Music and Men: The Life and Loves of Harriet Cohen
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Review
Anyone who truly loves classical music will enjoy this book. --Pennant, May '09
Product Description
It was during the turbulent decade of the First World War that the intensely gifted and beautiful Harriet Cohen established herself as a pianist. Enjoying huge success in her professional life, she was the first person outside the Soviet Union to play the music of the modern Soviet composers and was a huge success in America and throughout Europe. Her beauty and talent made her one of the most talked-about and photographed musicians of her day. Yet it was in her private life that the story of this extraordinarily talented young woman becomes one of the greatest love stories of all time. Her passionate love affair with the composer Sir Arnold Bax spanned more than thirty years. Their infatuation was played out against the backdrop of the First World War, and was peppered with betrayal, lust and tragedy. Their letters, published here for the first time, are among the most explicit of any written during that time and are staggering in their passion and poetry. Brilliant author Helen Fry tells for the first time the remarkable story of this forgotten woman. Music and Men tells of Harriet Cohens friendships and relationships - with leading figures from every walk of life, from George Bernard Shaw to D.H. Lawrence and H.G. Wells, Sir Edward Elgar, Albert Einstein, Arnold Bennett, Vaughan Williams, Ramsey MacDonald and Eleanor Roosevelt. Offering an insight into the politics, arts and culture of the day, this incredible new biography tells the poignant story of a beautiful, possessive, flirtatious and determined musician.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is a missed opportunity. There is obviously an intriguing story to be told here, but this pedestrian account is heavy-going - and one longs time and time again that a fellow musician or artist had written this book, as there is almost no insight into how the passionate affair between Bax and Cohen affected their respective creativities, or, crucially, how it impacted on Bax's composition and Cohen's performance. After a while the repetitive nature of their letters sheds no new light on the relationship (you feel they are being quoted simply because they were there), and we are left at the end of a lengthy volume not really knowing much more about these two extraordinary people or the world they lived in. (There are also enough musical inaccuracies to suggest that the author wasn't entirely at home with her subject.) The definitive version of this story is yet to be told.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
For me there was not enough flesh on the bones of this story to leave me with a strong image of what Harriet Cohen was really like, or for that matter her lovers/friends, nor of the way she and them lived their lives. There were too many quotes from letters, many of which were repetitive, and the story became somewhat tedious because of that I think.
The state of her health was also rather over-emphasised: she was at death's door and worsened (?) so many times it was rather hard to imagine how she obviously did survive whilst also managing (in the 1920s and 1930s) to travel throughout and give concerts in the UK, Europe, and America, receive treatments for her illness in Switzerland, on top of continuing various amorous liaisons!
There are some errors in the text, including a few references to a place of retreat called Glencolumcille in Scotland: I cannot find this in Scotland, but there is such a place in north-west Ireland near Donegal.
The story is interesting but I feel that in some aspects it could have been so much better: undoubtedly Harriet Cohen must have been an exceptionally attractive person in many ways who did a lot more than play a piano.
Harriet Cohen was a very accomplished piano player and it is a shame that her playing - with many recordings on 78rpm vinyls - has not been transferred to CD.
The state of her health was also rather over-emphasised: she was at death's door and worsened (?) so many times it was rather hard to imagine how she obviously did survive whilst also managing (in the 1920s and 1930s) to travel throughout and give concerts in the UK, Europe, and America, receive treatments for her illness in Switzerland, on top of continuing various amorous liaisons!
There are some errors in the text, including a few references to a place of retreat called Glencolumcille in Scotland: I cannot find this in Scotland, but there is such a place in north-west Ireland near Donegal.
The story is interesting but I feel that in some aspects it could have been so much better: undoubtedly Harriet Cohen must have been an exceptionally attractive person in many ways who did a lot more than play a piano.
Harriet Cohen was a very accomplished piano player and it is a shame that her playing - with many recordings on 78rpm vinyls - has not been transferred to CD.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is the first biography of Harriet Cohen and it encompasses the fullness of her life. Since Harriet Cohen's own autobiography "Bundle of Time" is out of chronological order throughout in its chapters and makes no reference to any of the love letters between herself and Arnold Bax, "Music and Men" is the first to give us a fuller view of Harriet the woman and pianist. Helen Fry is the first biographer to reproduce such detailed extracts from the mass of correspondence in the Harriet Cohen archive. I found that helpful because it shows how the Cohen/Bax affair developed from pure infatuation and unquenchable love to a deeper relationship and friendship. Without Harriet, Bax would have been lost to the music world. He was too shy to promote himself; she kept him in the limelight and ensured his legacy survives. How does one reflect such a woman in the space given to Fry by her publisher? I think Fry has done an admirable job. I noticed some minor errors, but overall what Fry gives us is a flavour of the complex character and bohemian lifestyle that was Harriet Cohen. Fry also appears to be the first person to bravely stride out and suggest that Harriet's "accident" with a tray of glasses in 1948 was no accident. I hope that the wider public, not just music lovers, will enjoy this for what it is - a full biography that leaves one contemplating some of life's most important questions about human relationships. For all Harriet's beauty, who would envy her life? Betrayed by the only man she truly loved, her life was one of essential tragedy. And Harriet's legacy to the music world has yet to be fully appreciated.
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