Review

Peter Bassano
Before the Music Stopped: The Life of a Professional Musician 1965-2000

Middletown, DE, United States
Publisher: Giustiniani Publications
Date of Publication: 2021

397 pages

Primary Genre: Study Material - book

By any measure, trombonist, conductor, and educator Peter Bassano has had an incredible career. His performing credentials include performances, tours, and recordings with major symphony orchestras based in London (including 27 years with the Philharmonia Orchestra), well-known early music ensembles, brass ensembles of all sizes, and famous rock acts like the Beatles, the Bee Gees, and Pink Floyd. He has worked with an impressive list of conductors and soloists and had a lengthy teaching career at the Royal College of Music. Later in his career, he ascended the conducting podium, and has conducted a variety of ensembles in many genres. A full listing of all the ensembles in which he’s performed, famous conductors with which he worked, and recordings on which he appears would easily exceed the acceptable length limits for ITA reviews. The breadth of his experience and his personal contacts with luminaries of the music industry are, frankly, quite staggering. With 2020’s forced lockdown due to the global pandemic and with the early effects of Brexit being felt, Bassano decided to pen the book “Before the Music Stopped: The Life of a Professional Musician 1965-2000.”  Throughout its nearly 400 pages are numerous anecdotes from his decades as a musician, some funny and some poignant, and all giving insight into an era that saw incredible changes in the industry. This memoir is truly a labor of love from a talented, experienced musician.

Unfortunately, the impact of the book is somewhat blunted due to a host of grammatical errors throughout. Incorrect punctuation abounds along with occasional issues with capitalization. The book contains both informal snapshots of the author and his colleagues, as well as posed photographs. While their inclusion is welcome, the vast majority of these photos could have been printed larger, both to make the subjects clearer and to remove excessive white space on the page around them. That and a firmer editor’s hand would make for a much improved publication.

Bassano is clearly an energetic voice as a writer, but some readers may find it difficult to sustain their focus in the face of the grammatical issues in the writing. Readers who persevere, though, will marvel at the sheer volume of high-quality musical experiences Bassano recounts and will chuckle numerous times at the anecdotes the book contains.