Playlist: The Rebels & Revolutionaries of Sound

Jhodi Kennard reviews a book by James Rhodes

The subtitle of this book, ‘The Rebels and Revolutionaries of Sound’ rather sets the tone. James Rhodes is trying to get the reader to look at the composers he writes about in a different way; to see them as the society of the day would have seen them. These days we may think of composers like Bach and Mozart as old fashioned, but at the time they were celebrities, A-listers, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable and established in music composition. He writes in the book’s introduction that he hopes that reading this book will inspire readers to give the music he mentions a listen and see what they think of it.

Rhodes has chosen seven composers as a springboard to getting people to have a look at Classical music (and I used a capital C here to mean any music that wouldn’t be considered as rock, pop, jazz music etc). For each of these composers Rhodes tells us a little bit about their life story, a bit about the influence their music has had on future generations and then he chooses two pieces by each composer, and writes more about those pieces. Each biography and each composition has a beautifully illustrated double page spread.

For the lives of the composers, Rhodes gives basic biographical information, like dates of birth and death, tells you a little bit about their family situation, and he also tells you a bit about what they were like as a person. He doesn’t shy away from mentioning the fact that they had a dreadful temper (looking at you, Chopin), or that they had a disgusting sense of humour (there’s Mozart for you). This is not a reverent, stiff, distant biography, but rather paints a very human picture of who each composer was as a person. I don’t know about the children in your classes, but certainly reading this book with my 9 year old, he was giggling away as we read about Mozart’s obsession with all things, shall we say, bowel related and he was definitely more amenable to listening to some of his music knowing a bit about Mozart as a person! Rhodes’ style of writing is easy, chatty, friendly, a little irreverent and highly readable. He makes what can seem like a very dry and boring subject matter fun and approachable.

For each piece of music Rhodes highlights he tells the reader about the piece, maybe when it was composed, what was going on in the composer’s life at the time. For some pieces he tells the reader what stories or pictures he imagines as he listens to the music. He asks the reader to think about how a composer’s physicality may have affected the music they wrote (looking at Rachmaninoff and his enormous hands here). Here I should tell you that there is, of course, a playlist that accompanies this book. You can find the playlist in full towards the start of the book where he gives you a link to follow to find the playlist on Spotify.. He suggests particular performers or ensembles to listen to, and when writing about each of the pieces later in the book he does often explain why he has chosen this particular performer to listen to - one of them is James Rhodes himself.

The book does give a brief timeline of music history, which is quite useful to orient the reader in the music history they are reading about, a little information about the make-up of an orchestra, and also a glossary of musical terms used in the book at the end. It includes a poster, which would look good on any music classroom wall. The artist for this poster, and all illustrations throughout the book is Martin O’Neill

The composers featured in here are all of a type - they are all male and they are all white European. Rhodes does acknowledge this in the Introduction of the book, and while he does give suggestions as to some female composers and some composers of colour that readers could check out after reading this book, he talks a little bit in here about the unfair advantages that white men had as composers, and performers, and how all the fame and celebrity went to them. He hopes that in the future a book like this one would be more diverse I would hope so too

This is a really nice book that could inspire your upper KS2 pupils to look at music they may see as old and boring differently, and see it as something they actually want to explore more. You could use the listening suggestions from it as a springboard for musical activities in your classroom, or simply use it as a non-fiction text for your confident readers in Year 5 and 6 (being mindful of its references to for example, relationships and drinking habits that some parents may be uncomfortable with their children reading - certainly at a younger age.)

Playlist: The Rebels & Revolutionaries of Sound by James Rhodes is published by Hachette.