Absolutely on Music

July 25, 2016
These chats between novelist Murakami and Ozawa, former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, contain intriguing insights about the nature of music. Over a two-year period (2010–2011), Murakami and Ozawa sat down to listen to and reflect upon matters as diverse as various recordings of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, Brahms’s First Symphony, the music of Gustav Mahler, and the joys of conducting with Leonard Bernstein, whom Ozawa worked under in the 1960s. Ozawa reflects on the role of the conductor: “One of the distinguishing features of the conductor’s profession: the work itself changes you; the one thing a conductor has to do is to get sounds out of the orchestra; I read the score and create a piece of music in my mind, after which I work with the orchestra members to turn that into actual sounds, and that process gives rise to all kinds of things.” In response to Murakami’s question about the emotions a Japanese conductor feels when conducting the music of Gustav Mahler, an Austrian Jew, Ozawa reflects that when an Easterner performs music written by a Westerner, it can have its own special meaning. Ozawa admits that he doesn’t approach conducting with preconceived ideas about how a score should sound or be played: “I don’t have anything to say until I’ve got a musician right in front of me.” The tone of the book is deliberate and contemplative. In some ways, these conversations are High Fidelity for classical music fans.

The edited texts of six engaging conversations about music between the celebrated Japanese writer and the noted conductor who led the Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly 30 years.Although Murakami (The Strange Library, 2014, etc.) identifies himself as an "amateur," we learn throughout these discussions that he has been a longtime collector of classical recordings, a longtime listener, and a habitual member of audiences at classical concerts and operas. His knowledge of music is beyond impressive, as anyone who has read his novels already knows. He loves jazz, and one of the most interesting passages involves exchanges about blues in Chicago in the 1960s. Ozawa also declares a deep admiration for Louis Armstrong. Each conversation focuses on a certain aspect of Ozawa's career, and the flow is generally chronological. We learn about his early experiences with Leonard Bernstein, and throughout, the conductor praises his early mentor, Hideo Saito; a later exchange deals comprehensively with the group Ozawa helped establish in his honor, the Saito Kinen Orchestra. Ozawa is quick to praise--individual musicians, older conductors, composers, orchestras (Cleveland gets a couple of nice nods)--and hardly says a discouraging word about anyone or anything, save his early experience conducting Tosca in Milan when he was startled to hear booing. (It disappeared as his engagement went along, however.) Although Murakami occasionally notes similarities and/or differences between the lives of a conductor and a writer--he mentions that both he and Ozawa begin working before dawn--the focus is almost entirely on music and on Ozawa's career. We learn a lot about his work habits--for example, his fierce study of scores in preparation for performances--and his techniques for handling the immense demands on his time. He also states a deep conviction that the conductor's task is to "convert the music exactly as it's written into actual sound." A work that general readers will enjoy and the musical cognoscenti will devour. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 15, 2016
Six conversations between novelist and nonfiction writer Murakami and conductor Ozawa, from November 2010 to July 2011, make up the bulk of this informal exploration of Western classical music, and the maestro's long, serious engagement with it. Even as Murakami confesses, I am . . . a complete layman where most things musical are concerned, he reveals a lifetime of deep, discerning listening and a working knowledge of the canon, both of which he uses to draw out illuminating, surprisingly candid responses by Ozawa. One technique Murakami often uses here is to drop the needle on, say, Ozawa's 1982 recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, featuring pianist Peter Serkin, and then talk through the performance with the conductor. I can't help thinking I should have tried to match him, Ozawa observes of Serkin, to conduct with a little more freedom. In places, the technique, and the responses it evokes, might get a little too esoteric for the casual listener, but that's quibbling; many of those pieces cited are easily accessible via YouTube (or a decent audio collection), and Ozawa's centrality to classical music over the past 50 years merits the more thoroughgoing listen.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2016

Beginning in November 2010, Japanese novelist Murakami (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage) held a series of informal conversations with renowned conductor Ozawa. The transcriptions of these talks, with commentary by Murakami, reveal a probing and perceptive interviewer who teases out of Ozawa fascinating anecdotes about his career and the classical music scene in general. Ozawa was an assistant conductor under both Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein before assuming the directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his perspectives on conductors and performers, and the differences among orchestras in Japan, America, and Europe are enlightening. The book unfolds at a leisurely pace; quite a bit of material is devoted to dissections of various vintage recordings, in which the two friends discuss details of interpretation and performance practice. The best of these musings deals with Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1, in which Ozawa analyzes the work in the context of Mahler's life and the societal decline of fin-de-siecle Vienna. Little-known aspects of Ozawa's musical persona are also revealed, such as his passion for Chicago blues and his love of teaching string quartet literature to young musicians. VERDICT Recommended for lovers of classical music and fans of Murakami. [See Prepub Alert, 5/23/16.]--Larry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2016

A conversation on music and its links to writing? Transcribed from conversations between the phenomenal Japanese author Murakami (who ran a jazz club in his youth) and magician-with-a-baton Seiji Ozawa, whom I remember fondly as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in my student days long, long ago. I cannot resist. For all your smart readers.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.