This remains the only book on Boulez's life. He was not one to give-up personal details on his life, he said so to a reviewer arrongantly when he was newly appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic. Peyser had access to rehearsals,dinners,lunches and insider trades and gossip, and all that is here, but also we find Boulez at work, the conductor and composer, a rehearsal schedule in included here ;when he looked for an apartment or an eye doctor appointment. Peyser is not a creative person so the sorry side of the book is that it remains as an outsider looking in, for Boulez's creative secrets are not revealed simply from hanging around him as she did. No you need to have studied the Boulez aesthetic, where it comes from, from the roots of modernity, Mallarme, Paul Klee, Schoenberg and recently Francis Bacon.Those books do exist and excellent one by Dominic Jameux, and there are a few on specific aspects of the Boulez aesthetic, (harmony Lev Koblyakov, one on Mallarme,another on conducting,Jean Vermeil) I still enjoy re-reading this work, Peyser knows how to tell a good story, how to pick at details of the everyday, the excitement of creating and conversing.

Well written compendium on the origins and transformations of the orchestra over time.

Although above the level of the newcomer, this has much info which will inform and interest music lovers of all levels in classical music interest.

It is thorough in its coverage of instrument development, composers, conductors, electronic recording, concerts, vocal vs. instrumental, etc.

I was tempted to think the author had fallen in love with Boulez and wrote this book in an attempt to explain frustrated emotions.

As a biography, it is only a little more useless than John Baxters execrable biography of Stanley Kubrick.

It contains a few interesting facts though.

Joan Peyser, best-known for her 'juicy' but excellent biography of Leonard Bernstein, wrote this quixotic tome 10 years before. The book is quixotic in that Peyser is attempting to tell the life story and background of one of the most enigmatic and secretive artists of the 20th century. After reading the book, you almost feel as if it's literally impossible to write a biography of Boulez. Page after page we are told of Boulez's refusal to reveal himself, and Peyser leaves it at that. She makes no attempt to dig deeper, but simply assumes that's the way it is. She also engages in some ridiculous pop-psychology in trying to explain some of Boulez's personality traits and career moves. Her Bernstein biography is great, but he's an easy subject. Boulez might as well be wearing a chastity belt, he's so impenetrable.

Thanks to this book, it will probably be a long time before Bernstein can really be apprediated for what he was: a musician. One could read a generous portion of this book and never know that Bernstein was a musician, so obsessive is Peyser's interest in his personal life. Bernstein was not perfect; sure, it's the easiest thing in the world to smear and smear until biography becomes gossip. You can pick apart Bernstein's sex life, his politics, his manners, or whatever you please. But that was not what Bernstein was about. What must be remembered - and what Ms. Peyser seems to forget in the course of this book - is that Bernstein was above all a musician, and one of the greatest in history. Sure, Peyser can write all she likes about how Bernstein's personal life, and some of it (all to rarely) is even interesting. But in the final analysis, Peyser royally misses the point. The question is not "How much dirt can we get on this guy?", but "What was it that made him, in spite of all his obvious faults, such a powerful and good presence in his time?"

This is the one question you will never hear Peyser answer, nor any other Bernstein biographer for that matter. There is nothing worth knowing in this book that one would not know from hearing Bernstein's conducting and compostitions, from seeing his "Young People's Concerts' and 1973 Norton Lectures, or from reading his "The Joy of Music". This is the real Bernstein, and is an eloquent testimony on Bernstein's behalf that the efforts of all the gossip-columnist biographers like Peyser are rendered irrelevant in light of Bernstein's extrordinary artistry, and his unparalleled ability and desire to communicate.

He lives on in spite of all the Joan Peysers in the world, and let us hope to God that he continues to do so.

This book is one big gossip column about Bernstein 1) being bi-sexual or 2) Bernsteins apparent motivation to constantly undermind other people and turn the focus of anything to himself. Bernstein certianly had an ego, but this book is simply not accurate. In the introduction the author says, "The crevices of character have to e explored as fully as the peaks of achievements to understand...." She certianly explored the "crevices." Instead of spending $18 on this go buy the National Enquirer.

While this much maligned biography may indeed dwell a little too much on Bernstein's personal life (how many times do we really need to be told he was gay? this gets tiresome after awhile...) Peyser does include a wealth of competently researched background on the life of this most American of musicians. If you aren't offended by the cheap and trashy (but rarely explicit) parts, it's worth a read. Keep your nose in joint and take this biography for what it is and you'll probably learn a few things!

As a non-expert reader seeking an introduction in the field, I "learn" on the first couple of pages about a list of composers - Beethoven among them - being born in Vienna. How much is the reader to believe of the information he doesn't already know better by himself?

In contrast to a previous reviewer, I found this volume interesting and well worth reading, if hardly up to its subtitle of Music in Europe Since the Rite of Spring. I think what happened was that Peyser intended to update her Boulez biography of 1975 (she says as much), had already started a book about music since the Rite, and finally gave up and combined the two in an unfortunate mishmash, adding bits and pieces of scattered information about other composers as it seemed appropriate to her. It is, however, simply untrue to say that Peyser makes Boulez out to be a saint. That she seems to have some personal feelings for him does not detract from her biography or its assessment of his music, which is certainly not always positive. That she would at least like to have a bias in Boulez's favor I wouldn't deny. Peyser's book does bring Boulez--an infamously private man--to life, and does actually help in approaching his music, whatever the flaws of the book may be. It would be a great buy in paperback. Do not look for any technical information, however: while not a Boulez expert, I might recommend Peter Stacey's Boulez and the Modern Concept as an approach for those familiar with some music theory.

This work is the combined result of two previous books by Peyser, the first a study of Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Varese; the second a biography of Pierre Boulez up to the mid-seventies. Although Peyser has edited her work to eliminate some overlapping material, and has added a short chapter on Boulez' last three decades, there is still a feeling of jerry-rigging and overall incompleteness that cannot be avoided, and one is left craving for more material on Boulez' latter life and composers from the late seventies on.

No matter. These flaws pale in comparison to the value of the work itself -- a lucid, emphatic, and highly readable account of modernism in music. Avoiding serious technical discussion that would alienate anyone but a composer, Peyser casts her subjects in a dramatic light, detailing their works in terms of impact, emotional content, and the challenges they either met or failed to overcome. Of course special attention is paid to Boulez, who emerges as a complex, thorny, enigmatic and passionate figure -- very much like his music, in fact. As Boulez is notoriously private, her objective and highly researched biography is doubly valuable, and some of the anecdotes are simply priceless.

Highly recommended to any enthusiast of modern atonal or experimental music.

Peyser doesn't write very well and she doesn't understand her subject. That said, the fact is that because she had her agenda of uncovering hitherto unknown material (if for the wrong reasons), she has done just that. There are nuggets here, new information, new ideas about the life and the music. But they are so horribly mixed in with unfounded gossip and rumor -- did I mention the terrible writing? -- that only a true Gershwin aficionado will recognize what there is of value in this book.

This book proves the old computing adage! It's too bad the author doesn't have any solid research to back up the wild claims she makes about Gershwin's life. Too bad there isn't less than one star on amazon.com ratings, this book deserves far less.

This book seems like an overt attempt at character assassination. If the author wants us to believe most of the "new material" that is presented in this book it's going to take more documentation than third or fourth hand rumor and gossip.

Surely there is a lot more complexity and depth to George Gershwin's character than we have had in previous biographies, but this trashy book doesn't convey that. For example, we are now to believe that Gershwin was a sadist because the author heard that from someone, who heard it from someone, who had it second hand from someone who heard it from George's psychologist? Puh-leeeze!

In my opinion, the author presents a lot of negative points about Gershwin without citing credible sources to back up the claims. I felt I was reading a diatribe from someone with a personal axe to grind, rather than a scholarly or well researched biography.

Let's hope a new generation of biographers don't cite this work as their source material for future biographies of Gershwin. It's trash.

There are other more informative biographies of Gershwin out there...go for something else.