Review by Booklist Review
Music is "irreducibly human," writes Spitzer. But where did music come from, and why is it such an integral part of human history? Because, he argues, it's about "life, emotion and the spirit." It is as old as the species, though the earliest Greek music notation dates back to 500 BC, and there was no recorded music prior to 1877. Using, as he wryly admits, a nonlinear time line in the style of film director Christopher Nolan, he covers several thousand years of human history as he explores the evolution of music and its indisputable links with human life. Spitzer emphasizes the universality of music; everyone, for example, can associate an emotional experience with music. Touching on culture, history, science, anthropology, and philosophy, Spitzer discusses music from ancient times to the courts of medieval and Renaissance Europe to the modern era and everything in between, employing voluminous examples. Some have a cinematic source, from the haunting Japanese flute at the conclusion of Kurosawa's Ran and the "Dawn of Man" sequence in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Spitzer also cites David Bowie's Blackstar, work songs, love songs, the Beatles' Abbey Road, the Silk Road Ensemble, and African and African American music. An exhaustive but not exhausting study, sublimely readable.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Musicologist Spitzer (A History of Emotion in Western Music) explores music as a consistent presence in the human experience in this meticulously researched work. He argues that, over time, man has become less an active participant in vocal sound, instrumentation, and body expression and more a passive listener. To bolster his position, he surveys the biblical era, tribal cultures, and the history of European empires, noting, for instance, that ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras "lectured to his disciples behind a screen so that they could hear his voice without being able to see his face." (His disciples were called the akousmatikoi, translating to " 'those who hear', and the term 'acousmatic' came to define the condition of musical listening in the West.") Ancient civilizations in Africa and Australia, meanwhile, relied on vocalization, rhythm, and movement to preserve the past. As Spitzer weaves through musical developments, he points out how Beethoven's compositions were about "life, emotion and the spirit," and examines how cultural attitudes of the 11th century prompted a moving away from primitive sounds in Western classic music. It's a noble if muddled effort to explain millions of years in sound and the components of it that shaped human lives then and now. This one's for specialists only. Agent: Jonathan Gregory, Antony Harwood. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Whether Spitzer (Metaphor and Musical Thought) is meditating on the utility of metaphor in capturing music's intrinsic abstraction or discussing emotion theory across a sweep of genres, his writing is broad, deep, and layered. Here, he braids together metaphor and emotion into a sprawling, philosophical musing on the development of Homo musicus, or how music began. The book opens with a provocative premise: We are all born with musical skill but culture has turned us against our nature and valued passive listening over the act of creation. Spitzer supports this argument in reverse chronological order, moving from the 21st century back to a speculative musical prehistory. Weaving through history, philosophy, archaeology, and biology, he demonstrates how music was not serendipitously invented by human beings but rather is innate to this world. VERDICT With humorous and concise prose, Spitzer makes a convincing case for the irreducible musical properties of human beings.--Joshua Finnell, Colgate Univ., Hamilton, NY
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An ambitious text that attempts to illuminate the history of music through the millennia and across world cultures. In this follow-up to A History of Emotion in Western Music (2020), music professor Spitzer presents a history of humans and music that is dense in dates and facts but accessible. Readers need not understand music theory to follow the argument, although musical appreciation and some grounding in ancient history will be useful. The author's sly humor ("Happiness is a warm lyre") and knack for piquant observation ("Homer's sirens are as likely to have been whales as birds") help leaven the in-depth lessons, which Spitzer charts across three parts: life, history, and evolution. After a fine history of the development of musical ability in Home sapiens, the author turns to the three "killer apps" of Western music--notes, staff notation, and polyphony--which detached music from muscle memory, place and community, and the natural rhythms of speech. These three elements are much less prominent in the music of the Islamic world, concerned with ornament and the fluidity of the speaking voice; India, centered on underlying spiritual unity; and China, organized by timbre rather than pitch. Spitzer then investigates what made "Western classical music…so viral" (the score: music written down and disseminated beyond oral transmission) and where much of its future audience lives: Southeast Asia. Ultimately, the author regards the musical human as the "great synthesizer" of species, combining the rhythm of insects, melody of birds, musical tradition of whales, and social intelligence of apes. His interests range widely enough to include a discussion of musicians' "late style," featuring examples as disparate as "the fruits of the ageing composer" and David Bowie's final album, Blackstar. Spitzer laments the widening "gap between listening and doing" in musical life, but he looks to the future with discussions of musical crowdsourcing, interactive composition, and audio implants. A thorough survey showing how "there very well might be something irreducibly human about all the music of the Earth." (Notes[395-451], Picture Credits[453], Acknowledgements[455-458], Index[459-470], A Note on the Author[471], A Note on the Type[473]) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
