Rise to Follow

ALBERT SPALDING, at fifty-five, is one of America’s most popular concert violinists. He is also known as a composer of two concertos, violin works, chamber music, and songs. The publication of Rise to Follow, his autobiography, should make him a successful author, for this 328-page book is delightfully unique among contemporary artists’ memoirs. Its author has lived in many worlds, and he has known many of the great and near-great in all these worlds. Now, he recreates them effortlessly and unforgettably. New York of the nineties; Edwardian Florence; Saint-Saëns “with his lisp”; Imperial Russia; Aunt Sally Guest, who was “devoutly a Baptist, intransigents a Republican, obstinately a Northerner, and vindictively a New Yorker"; Mary Garden, “whose French accent had been born in Scotland and unashamedly wore kilts”; his own father, “a massive structure both mentally and physically,” the “Brother” of A. G. Spalding and Brother; post-war Europe and the new isms— all are here.

Rise to Follou’ is written with great honesty, discernment, gayety, and charm. It is fascinating, moreover, for the intimate, detailed picture it gives of an artist’s life. This is a book for amateur musicians and laymen. It is also a book for all those interested in people and good books.