This volume contains nearly all the criticism that Alexander
Coleman wrote for The New Criterion between 1994 and 2003. A
specialist in Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American literature,
Coleman was also a superb essayist on music, and his wide
erudition, as revealed in these writings, demonstrates an easy
mastery of the entire modernist tradition. Diversions and
Animadversions is divided into three parts. The first contains
Coleman's literary essays including a lengthy piece on Eba de
Quieros, the great master of Portuguese realism, and shorter pieces
on the Argentinian writer and Borges disciple, Adolfo Bioy Casares,
as well as a review of the most recent translation of the poetry of
Federico Garcia Lorca. Coleman's greatest passion, however, was for
music, and part two contains essays, concert and book reviews, and
reports on the cultural situation of music. Among the subjects
examined here are the operas of Schoenberg, Berg, Richard Strauss,
the recently published letters of Toscanini, the music criticism of
Virgil Thomson, the fluctuating critical reputation of Jean
Sibelius, and the "authentic" performance practice movement, along
with considerations of such instrumentalists as Sviatoslav Richter
and Alicia de Larrocha. The book concludes with Coleman's travel
writings, which are both evocative mood pieces and incisive social
and political commentary. Graced with personal appreciations by
Roger Kimball and Denis Donoghue, this volume encapsulates the work
of a writer of rare wit, capacious learning, and eager, if gently
ironical, curiosity.
General
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