INTIMATE CONVERSATIONS

An avid classical music fan talks with some of his favorite composers, conductors, and musicians in this collection of interviews.

Ruttman makes it clear from the outset that he is not a professional musician. He approaches his questions from the point of view of an enthusiast whose appreciation for music spans roughly 60 years. He has assembled an impressive list of interviewees in the classical music world, separating them into such sections as composers (John Harbison, Unsuk Chin, Osvaldo Golijov), conductors (Gil Rose, Martin Pearlman), instrumentalists and vocalists (Anne-Sophie Mutter, Susan Graham, Aiko Onishi), music management (Mark Volpe), and the “beyond genre” (Ran Blake, Eden MacAdam-Somer, Monica Rizzio). An attorney who penned American Jews and America’s Game (2013), Ruttman found himself immersed in the classical music culture in Boston, digesting the details of the program at every performance he attended. That’s on clear display in these interviews, as the author has historical notes on heavyweights like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven at the ready. He examines his subjects’ personal histories and their philosophies, musical and otherwise, and comes up with good questions, as when he asks Harbison if he can compose while working as a conductor. And he gets some thought-provoking answers, as when Chin says, with regard to her composing, “Music is not self-expression. One has to alienate, to keep a distance from themselves.” But the book has some problems involving its format and presentation. There is an unnecessary preview in the beginning giving details about the author’s subjects that would be better showcased in the chapters devoted to each one. Ruttman also puts his acknowledgments up front, including notes on the book’s editors and various illustrators and photographers, before readers can even see what they’ve contributed. The interviews themselves are presented with both the author’s and his subjects’ dialogue in quotes, with no attributions, instead of having the questions in bold or italics. At times, readers will be guessing from the context who is speaking.

Despite a few flaws, this volume offers plenty of compelling tidbits for classical music aficionados.