Rating: 
Summary: a page-turner!
Review: I for one appreciate that Sheldon Morgenstern did not create No Vivaldi as an academic treatise. The arts world has maintained the image of an exclusive club for too long, a point that Morgenstern does as much to discredit as he does the now-rapid demise of American arts in general.No Vivaldi speaks to garage workers as well as to their symphony-going absentee landlords, and it does so with wit and grace and a justifiable amount of anger. Using his lifetime of experience as a frame on which to build his argument, Morgenstern has given us much more than the typical boring, self-aggrandizing memoir; in No Vivaldi, he has created a most compelling read. In fact, I couldn't put it down--read it cover to cover in one sitting.
Rating:
Summary: New Information!!
Review: I had read this book when it was first published two years ago, then saw a copy of the now available updated version at a musician's friend's house. It seemed to me that Morgenstern was a bit alarmist two years ago, but what this edition includes is truly scary information about such as the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony and others that are in real danger of failure just as the author had predicted. I, as a music educator, am doing what I can to stop this trend before the unthinkable happens to all our orchestras. It would be my hope that people involved in the arts, people other than musicians, would read this book -- and act! An Amazon Reader
Rating:
Summary: too much wisdom to dismiss
Review: I have read most of the reviews already posted and wish to add a conciliatory thought.
I am a professional musician in the Cleveland Orchestra. In the interest of objectivity and credibility, I will concede that the book is largely an autobiography and that there are anecdotes and opinions which are gratuitous to the main thrust of the topic. However, I think it is well worth reading this because of the underlying wisdom gained by the experience of someone who started a significant education-oriented music festival and kept it running for so long. Allow yourself to be amused by the stories and experiences and glean the volume of intelligence in the analysis of the problems confronting the classical music world and orchestras today.
I think the fact that this book has stirred so much controversy implies that there is plenty of substance within the narrative so it ought not be dismissed because of its many personal and provocative opinions.
Rating:
Summary: Help Our Orchestras, Read This Book
Review: In light of all that has happened (and is continuing to happen)in our North American world of symphony orchestras, this book can be a very useful guide to getting things back on track. It needs to be read by anyone/everyone in a position to make for change, to keep the muscians playing, to get music education back into the core curriculum of our schools. The author is not optimistic, but I still have faith. My Pittsburgh Symphony is close to facing bankruptcy, and I'll do all in my power to see that doesn't happen -- which includes getting people to read No Vivaldi in the Garage.
Rating:
Summary: Classical & Corporate
Review: Morgenstern & Labrecht have some harsh words for the classical celebrated. I can't overlook the resemblance between Karajan, for instance, & Jack Welch or Louis Gerstner or Bill Gates. Am I making sense to my readers? These people inhabit a different world, & they've kicked the dust of their previous lives off their shoes. Greed is choking classical music & Wall St. in equal measure. Perhaps, they had it coming. Personally, I intend to enjoy the music while I can.
Rating:
Summary: An easy read for classical musicians.
Review: Morgenstern relates the inner workings of conducting, teaching, managing, and performing that goes with being an orchestra player in the U.S., and does so concisely and humourously.
Rating:
Summary: Passionate advocacy
Review: Morgenstern tells a rattling good tale with a tone that is conversational and readable. Unfortunately, his message is startling and alarming for those of us who care about the future of classical music. His perspective as a lifelong champion of music education gives the narrative authenticity and credibility. His points are illustrated with numerous anecdotes, both humorous and depressing, culled from his many years as a professional conductor. It is the politicians, especially school boards, who should read this book, but at the very least, we can hope that it provokes discussion and alarm in professional musicians and educators to shake off any complacency they may have and speak out for classical music's survival.
Rating: 
Summary: Disintegration of A Culture?
Review: Must overall agree with another reviewer that the author does not truly address what he sets out to: provide requiem for classical music in N.A. What he does provide is primarily evidence from his musical career and life as what can be called "exhibits" at best. This is all fascinating reading, but avoids larger picture which he said he would provide, and possibly "over the top" "kissing and telling." Certainly, there are improprieties which he discloses in this highly competititve world of classical music, but airing all of this doesn't truly help his cause.. What does help is the picture barely began into at the end of lack of education at lower grade levels, and the cultural changes which are shoving classical music further and further into the background. Locally there is fight on whether instrumental music will be continued at public schools. Local FM classical station off the air, replaced by hard rock. Seems the cultural air we breathe now is so polluted by such dominant areas which do not appreciate nor wish to see prospering classical music. We need other cultural areas than the rich and dominating who are typically ruining local classics in most communities (as this work testifies) who need to jump in, i.e. church and education and communities. This book certainly provides some impetus for that and at the same time provides a good read of a musician's wide ranging life experiences.
Rating:
Summary: The U.S. cultural wasteland
Review: No Vivaldi in the Garage
Sheldon Morgenstern Music Day in my elementary school in North Carolina was always an adventure. Two boys would be sent down the hall to roll the little piano into our classroom, and someone fetched the big carton of "rhythm instruments". This was a collection of things my folks called "noisemakers" at home - tambourines, triangles, cymbals, sandblocks, and wooden sticks. At the appointed hour either Miz Crystal Bachtell or Miz Margaret Marsh would arrive for our lesson. Miz Bachtell was a dignified lady, with blue eyes and blue hair, and she wore sober gray suits with silk blouses and a discreet strand of pearls. Miz Marsh was young and snazzy, and dressed in leopard prints and cat-eye glasses decorated with rhinestones, and her hair was a different color every time we saw her. Both possessed the formidable talent of making Stravinsky's "Petrouchka" realer to us than Walt Disney's "Pinocchio". We were taught to read music, to sing in harmony, and to bang things in time to a piano accompaniment. We loved it. Each spring, when the North Carolina Symphony came to town, we were given a special course to acquaint us with the orchestra's program. After a few weeks of listening to recordings and learning about the composers' lives, we were taught proper concert comportment: the symphony has four movements, don't clap between them; wait until the conductor turns and bows before applauding; don't sing along; and don't chew gum during the performance. That was how I first heard "The Firebird" and Dvorak's "New World Symphony", when I was ten years old. It was an experience that set me on a lifelong path of concert-going and paved the way for my own professional music career. Sound like a lost paradise? Well, it was a very long time ago, about 40 years, and judging from reports of my nephews' and nieces' schooling, things have changed a lot today. In Sheldon Morgenstern's "No Vivaldi in the Garage" we are shown a heartbreaking picture of the growing wasteland that is the current U.S. cultural scene. Lack of government funding for the arts, bureaucratic managements, overpriced soloists - all are taking a toll on the availability of performing arts to the American citizenry. When I was growing up, music lessons were not considered a luxury. They were a part of one's general education, as much as biology or football, and from our high school orchestras and choirs came the fine musicians who are being thrown out of work today, as one orchestra after another goes bankrupt. This book is a "must" read for all who love the arts. In addition to spotlighting the precarious situation of symphony orchestras, music festivals, and theatres in today's cultural landscape, it offers the delightful portrait of a truly formidable educator. Every page that Mr. Morgenstern writes breathes love for the many students he has helped to professional careers, and pride in their achievements. Would there were more like him, and more money to go around to realize their teaching goals! What is it about music that provides us with such a powerful link to our better selves? Immediately following the September 11 tragedies, the nation and the world found enormous solace and inspiration in music, above almost anything else. It united us in expressing emotions we could not reach with words, it gave us courage, it allowed us to grieve. It is there for everyone. But who is there to stand up for music itself? For the composers and artists? If you have ever thrilled to a Brahms symphony or a Schubert string quartet or the "Nutcracker" ballet, if the final movement of the Beethoven Ninth moves you to tears of joy, do these things in the New Year: support your local symphony or opera company, write to your congressman, and READ THIS BOOK! .....
Rating: 
Summary: Morgenstern, Savior of the World
Review: Or at least, that's how Sheldon Morgenstern views himself in his book, "No Vivaldi in the Garage". The book claims to be a critical evaluation of the state of affairs in the classical music world, but is really a set of dull memoirs, in which Morgenstern is the Hero (note the capital H). He is harshly critical of people (the more famous, the more critical), but mostly only if one of those "superstars" declines a gig offer from Morgenstern, or makes more money than Morgenstern himself. He takes great pains to list all of the famous people he's worked with, and all of the famous alumni of the Eastern Music Festival. He is trying to put himself on the map with this book, since he never enjoyed the fame he condemns others for enjoying. The book is filled with double standards, condemning behavior in others while relating stories of his own similar behavior with a wink and a nod. At the same time he criticizes people for taking advantage of the system in some way, he relates stories of how he took advantage of a landlord in NYC who offered lower rent to struggling musicians who would use the apartment as a studio for private lessons (Morgenstern wasn't offering private lessons). Wink wink. His condemnation of Yo Yo Ma as someone who doesn't care about children and music education comes not from Yo Yo's direct involvement with kids, but because he declined to play in a concert that Morgenstern put together for the cellist Leonard Rose. Morgenstern never asks why, he just condemns if people don't follow his plans. He complains that the US allocates a miniscule amount of funds for the arts, but then relates stories of how board members run their orchestras under by squandering the funds they do have. Many of his stories outline symphony orchestras who got back on their feet by restructuring their board. Do you want to pay more taxes so that incompetent boards can waste your money? Or would you rather have orchestras take pains to select a successful board? He doesn't know what the solution is, but he just wants to rail on what the solution isn't. He complains about board members who meddle in artistic affairs, when often they have no qualifications for doing so (other than being a listening audience member, and Mr. Morgenstern knows the audience's opinion is certainly of no value). Yet, he doesn't mind, being artistically trained himself, meddling in the business affairs of the board. Speaking of poor solutions, he says it's a waste to have marching bands in high school and college, and that these schools should invest in a guitarist with a large amplifier. Nevermind that fewer students would be participating in music. My brother and sister aren't musically inclined, but they both spent time in the color guard and marching band, and received worlds of good from it, even if they don't play the kind of music Mr. Morgenstern appreciates. But like I said, if you're not enjoying music in the way that Mr. Morgenstern likes, then you shouldn't be involved in music. Which brings me to another point which truly upset me. He rails on audiences and musicians who don't like Bartok's music or the music of his friends like Gunther Schuller. He praises Beethoven's rebellious nature and the fact that, for quite some time many regarded his music as unintelligible (this seems to be one of the things Morgenstern enjoys about Beethoven). Yet, he devotes an entire chapter to condemning all composers after Bartok, pretty much a blanket condemnation. "Where did all the melodies go?" he asks, and then offers up a dimwitted and naive view as to why composers nowadays are merely trying to create obnoxious noise (in his view, anyway). Mr. Morgenstern, the type of bickering, whining and complaining you employ in your book is one of the main reasons people are losing interest in the classical music world. If classical musicians spend all their time condemning each other on a whim, without researching facts and trying to understand where someone else may be coming from, how can we expect others to be interested? It's like expecting people to want to become members of a dysfunctional family. I am happy to say I checked this book out of the library. I'm glad I didn't waste a penny on it.
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