The Pleasure of Their Company: A Reminiscence (Amadeus) - Hardcover

Taubman, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0931340780 ISBN 13: 9780931340789

Publisher: Amadeus, 2003

Synopsis

The New York Times music and drama critic recalls friends and associates over a 57-year career. HARDCOVER.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

These recollections "of men and women whom I was fortunate enough to encounter and even know, and of events I reported" do not form a conventional autobiography. Rather, the author's more modest intention is simply to present not only the celebrated artists he came to know, but also some of the friends he made at The Times and in the U.S. Army during the Second World War. Readers will share vignettes of Toscanini, Casals, and Shostakovich; Alfred Lunt, Richard Burton, Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini; Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Marian Anderson, and dozens of other luminaries of the musical and theatrical worlds. There is an account of Vladimir Horowitz attending a Cardinals-Mets game that adds a wholly unexpected dimension to the great pianist's legendary eccentricities! Supplemented by photographs from the New York Times archives and the author's own collection, this affectionate memoir will inform and delight any reader with an interest in music and theater in our time.

From Publishers Weekly:

Taubman, chief music critic at the New York Times (except during WWII) from 1930 to 1960, and then the paper's chief drama critic for the next 12 years, has met a host of remarkable people and been in attendance at many noteworthy events. Unfortunately, these reminiscences are too disorganized and often desultory to make the most of his promising material. There are only fleeting sketches of such personages as Pablo Casals, Vladimir Horowitz, Arturo Toscanini, Dmitry Shostakovich, Marian Anderson and Ingrid Bergman, and some occasionally entertaining tales like those of his battles with fearsome Broadway producer David Merrick. But the heavy preponderance of conventional wartime recollections and warm tributes to colleagues simply do not belong in a book intended to be of general interest. Taubman's judicious Times reviews were better crafted than this rambling affair, in which the most interesting section, surprisingly, is his account of his later-life role as adviser to Exxon in its sponsorship of public television's Great Performances series. Illustrations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Amadeus
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0931340780
• ISBN 13: 9780931340789
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 342