Brahms (Master Musicians Series)

Rating:
Summary: MacDonald's "Brahms" is informative yet analitically lacking
Review: MacDonald's biography of Brahms is insightful and informative benefiting from findings in recent Brahms scholarship as well as from the authors command of language and knowledge of the art of music. Its only fault, albeit a rather prominent one, is the author's need to comment at least a few words on every work of Brahms's. This becomes tedious and the reader is left with a feeling of unsatisfied curiosity as if he or she is reading program notes to a concert he will not hear. MacDonald, however, reserves his more detailed accounts for Brahms's more important and popular major works (his all too brief analysis of the Fourth Symphony leaves one wishing he would write a book entirely devoted to that masterpiece) a trait which reveals the author's keen analytical mind. The book would have benefited greatly if the author had devoted space given to smaller or less significant pieces to a more extensive discussion of the composers major works