact get better as time goes on), and music isn't.
On the other hand, when Isacoff writes about phenomena such as Cipriano da Rore's _Quidnam non ebrietas_, it would be much more helpful to include a score and a brief explanation of the rules of when to raise and lower notes in renaissance counterpoint, than to try to describe the first piece ever to go all the way around the circle of fifths using prose alone.
I happen to own a book with a score of "Quidnam non ebrietas," and several books that talk about counterpoint rules, but I shouldn't need to consult my personal music library to make sense out of a book that is "for general audiences!" Just to place that in context, I am working on a doctoral degree in harpsichord, doing research on renaissance keyboard music. I have an extensive library of books about music, and have written term papers on tuning and temperament, so I guess I'd count as a specialist--and I STILL couldn't follow Isacoff's prose unaided.
 Sex and Pianos August 25, 2003
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
Isacoff's approach to making temperament interesting can be summed up in the word "sex". If there is a bawdy detail to be found in even the remotest connection to a `temperamental' anecdote, he drags it out. The result is a book that often de-rails and mixes very technical information with hearsay and gossip. On the other hand, temperament is one of the most obscure and complicated elements of music, and even some musicians couldn't care less about it. So a book on temperament that made it to major bookstore chains is no small achievement. Still, the question of the book's audience is a complicated one... those of us who care about temperament to begin with could do with a few more musical examples interspersed with the text, whereas for those to whom temperament is a new concept, the idea of a smaller or larger fifth might need a bit more clarification.
Most troubling to me, however, was the writer's obvious bias towards equal temperament and towards the piano. For him, the whole of western history (and a lot of sex...) has existed with the purpose of developing and embracing the equal temperament, and that pinnacle among instruments, the piano. To those of us who like the sound of a harpsichord, or use different temperaments to achieve more in-tune music, the book's conclusion, and it's author's bias, is unhelpful. Still I would recommend the book as a read, with the added stipulation that the reader then go out and listen to an early music concert in meantone.
 Great fun! August 24, 2003
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This was a fantastic read! Remember that this book is a LAY book! So certain 'scientific' expectations should be a bit relaxed. Isacoff is a great writer with an amazing ability to conjure vivid imagery. If you are a history, or music history, buff, you'll find this a fun read. I like to compare this book to Norman Cantor's "In the Wake of the Plague". Like Cantor, Isacoff's writing style can meander a bit and enter unnecessary information - but the critical difference is that Isacoff always comes back to the main point (i.e. has a point at all), and as a result, the distractions are not distractions, but really interesting tidbits about the movers and shakers in the history of keyboard temperament. This is a great summer, light read that will keep you fascinated. I know so much more now about the modern day piano than I ever did! Highly recommended!
Pretentious and uninformative May 16, 2003
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
The theme of this book, the history behind modern tuning and its effect on the development of modern music and modern keyboard instruments, is a fascinating one. Sadly, Mr. Isacoff is more interested in letting us know that he's acquainted with celebrities, practices eastern meditation and is acquainted with books on a range of topics (e.g., medieval and renaissance Judaism and mathematics), than he is in coherently rendering his theme. This is the worst sort of non-academic history, an author who's unable to keep the story on track and is more interested in proving that he's interesting than in providing anything of value to the reader.
Think musical temperament is boring? Think again! December 5, 2002
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book did even more than what I hoped it would do.First of all, it grabbed my attention. I didn't even know there was problem with our musical scale, let alone a controversy that lasted hundreds of years and involved the greatest scientific, religious, and musical minds of the day! Then the book explained the subject in an interesting way. So interestingly, in fact, that I found myself wishing for even more of the technical details (imagine that!). I'm not at all convinced (as I was led to believe by other reviewers before I actually read the book) that Mr. Isacoff holds equal temperament to be the only solution and all other temperaments to be inferior. I think he is a realist who sees (and presents) pros and cons in all attempts to solve the fascinating temperament riddle.
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