A Gift Of Music

I’m an enormous fan of the pianist James Rhodes, even more so as I’m reading his remarkable memoir that encompasses abuse, breakdown and addiction. A tribute to the healing power of music, his book is poignant and painful but has continuous flashes of dark wit, even lines that made me laugh out loud (as does his concert banter.)
In addition to heart-wrenching details from his own life, he shares so much fascinating information about the great composers, both funny and tragic and everything in between.
I never knew that Beethoven took his father to court at 16 to wrest control of his musical earnings (presaging Beyonce and her manager dad by two centuries).
Or that Brahms grew up playing music in brothels which screwed up his relationships with women, although he did rush to Robert Schumann’s wife’s side at her husband’s deathbed in order to destroy their love letters.
Or that Rachmaninov was “a giant, 6 foot 6, manic, miserable, bipolar, millionaire virtuoso pianist and composer” referred to by his contemporaries as “a six foot scowl.”

Each of the 20 chapters (or as he calls them “tracks”) begins with him discussing a particular piece of music and Rhodes’ favorite recording of it and how it transformed him.

For example, when discovering a piece of Bach he’d never heard while in a mental institution:

“Under the covers I went. Headphones on. Middle of the night. Dark and impossibly quiet. And I hit play and heard a piece by Bach that I’d not heard before. And it took me to a place of such magnificence, such surrender, hope, beauty, infinite space, it was like touching God’s face…It felt like I’d been plugged into an electrical socket. Neither before nor since have I ever experienced anything like it. It shattered me and released some kind of inner gentleness that hadn’t seen the light of day for thirty years.”

AS A GIFT FOR YOU, I’ve created a 5 hour Spotify Playlist (in chapter order) of not just that piece but of each track James Rhodes recommends (95% Rhodes’ favorite recordings with some educated guesses on the rest) that I’m happy to share.
ENJOY THE MUSIC HERE!

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