My favorite books for classical music lovers or for those willing to fall in love with classical music

Whether you are a seasoned classical music lover or someone wanting to explore the world of classical music, you will love this book which offers a carefully selected piece for every day of the year. Whether you choose to listen to one piece each day, or as I did, in large batches, you will discover a true treasure trove of gems, some well-known, some rather hidden from sight. The author’s gentle, unpatronizing, and always imaginative commentary will enhance your understanding and your delight. Some of my favourite pieces are missing from the list (how could they not?) but every major composer from Thomas Ades to Frank Zappa is represented here, with titans like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and Schubert featuring more than once. 

If you want to delve into how music functions in the human mind and how it helps support communities and groups, then Anthony Storr’s is the book for you. Eminent psychiatrist, Oxford professor, and proficient pianist and violist, Storr (author of Churchill's Black Dog) uses his deep knowledge of philosophy, psychology, and religion to address questions like “Where does music come from?”, “Is music a common language for all humanity?” “How does music trigger emotions?” “Are our encounters with music in any way comparable with encountering persons?” Drawing on the work of Jung, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer, Storr argues that music, like religion, is a feature of all human cultures. Like religion, it offers solace and comfort from the hardships of life.

However, music is not universal—different cultures develop their own musical traditions and conventions, just as they develop different political systems and different languages. What is universal, and this is the ultimate achievement of music, is “the human propensity to create order out of chaos.” (p. 64) Music promotes “order within the mind” and in so doing, like storytelling, it helps to create and sustain that most valuable commodity, meaning. Storr’s book is littered with insightful musical examples from classical music that will ring true to every lover of this tradition. 

This magnificent book focuses on a single piece of music, Gustav Mahler’s titanic Eighth Symphony, and its premiere in Munich in the summer of 1910, a major musical and cultural event that attracted many eminent personalities from all over Europe. Mahler himself had no doubts about the uniqueness of this symphony which he saw as his "gift to the nation ... a great joy-bringer,” not so far away from Beethoven’s message in his Ninth. He wrote: "Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving." 

Johnson offers a detailed account of the work, its premiere, and the public response to it, a description of the deep personal traumas surrounding its composition (death of beloved daughter, marital turmoil, and terminal health troubles) and offers a profound analysis of the symphony’s musical structure, content, and originality. The book, however, goes well beyond this in painting a vast panorama of the cultural and political life in Austria and Germany ahead of the war calamity that would overtake all of Europe. This includes a detailed analysis of rising antisemitism of which Mahler was undoubtedly a victim. Johnson also details the nationalist and authoritarian currents that would disfigure politics all the way to our times.

Ian Bostridge is one of the leading tenors of our time and maybe the leading interpreter of songs, a genre of classical music that reached its apex in the compositions of Franz Schubert, music’s gentle giant who died at the age of 31. Bostridge describes his book on Schubert's Winterreise, the greatest song cycle ever composed, as the 'anatomy of an obsession'. As one of the cycle's most distinguished interpreters, Bostridge has performed the cycle numerous times and knows it intimately. He also uses his knowledge as a historian to provide a probing and imaginative companion for those of us who can become fellow travellers on his obsession.

The book is beautifully written, containing an essay on each of the cycle's 24 songs—the song, so to speak, acting as the point of departure for a journey of its own. Some of these essays are historical in nature. They demonstrate how the poetry that so inspired Schubert had its origin in the romantic response to the stifling social controls of the Biedermeier period, the period of reactionary politics that followed the defeat of Napoleon in Europe. Bostridge is particularly adept at describing the role of the artist in this climate, highlighting the political standing of the romantic artist, describing some of the scuffles of Schubert and his circle with the authorities. Having read this book, a whole new vista of music will open up for you offering you hours of joy, inspiration, and solace.

Among the many works of fiction inspired by classical music, that include Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, Mann’s Doctor Faustus, and Tremain’s Music and Silence, I have opted for Vikram Seth’s, exquisitely written and highly personal novel of unrequited love, loss, and longing, because his intimate knowledge of the world of classical music, the music and the characters is unsurpassed. 

The novel’s protagonist is a member of a successful string quartet, haunted by memories of a relationship he had had ten years previously. An unlikely reunion with the object of his infatuation, a pianist now happily married with a son, unleashes all kinds of personal and musical dynamics against the magical setups of Venice, Vienna, and… Manchester. The music performed by the different characters and the emotions that music triggers and unleashes are described with consummate sensitivity and insight. Every music lover will love this novel which is a treasure-trove of insight, musical and psychological.