- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd; illustrated edition edition (28 Sep 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0715636049
- ISBN-13: 978-0715636046
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 15 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 658,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
"'And so I resolved that henceforth I would only play the saddest music, indeed I would market my concerts as The Saddest Music in the World' Rohan Kriwaczek"
Product Description
During the Protestant revolution in Europe, a new kind of music emerged, one that ultimately sought to recognise the deceased and to individuate the sense of loss and grief. Reaching its zenith in the early 19th century during the age of Romanticism, when every town and village had their own Funerary Violinist, the tradition was virtually wiped out by the Great Funerary Purges of the 1830s and 40s. "An Incomplete History" tells the fascinating story of this beautiful music, condemned by the Catholic Church for political as much as theological reasons, and of the mysterious Guild of Funerary Violinists. Discussing the evolution of European culture, musical form, politics, religion and society's changing attitudes to mortality and the emotional effects of music upon the soul, this is a dark and magical history whose secrets will both fascinate and educate its readers.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a delightful concoction,
By
This review is from: An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin: The History of the Art of Funerary Violin and of the Mysterious Guild that Guards its Secrets (Hardcover)
Ostensibly the history of a forgotten musical form, this book is an elaborately constructed mirage. Pictures do not show what they purport, evidence is not given, hearsay and half truths are piled up to give an appearence of respectability.
This is a work of fiction - a delightful conceit, full of the fascinating details which breath life into the best historical works... and all made up. The author's fingerprints are all over the evidence, and it is plain that he did not intend this as a hoax, as claimed in the newspapers. Imagine a hugely detailed and scholarly book, the ultimate authority on the natural history of some non-existent beast. The book is all these things: a delightful fiction which makes me laugh aloud, a serious commentary on our facile and superficial age, a situationist artwork. It is the emperor's new clothes.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sustained jeu d'esprit,
By
This review is from: An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin: The History of the Art of Funerary Violin and of the Mysterious Guild that Guards its Secrets (Hardcover)
This is the imagined history of an imagined art form: solo violin playing at funerals. Written in an academic style, it is a brilliant pastiche and as such is bound to make one smile: the writing itself is mostly dead-pan and does not attempt to be overtly humorous, except perhaps in the invention of the delicious name - Herr Hieronymous (sic) Gratchenfleiss - given to one particular practitioner of the art and in an odd phrase like the one describing a lady as having `married well and widowed better'. The author fits his story into real events in the political, social and musical history from the 16th to the 19th century, which adds an air of verisimilitude to this tongue-in-cheek work. The book is handsomely produced, and is complete with period illustrations (some must surely have been specially concocted for it) and musical scores.
In the 1830s and 1840s the Catholic Church is said to have launched the Great Funerary Purges to eradicate both the art and, wherever it could, the records relating to it: hence the purported incompleteness of the history. As part of the Purge, in 1841 a fire is said to have destroyed the headquarters of the Guild of Funerary Violinists in Cadogan Square, together with most of its archives. A fine chapter near the end has some heartfelt reflections about the nature of funerals today from which the spirit embodied in the art of the funerary violin is sadly absent. A book of fabulously rich invention and ingenuity.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Specialist Enjoyment,
By
This review is from: An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin: The History of the Art of Funerary Violin and of the Mysterious Guild that Guards its Secrets (Hardcover)
Well, this is an odd book, but highly enjoyable and belongs to a genre with few exemplars of this length. The fictitious history of a non-existent art form, upheld by a non-existent semi-secret society. Beautifully written in the style of a fuddy duddy, old and bumbling, half educated academic fogey, the book is a romp through music history mixing a few facts and real personages with a lovely grasp of fiction. I give it five stars because I enjoyed it so much - I doubt that it has lasting power as a publication, simply because it is too weird, but it has lasting value as a self-critique of our own day.
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