For the Love of It: Amateuring and Its RivalsUniversity of Chicago Press, 2008 M04 15 - 248 pages For the Love of It is a story not only of one intimate struggle between a man and his cello, but also of the larger struggle between a society obsessed with success and individuals who choose challenging hobbies that yield no payoff except the love of it. "If, in truth, Booth is an amateur player now in his fifth decade of amateuring, he is certainly not an amateur thinker about music and culture. . . . Would that all of us who think and teach and care about music could be so practical and profound at the same time."—Peter Kountz, New York Times Book Review "[T]his book serves as a running commentary on the nature and depth of this love, and all the connections it has formed in his life. . . . The music, he concludes, has become part of him, and that is worth the price."—Clea Simon, Boston Globe "The book will be read with delight by every well-meaning amateur who has ever struggled. . . . Even general readers will come away with a valuable lesson for living: Never mind the outcome of a possibly vain pursuit; in the passion that is expended lies the glory."—John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune "Hooray for amateurs! And huzzahs to Wayne Booth for honoring them as they deserve. For the Love of It celebrates amateurism with genial philosophizing and pointed cultural criticism, as well as with personal reminiscences and self-effacing wit."—James Sloan Allen, USA Today "Wayne Booth, the prominent American literary critic, has written the only sustained study of the interior experience of musical amateurism in recent years, For the Love of It. [It] succeeds as a meditation on the tension between the centrality of music in Booth's life, both inner and social, and its marginality. . . . It causes the reader to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the pleasures involved in making music; the satisfaction in playing well, the pride one takes in learning a difficult piece or passage or technique, the buzz in one's fingertips and the sense of completeness with the bow when the turn is done just right, the pleasure of playing with others, the comfort of a shared society, the joy of not just hearing, but making, the music, the wonder at the notes lingering in the air."—Times Literary Supplement |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 43
Page 8
... seem to have done somewhat better in preserving it to mean simply " lover " in the non - erotic sense . The word's relatively high standing in France can be seen in the titles of two fairly recent books , one , L'Amateur du poeme ...
... seem to have done somewhat better in preserving it to mean simply " lover " in the non - erotic sense . The word's relatively high standing in France can be seen in the titles of two fairly recent books , one , L'Amateur du poeme ...
Page 9
... seem to have won our battle to keep it in the title . But who knows what will come ? Here is how the dictionaries define the word these days : Am - a - teur ( am'a - choor , -toor , am'a - tur ' ) [ F. fr . L. amator lover , fr . amatus ...
... seem to have won our battle to keep it in the title . But who knows what will come ? Here is how the dictionaries define the word these days : Am - a - teur ( am'a - choor , -toor , am'a - tur ' ) [ F. fr . L. amator lover , fr . amatus ...
Page 12
... seems lovable . But as soon as we face failure , we turn to something else . The true amateur , in contrast , goes on trying . My definition raises many intellectual and moral problems , some of which I'll address — briefly in chapter 1 ...
... seems lovable . But as soon as we face failure , we turn to something else . The true amateur , in contrast , goes on trying . My definition raises many intellectual and moral problems , some of which I'll address — briefly in chapter 1 ...
Page 13
... seems to answer with a " yes , " in his lively little book , Painting as a Pastime , as he dwells almost entirely on the practical benefits of amateuring . Like me , he made his choice in his middle years — at forty . His very title ...
... seems to answer with a " yes , " in his lively little book , Painting as a Pastime , as he dwells almost entirely on the practical benefits of amateuring . Like me , he made his choice in his middle years — at forty . His very title ...
Page 15
... seem beyond harmonizing into a chorus : amateur chamber music players currently active ; amateurs of every other kind of music , instrumental and vocal ; amateurs of non - musical kinds ; professionals who see love of music as their ...
... seem beyond harmonizing into a chorus : amateur chamber music players currently active ; amateurs of every other kind of music , instrumental and vocal ; amateurs of non - musical kinds ; professionals who see love of music as their ...
Contents
3 | |
FIRST MOVEMENT The Courtship | 19 |
SECOND MOVEMENT The Marriage | 67 |
THIRD MOVEMENT The Love Fulfilled | 129 |
FOURTH MOVEMENT Rising Dissonance Resolved to Heavenly Harmony | 171 |
Glossary | 211 |
Bibliography | 215 |
Index | 227 |
Common terms and phrases
actually aging Amateur Chamber Bach become Beethoven better Brahms C-sharp minor called celebration cellist cello cello-reach chamber music chapter Chicago choice claim clarinet coach concert culture Daniel Barenboim experience feel felt fingers friends gift harmony Haydn hear heard hope instrument John Cage join journal Juilliard Quartet Julian Lloyd Webber kind least Leisure lessons listening living look lover melody memory move movement Mozart never night notes obviously Opus performance perhaps Phyllis pianist piano trio players playing chamber pleasure practice pro-amateur professional pursuing question quintets SECOND VIOLIN seems sense session sheer Shostakovich singing solo sometimes song soul sound spend string instrument string quartet suddenly talk teacher teaching thing thought thumb position tion tune turn viola violin violinist violist week wonderful word worry write Yo-Yo Ma York young
Popular passages
Page 192 - From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began : From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.
Page 207 - SINCE I am coming to that Holy roome, Where, with thy Quire of Saints for evermore, I shall be made thy Musique; As I come I tune the Instrument here at the dore, And what I must doe then, thinke here before.
Page 2 - But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight.
Page 208 - Sphears ; for those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony.
Page 207 - Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society. How strange that all The terrors, pains, and early miseries, Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part, And that a needful part, in making up The calm existence that is mine when I Am worthy of myself!
Page 84 - Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
Page vi - I cannot say that they act and re-act exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each other: Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some kind, and my opinion rather is that there is something in it more of the manner of electrified bodies, — and that by means of the heated parts of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back of the HOBBY-HORSE.
Page 68 - There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first. Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer ; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one ; but give him a fiddle and a fiddle-stick, and he can do nothing.
Page 108 - THAT time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie...