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Title: The Compleat Brahms: A Guide to the Musical Works of Johannes by Leon Botstein ISBN: 0-393-04708-3 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (3 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Uneven
Comment: The unevenness cited by a previous reviewer is this book's great weakness. Those works covered by writers other than the editor get reasonably detailed treatment. Those written by the editor get very short shrift. These are all solo lieder, vocal duets and quartets, and smaller-scale choral works, especially the earlier works in these genres. Some of the individual numbers in these sets get no more discussion than their names and key signatures.

Even the longer essays are not by any means detailed musical analyses. They are the equivalent of what you might expect from a well-done set of notes included with a recording.

The title "Compleat" is something of a misnomer. The book barely mentions most of the WoO and posthumous works and discusses almost none of the many alternate arrangements done by Brahms -- including some significant ones, such as the transcriptions of Op. 120 for viola and piano.

Even with its deficiencies, if you're a serious Brahmsian, this book will be a valuable addition to your library.

Rating: 2
Summary: Superficial
Comment: The description says "Virtually every piece composed by Brahms and not sacrificed to his uncompromising critical standards is discussed in this compendium, lucidly, readably, in biographical and cultural context, and in fine detail." The claim "in fine detail" is blatantly untrue. The detail is about what you'd get on a typical CD insert booklet, nothing more. The C minor symphony gets a scant five pages; the E minor, just three; the four concertos get a total of 13 pages.

Rating: 5
Summary: 4.5 stars indeed
Comment: This book contains introduction of EVERY Brahms' work. I use it accompanying with DG's Brahms complete edition, and the result is very informative and I totally enjoy it. The greatest merit,and at the same time the crucial flaw, of this book is that this is a collaboration. Yes, good enough, we can find different perspectives and different writing styles and different standard among these articles. But even in the same category pages seem not being equally distributed. For example, there are 4.5 enthusiastic pages dedicated to op.43,four lieder, with every lied in detail. But there are only 3 paragraphs for op.46, four lieder. (It seems rather "unfair",isn't it? for op.46 is no less distinct then the former.) I love this book, if regardless of this.

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