Irving Berlin: American Troubadour (review)
2001; Music Library Association; Volume: 57; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/not.2001.0070
ISSN1534-150X
Autores Tópico(s)Spanish Literature and Culture Studies
ResumoCapping an active decade in Irving Berlin research, Edward Jablonski's monograph is the third on the composer to appear in as many years. Charles Hamm issued a remarkable study in 1997 (Irving Berlin: Songs from the Melting Pot: The Formative Years, 1907-1914 [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press]) that concentrated on the early years of Berlin's songwriting and explicated the social contexts within which his songs were created. Next to appear was the 1998 book by Philip Furia (Irving Berlin: A Life in Song [New York: Schirmer Books]), a narrative of the songwriter's life, distinguished by its many song analyses and its observations on Berlin's attainments as a wordsmith. Jablonski's entry is not only the most conventional biographical treatment of the three, but the second lengthiest Berlin monograph to date, trailing only Laurence Bergreen's 1990 volume As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin (New York: Viking). In fourteen chapters plus "prelude" and "coda," the author covers the range of Berlin's life, from his impoverished family's emigration from Russia when he was just 5 years old to his peaceful death in a five-story Manhattan townhouse at age 101.
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