While I was in Prague, I managed to catch up on a lot of reading. Two books by Raymond Monelle, The Sense of Music and The Musical Topic nearly overloaded my brain to the point of spontaneous combustion, but that’s the advantage of being away – you can take your time. I would have chucked Discographies on the floor to gather dust under other circumstances, but I had the mental space to give it the benefit of the doubt, and it turned out to be worth the effort.
I hadn’t expected to get round to The Bloomsbury Ballerina, or to enjoy it particularly – I was interested up to a point, but sometimes the weight of the past in ballet-land is suffocating, and I dreaded opening it.
But in fact, I couldn’t put it down. I had to ration myself so that I didn’t finish it too soon – otherwise I would have had nothing but semiotics and political rant to keep me company. Bloomsbury Ballerina is a darn good read, a beautiful story told with great affection and wonderful pace. As I’m crap at history, it was great to read a book which finally helped me put characters, events & companies into some meaningful chronology and perspective without any effort at all. Highly recommended. Once I’d got about 3/4 of the way through, I just had to stop everything and finish it.
