Jonathan Keates
Getting Nearer
Johannes Brahms: A Biography
By Jan Swafford
Macmillan 699pp £30
The traditional test for all biographical subjects is that of whether or not we should have wanted to sit down to dinner with them. Composers, it must be said, seldom score well on this one. Handel, for example, would probably have pinched most of the tastiest morsels for himself. Gruff, agoraphobic Verdi, absolutely refusing to discuss music, or Wagner, likely to go into a sulk if somebody else's opera were praised, might each have us asking for the bill before the entrée arrived. Bruckner would require in instruction as to the use of a knife and fork, while Elgar made sure you called him 'Sir Edward' loudly enough for the next table to hear.
Should we have liked to join the elderly Johannes Brahms, during his last, heavily lionised Viennese decades, on his daily outings to the Zum roten Igel restaurant in the Wildpretmarkt, to sit in a curtained alcove with a dish of goulash and a beer? The answer must be a guarded
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk