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 |
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 |
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 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 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.