The Classical Music Book
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The Classical Music Book
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Narrated by:
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Peter Forbes
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By:
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DK
About this listen
From Mozart to Mendelssohn, this comprehensive guide to classical music history and classical music biography is the perfect latest addition to the best-selling Big Ideas series.
Easy to understand and clear to follow, this history of classical music explores and explains music theory and the impact of seminal pieces, while also providing fascinating stories about the lives of crucial composers and performers.
Including an insightful foreword by Katie Derham, The Classical Music Book analyses over 90 works by famous composers. From Thomas Tallis in the early period to baroque masters like Bach and Handel, to the classical genius of Beethoven and Wagner and beyond to the modern day, The Classical Music Book explores the key ideas underpinning the world's greatest classical compositions and musical traditions, and defines their importance to the musical canon, placing them into their wider social, cultural, and historical context.
The unique approach to the subject makes this book the perfect classical music guide for everyone. Regardless of whether you are relatively new to the subject and want to learn or if you are a classical music aficionado, there is plenty to discover in The Classical Music Book.
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Ben Greenman, New York Times best-selling author, contributing writer to The New Yorker, and owner of thousands of recordings of Prince and Prince-related songs, knows intimately that there has never been a rock star as vibrant, mercurial, willfully contrary, experimental, or prolific as Prince. Uniting a diverse audience while remaining singularly himself, Prince was a tireless artist, a musical virtuoso and chameleon, and a pop-culture prophet.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Reads like a indepth career review & analysis
- By herb on 05-18-17
By: Ben Greenman
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The Europeans
- Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story5 out of 5 stars 29
At the center of the book is a poignant love triangle: the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev; the Spanish prima donna Pauline Viardot, with whom Turgenev had a long and intimate relationship; and her husband Louis Viardot, an art critic, theater manager, and republican activist. Together, Turgenev and the Viardots acted as a kind of European cultural exchange - they either knew or crossed paths with Delacroix, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, the Schumanns, Hugo, Flaubert, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky, among many other towering figures.
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5 out of 5 stars
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DO LISTEN TO THIS BOOK!!!
- By JK on 10-28-21
By: Orlando Figes
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Write Songs Right Now
- By: Alex Forbes
- Narrated by: Alex Forbes
- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 127
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
Write Songs Right Now is a hands-on, step-by-step guide to creating original pop songs - an approach that been road-tested by thousands of Alex's students and coaching clients in New York City, some of whom have gone on to achieve great success. With insight, enthusiasm, and humor, Alex guides listeners through the process of brainstorming for ideas, crafting effective lyrics, and putting those lyrics to music.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Kind of old wine in new skins, still good for that
- By Marc on 01-12-14
By: Alex Forbes
-
Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 122
Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
-
The Secret Life of the American Musical
- How Broadway Shows Are Built
- By: Jack Viertel
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 256
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 230
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 230
For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great review lacked music
- By joseph f mcgovern on 10-14-18
By: Jack Viertel
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Tom and Jack
- The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock
- By: Henry Adams
- Narrated by: Wayne Thompson
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, trailblazing Abstract Expressionist, appear to be the polar opposite of Thomas Hart Benton's highly figurative Americana. Yet the two men had a close and highly charged relationship dating from Pollock's days as a student under Benton. Pollock's first and only formal training came from Benton, and the older man soon became a surrogate father to Pollock.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I suggest you READ, not listen...
- By Grace O'Malley on 07-01-16
By: Henry Adams
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 86
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
Botticelli's Secret
- The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance
- By: Joseph Luzzi
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 134
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 101
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 101
Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all 100 cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s greatest poet, Dante Alighieri. A powerful encounter between poet and artist, sacred and secular, earthly and evanescent, these drawings produced a wealth of stunning images but were never finished.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Great story
- By Chris M on 12-09-22
By: Joseph Luzzi
-
Where the Heart Beats
- John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists
- By: Kay Larson
- Narrated by: Jason Wineinger
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Composer John Cage sought the silence of a mind at peace with itself - and found it in Zen Buddhism, a spiritual path that changed both his music and his view of the universe. "Remarkably researched, exquisitely written", Where the Heart Beats weaves together "a great many threads of cultural history" (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) to illuminate Cage’s struggle to accept himself and his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Freed to be his own man, Cage originated exciting experiments that set him at the epicenter of a new avant-garde forming in the 1950s.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Mind Expansion
- By Robert Keith on 04-04-15
By: Kay Larson
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Naked at the Albert Hall
- The Inside Story of Singing
- By: Tracey Thorn
- Narrated by: Tracey Thorn
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 20
In her bestselling autobiography, Bedsit Disco Queen, Tracey Thorn recalled the highs and lows of a 30-year career in pop music. But with the touring, recording and extraordinary anecdotes, there wasn't time for an in-depth look at what she actually did for all those years: sing. She sang with warmth and emotional honesty, sometimes while battling acute stage fright.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating
- By Jane Sheedy on 01-11-17
By: Tracey Thorn
-
Les Misérables: Translated by Julie Rose
- By: Victor Hugo, Julie Rose - translator
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 60 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,587
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,197
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,210
One of the great classics of world literature and the inspiration for the most beloved stage musical of all time, Les Misérables is legendary author Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. This extraordinary English version by renowned translator Julie Rose captures all the majesty and brilliance of Hugo’s work. Here is the timeless story of the quintessential hunted man—Jean Valjean—and the injustices, violence, and social inequalities that torment him.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A Book that Made Me a Better Person
- By Jeff Diamond on 03-29-13
By: Victor Hugo, and others
-
Light & Shade
- Conversations with Jimmy Page
- By: Brad Tolinski
- Narrated by: Robert Fass, John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 179
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 157
More than 30 years after disbanding in 1980, Led Zeppelin continues to be celebrated for its artistic achievements, broad musical influence, and commercial success. The band's notorious exploits have been chronicled in bestselling books; yet none of the individual members of the band has penned a memoir nor cooperated to any degree with the press or a biographer.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Production History, FY!
- By Amy Peacock on 02-21-17
By: Brad Tolinski
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What listeners say about The Classical Music Book
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dominic
- 02-13-24
Great skim over music history
I’m a musician and big classical music lover but have never really learned about the history of it and how music got to where it is today. I think this book was a decent skim over music and its history. Could be good for musicians and non-musicians alike. The book doesn’t go into much detail about each composer or each genre but more gives the overall timeline of classical music starting from 1000 to today. There’s lots of fun facts and tidbits that really got me thinking about music in a new way. Definitely recommend.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Kate
- 12-20-21
Disappointing
I had expected that there would be audio examples to add to the discussion and information. Unfortunately they were not included. A disappointment!
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