Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven’s Time

Who says the world of classical music is sedate or even dull? Certainly not anyone who has read Nicolas Slonimsky’s Lexicon of Musical Invective! This funny, irascible little book details contemporary critical attacks on virtually all of the great musical figures of the past 200 years. Beethoven is here, along with Liszt, Mahler, Schumann, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner — all of whom were skewered by the critics at some point in their careers. No classical music lover (or hater!) will want to live without it.