cover image Beethoven’s Skull

Beethoven’s Skull

Tim Rayborn. Skyhorse, $21.99 (304) ISBN 978-1-5107-1271-3

The 19th-century Austrian composer Anton Bruckner was obsessed with his music idols: there are accounts of him cradling and kissing Beethoven’s skull after it was exhumed from a Vienna cemetery. This bizarre anecdote provides the title for Rayborn’s unusual and diverting tour through musical history, from ancient Greece to the modern era. At his best, Rayborn, himself a musician, combines historical anecdotes and factoids into meaningful vignettes, as when he observes the consequences of Russian composer Sergey Prokofiev dying on the same day as Josef Stalin. The Communist leader’s state funeral swamped the composer’s memorial and commandeered all available fresh flowers in Moscow, leaving organizers with only paper flowers and potted plants for Prokofiev’s farewell. Rayborn has a lighthearted tone that many readers will enjoy. However, when there are few facts around an historical event he’s intent on developing, Rayborn’s own speculation feels thin. For example, he suggests with little evidence that the tale of the pied piper of Hamelin is based on a nobleman, Count Nicholas von Spiegelberg, who took a band of youngsters to colonize lands east of Germany. The target readership for this volume includes both trivia buffs and classical music fans, for whom this book will be an enjoyable source of well-researched material and quirky anecdotes. (Nov.)