Aaron Copland: THE LIFE AND WORK OF AN UNCOMMON MAN [Paperback]

Given the identity politics dominating the new musicology, for all its flaws, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, is a good and valuable book. It contains information from previously unavailable letters and interviews with the late composer's friends and relations. But why does a tenured, respected professor writing for a trade house adopt the method of cobbling on end chapters dealing with tendentious, identity-political theory that can only detract from the work? And yet, at present, this may be as good as can be hoped for: Some theory as encore, to satisfy the commissars. The alternative is, increasingly, all tin-eared theory, and no music.

Thank you Mr Pollack for making it so clear to all of your readers that Aaron Copland is not only America's greatest composer but is, historically, and without question, one of most important composers the world has ever produced.

Amazingly, between 1955 and the present volume not a single comprehensive study of Copland's life, by an outsider (as distinct from Copland's own explications of his aesthetic), appeared. "Essential" biographies of someone or other emerge, if we are to believe the book trade's spin-doctors, at least once every week; the account under review actually deserves this adjective. Its author (Professor of Music at the University of Houston) shows his love for Copland's oeuvre on every page, which helps; here is no glorified doctoral thesis where the authorial jargon struggles to drown out the authorial yawns.

Yes, as other reviewers have complained, modish identity politics get too indulgent a treatment; yes, as they have also complained, Pollack makes too small an effort to integrate his insights into a coherent structure. But we're not likely to encounter a better guide to the subject.