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Who Killed Classical Music? Maestros, Managers and Corporate Politics. By Norman Lebrecht. A Birch Lane Press Book published by Carol Publishing Group. Pub. Price $24.95    B&N Price: $17.46

Have you ever thought about getting a music degree or discovered after completing your degree you don't have a concert career? Well, READ THIS BOOK! Learn to understand how the music world works. Not the fantasy fed to you by music teachers, friends, and others that you are the greatest talent since Beethoven, but how careers are really made and the state of the art as it exists today. This book does not live up to the title but it does get one thinking about the business aspect of music.

Lebrecht focuses on a few of the major companies that represent the biggest names in the business and how, in some cases, they are managed and owned by other companies that care little about the artist and even less, the audience. The goal, make money. Not from ticket sales necessarily but corporate sponsors and government funding. Is it true that these few companies have killed off classical music? I don't think so. This book is about Maestros, Managers, and Corporate Politics--a study of a few artists management companies. but not about the end of classical music. Though Lebrect raises many issues that need to be discussed in the music world, there is an entire music world not mentioned in this book, although the other music world is less prestigious. I am not talking about academic occupations (because they have done just as much as the few companies mentioned here to kill music) but performance careers.

Not every aspiring artists needs to be represented by Columbia Artists Management, International Management Group, International Creative Group (though it would be nice) there are hundreds of excellent management companies making money for artists although none of them are listed in this book. The reason, they are keeping music alive. They are not charging outrageous fees for themselves and the artists they represent. I applaud these other companies for all the work they are doing. There can be a music career for artists whose last name isn't Perlman or Muti.

So, pick up this book, learn something about the music world, but don't go away thinking classical music is dead. Remember, the first half of a career is learning how to play, the other half, learning how to make a living.

The Indiana School of Music A History By George M. Logan. Indiana University Press. Price: $29.95

Imagine what it would be like to be Dean of a music school. Where would I go to learn how to build a successful music program? What makes a program great and how would I avoid what happens to most music schools where everyone on the faculty has a different view of what is good or why their own school isn't?

I would start with this book. Logan does an excellent job in documenting how a great music school is built. He leaves nothing out. All the ups and downs, in and outs of the making of a great program, all exposed. This is what I like best about this book, it's honest!

One point to make here. There were only a half dozen Deans of the school over its twentieth century and how each one made their mark on the school. Most schools go through many deans and one would think at a school that attracts the best and brightest faculty and students, no dean could survive. All those egos and talents that end up on a faculty, these were remarkable men. The performers who crossed the campus, all the best names in music. What is a future Dean to do? Read and learn. For everyone else, enjoy.

Mozart: A Life By Maynard Solomon. HarperPerennial. ISDN 0-06-092692-9. Pub. Price $20.00   BN Price: $16.00

Much has been written about Mozart's life from a variety of perspectives. However, none of the books I have read reach the depth of psychological insights not only his life and personality, but his father's, his sister 's and his wife, Constanze. Usually, historians focus on the tragic life of Wolfgang because his life was so short. After reading this book, I understood the tragedy is not only Wolfgang, but also Leopold and his wife, Nannerl, and Constanze.

Overlook our preconceived notions about the mythological Wolfgang and see that his family was not that unfamiliar from many tragedies played out by countless families today. Leopold literally and figuratively lives through his children. Exploiting their talents not only to gain money, but more importantly, to maintain a sense of self worth. Because, they are his flesh and blood.

Solomon demonstrates how the sins of the father destroy the lives of his own children, his wife, and eventually, himself. Not by suicide but by greed, jealousy, anger, envy, and manipulation. How his worst fears come true in an ironic sense of divine justice. For example, his eternal resting place is near Constanze Mozart whom he bitterly opposed to the point of telling Wolfgang that he heard rumors that she was a slut. Or the numerous illnesses Wolfgang suffered while touring as a child, which would eventually take their toll on him, all for the sake of the money his father was making off his son's talent.

Mozart's family was by all accounts symbiotically tied together. A psychological dependency best understood by modern families with the same personality traits. Or possibly any parent who feels their child is the next Mozart.

This is for now the definitive Mozart biography and a must read for everyone, especially a parent.

Schubert: The Music and the Man By Brian Newbould. University of California Press. Price: Paperback $22.00

We often refer to the first Viennese School as consisting of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Schubert is overlooked partly because many musicologists classify him as a Romantic composer and not a member of the Classical school. The problem, Schubert is both as in many ways, as was Beethoven.

Newbould makes a good case that in either category, Classical or Romantic, Schubert is a major composer on par with the three greats of the Classical Era. Much debate in recent years has been around Schubert about his sexual preferences and the what I consider the creation of idiosyncracies appearing as major personality and morality traits. Newbould gives this the appropriate length, about two pages out of four hundred and ten. Newbould sticks to what we know about him, his music and genius behind it.

It may appear that I am defending this book. I am. A great biography without all the National Enquirer rumors. It avoids all the "reading into" Schubert that is popular today, and that makes it the Schubert book to have.