The Voice: A Memoir
by Thomas Quasthoff
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Book Summary Information
Author: Thomas QuasthoffEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-17
ISBN: 0375424067
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Pantheon
Book Reviews of The Voice: A Memoir
Book Review: Wonderful singer but emotionally reserved as a writer
Summary: 3 Stars
Anyone who has seen Thomas Quasthoff and heard him sing must be curious to know how someone stricken with thalidomide and so horribly deformed could achieve what he has achieved. Quasthoff is short of stature but large of voice and personality on the concert stage. Sadly I have to report that his writing in no way measures up to his singing.
I can understand a man who must have suffered considerably building an emotional wall around himself but it doesn't serve him well as a memoirist. Quasthoff wants us to know he had a normal childhood, his parents treated him the same as his brother and that as an adult he loves soccer and a beer or two or three or four and has a keen eye for the ladies.
We get only a few brief glimpses of the prejudice he suffered as a child, the mockery and bullying, the special school for the handicapped he was forced to attend before the German school system relented and allowed him to attend a regular school.
We get a little of the mechanics or being a concert singer but I would have liked more. We get altogether too much name dropping -- this famous conducter, that luxury hotel -- the life of a jet-setter.
Interestingly, Quasthoff has a special affinity for Schubert's Winterreise which I featured in my novel, The Nazi Hunter: A Novel.
Quasthoff is a great artist and greatly to be admired for what he has overcome -- but his memoir is too guarded to be great.
Summary of The Voice: A Memoir
The Voice is the profoundly inspiring memoir of one of the most sought after and admired classical singers in the world--a man who has arrived at the summit of his artistry by overcoming extraordinarily daunting odds.Thomas Quasthoff, the German bass baritone, stands a shade over four feet tall, his severely underdeveloped arms and hands the result of thalidomide poisoning while he was in his mother's womb. But through stunning determination enlivened by an impish sense of human, Quasthoff has overcome his physical limitations and Dickensian childhood, cultivating his musical genius and thrilling classical music lovers with his sublime voice.
What shines through Quasthoff's astonishing story is his staunch refusal to wallow in self-pity, to see himself as a victim. Whether he is evoking a harrowing childhood marked by multiple agonizing surgeries, relating folksy family anecdotes, expressing his devotion to his students as a professor of voice, expounding on his love of jazz and American popular music (he is a great admirer of Stevie Wonder), or unburdening himself of his wickedly outspoken views on art and disability, Quasthoff's unerring sense of humanity, boisterous conviviality, and fierce honesty are always on display.
The Voice is utterly winning--a memoir to both marvel at and enjoy.
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