Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
by Douglas R. Hofstadter
from Basic Books
Twenty years after it topped the bestseller charts, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork of Escher, and the mathematics of Gödel. It also looks at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence (AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard for thinking about the future of computers and their relation to the way we think.
Hofstadter's great achievement in Gödel, Escher, Bach was making abstruse mathematical topics (like undecidability, recursion, and 'strange loops') accessible and remarkably entertaining. Borrowing a page from Lewis Carroll (who might well have been a fan of this book), each chapter presents dialogue between the Tortoise and Achilles, as well as other characters who dramatize concepts discussed later in more detail. Allusions to Bach's music (centering on his Musical Offering) and Escher's continually paradoxical artwork are plentiful here. This more approachable material lets the author delve into serious number theory (concentrating on the ramifications of Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness) while stopping along the way to ponder the work of a host of other mathematicians, artists, and thinkers.
The world has moved on since 1979, of course. The book predicted that computers probably won't ever beat humans in chess, though Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. And the vinyl record, which serves for some of Hofstadter's best analogies, is now left to collectors. Sections on recursion and the graphs of certain functions from physics look tantalizing, like the fractals of recent chaos theory. And AI has moved on, of course, with mixed results. Yet Gödel, Escher, Bach remains a remarkable achievement. Its intellectual range and ability to let us visualize difficult mathematical concepts help make it one of this century's best for anyone who's interested in computers and their potential for real intelligence. --Richard Dragan
Topics Covered: J.S. Bach, M.C. Escher, Kurt Gödel: biographical information and work, artificial intelligence (AI) history and theories, strange loops and tangled hierarchies, formal and informal systems, number theory, form in mathematics, figure and ground, consistency, completeness, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, recursive structures, theories of meaning, propositional calculus, typographical number theory, Zen and mathematics, levels of description and computers; theory of mind: neurons, minds and thoughts; undecidability; self-reference and self-representation; Turing test for machine intelligence.
Carnival of the Animals: Classical Music for Kids
by Camille Saint-Saens
from Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Pictures at an Exhibition (Charlesbridge)
by Anna Harwell Celenza
from Charlesbridge Publishing
CD of Pictures at an Exhibition included.
Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? (Who Was...?)
by Yona Zeldis McDonough
from Grosset & Dunlap
Born in Austria in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his first piece of music, a minuet, when he was just five years old! Soon after, he was performing for kings and emperors. Although he died at the young age of thirty-five, Mozart left a legacy of more than 600 works. This fascinating biography charts the musician's extraordinary career and personal life while painting a vivid cultural history of eighteenth-century Europe. Black-and-white illustrations on every spread explore such topics as the history of opera and the evolution of musical instruments. There is also a timeline and a bibliography.
Illustrated by Carrie Robbins.
Cover illustration by Nancy Harrison.
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician
by Christoph Wolff
from W. W. Norton & Company
The Learned Musician is an apt subtitle for this intellectual biography, which assesses the career of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) with the scholarly rigor one would expect from a Harvard professor. Opening with a 1737 attack by a critic who labeled Bach a pedant who spoiled the natural beauty of his creations with "an excess of art," Christoph Wolff cogently compares the German composer to English scientist Isaac Newton. Both men "brought about fundamental changes and established new principles" in their chosen fields, he argues; both sought to reveal God's harmonious ordering of their world. While Wolff conscientiously covers the basics of Bach's life, including his two marriages and the musical achievements of his gifted family, the author's primary focus is on his performing (Bach was an unrivaled organist) and composing. From the Goldberg Variations through the Brandenburg Concertos to Art of the Fugue, Wolff carefully analyzes Bach's innovations in harmony and counterpoint, placing them in the context of European musical and social history rendered in nicely atmospheric detail. Casual readers may find this dense tome a bit daunting, but serious music lovers will relish the deeper understanding it conveys of a genius who transformed Western music. --Wendy Smith
Finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. A landmark biography of Bach on the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, written by the leading Bach scholar of our age. Although we have heard the music of J. S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. As we mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, author Christoph Wolff presents a new picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era. This engaging new biography portrays Bach as the living, breathing, and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship. Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between the composer's life and his music, showing how Bach's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as musician, composer, performer, scholar, and teacher. And throughout, we see Bach in the broader context of his time: its institutions, traditions, and influences. With this highly readable book, Wolff sets a new standard for Bach biography. 42 b/w illustrations.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers)
by Mike Venezia
from Childrens Press Chicago
Presents a biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozar
Johann Sebastian Bach (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers)
by Mike Venezia
from Children's Press(CT)
Presents a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach
Beethoven: The Universal Composer (Eminent Lives)
by Edmund Morris
from Harper Collins
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a genius so universal that his popularity, extraordinary even during his lifetime, has never ceased to grow. It now encircles the globe: Beethoven's most famous works are as beloved in Beijing as they are in Boston.
Edmund Morris, the author of three bestselling presidential biographies and a lifelong devotee of Beethoven, brings the great composer to life as a man of astonishing complexity and overpowering intelligence. A gigantic, compulsively creative personality unable to tolerate constraints, he was not so much a social rebel as an astute manipulator of the most powerful and privileged aristocrats in Germany and Austria, at a time when their world was threatened by the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.
But Beethoven's achievement rests in his immortal music. Struggling against progressive, incurable deafness (which he desperately tried to keep secret), he nonetheless produced towering masterpieces, such as his iconic Fifth and Ninth symphonies. With sensitivity and insight, Edmund Morris illuminates Beethoven's life, including his interactions with the women he privately lusted for but held at bay, and his work, whose grandeur and beauty were conceived "on the other side of silence."
Ludwig Van Beethoven (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers)
by Mike Venezia
from Children's Press(CT)
Presents a biography of Ludwig van Beethoven
The Mahler Symphonies: An Owner's Manual (includes 1 CD)
by David Hurwitz
from Amadeus Press
Anyone fascinated but daunted by Mahler's monumental, complex orchestral works will find this book a welcome guide. Focusing on the nine completed symphonies and The Song of the Earth, David Hurwitz addresses his readers directly in an informal, conversational tone. Aided by a CD of four selected movements, he tells them what to listen for, what to pay special attention to, and, pointing out some recurring characteristics, what to remember for future reference. He explains Mahler's concept of form and structure, from the smallest motives to the over-life-size finished edifice. He discusses Mahler's manifold use of his songs, his love for quoting from himself and for recalling and anticipating thematic material--always in a new guise--and his penchant for aborted climaxes and deceptive endings: part of his reluctance (or inability) to conclude a composition. Despite his originality, Mahler stood on the shoulders of other giants, notably Wagner and Verdi, whose works he conducted at the Vienna Opera. Hurwitz devotes much attention--and an entire appendix--to Mahler's unsurpassed mastery of orchestration, his skill in exploiting every instrument's resources, even using them for thematic purposes.
Hurwitz admits that describing music in words has limitations; he falls back instead on describing Mahler's complex mixture of elements from the most sublime to the raw (for example, we find the music characterized as pretty," "cute," "sleazy," "sexy," "vulgar," "flatulent," or "squealing" like a barmaid "after being pinched on the behind" and the like). On the other hand, he rejects the conventional assumption that there is a link between a composer's work and life experiences, isolating the music from the personality. This might be considered a drawback insofar as it neglects a crucial dimension (consider, for example, our knowledge that Mahler tried to outwit fate by interpolating The Song of the Earth between his Eighth and Ninth Symphonies and how this might enhance our understanding of those two dark, valedictory final works). Yet even such cavils cannot diminish the originality and thoughtfulness behind this illuminating book. --Edith EislerSince Gustav Mahler was rediscovered in the early 1960s, his symphonies have become arguably the most popular works in the modern orchestral repertoire. Mahler's Symphonies: An Owner's Manual is the first discussion of the ten completed symphonies (No. 1-9 plus "The Song of the Earth") to offer music lovers and record collectors a comprehensive overview of the music itself, what it sounds like, how it is organized, its form, content, and meaning, as it strikes today's listeners. The book caters to the novice as David Hurwitz describes what the listener will hear, section by section, using simple cues such as important instrumental solos, recognizable tunes, climaxes, and other easily audible musical facts. He explains how each work is arranged, how the various parts relate to each other, and how one work leads to the next. It describes the emotional extravagance that lies at the root of Mahler's popularity, the consistency of his symphonic thinking, the relationship of each work to its companions, and his dazzling and revolutionary use of orchestral instruments to create an expressive musical language that is varied in content and immediate in impact. The accompanying CD contains recordings from Symphony No. 1, Third Movement; Symphony No. 2, First Movement; Symphony No. 5, Third Movement; and Symphony No. 7, Second Movement: "Nachtmusik I."
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