The Vintage Guide to Classical Music

Posted on 01 September 2018 by Jan Swafford

The most readable and comprehensive guide to enjoying over five hundred years of classical music from Gregorian chants, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, and beyond.The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is a lively and opinionated musical history and an insider s key to the personalities, epochs, and genres of the Western classical tradition Among its features chronologically arranged essays on nearly 100 composers, from Guillaume de Machaut ca 1300 1377 to Aaron Copland 1900 1990 , that combine biography with detailed analyses of the major works while assessing their role in the social, cultural, and political climate of their times informative sidebars that clarify broader topics such as melody, polyphony, atonality, and the impact of the early music movement a glossary of musical terms, from a cappella to woodwinds a step by step guide to building a great classical music library.Written with wit and a clarity that both musical experts and beginners can appreciate, The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is an invaluable source book for music lovers everywhere. New Download The Vintage Guide to Classical Music [ by ] Jan Swafford [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr This is a fantastic book Jan Swafford is not only intelligent but approachable His vocabulary astounds me, and the there is nothing to say about how enriching the biographies and side bars are This book is fantastic for every level of music lover from performer to listener to historian to veteran to novice to beginner Jan Swafford has done something special for the world in creating undersized easy to use guide to western classical music from circa 1200 1992 there are endless thi This is a fantastic book Jan Swafford is not only intelligent but approachable His vocabulary astounds me, and the there is nothing to say about how enriching the biographies and side bar...It sounds simple enough write a series of short essays about all the classical composers that truly matter The result though is actually a coherent and comprehensive tour through the language of the music, the composers themselves, and the evolution of the techniques and orchestration used over the centuries and it is FUN to read.The writing style is jaunty and descriptive and deeply reflective of the music being described Try to describe sound, music, has got to be one of the most difficul It...A real pleasure to read Because Swafford has a justified confidence that he isn t a snob, he doesn t need to engage in any knee jerk populism when writing about this freighted subject Writing fairly and engagingly about the relative strengths and weaknesses of several dozen individuals who are all gods among men with fewer than 600 pages, there s no space for mere demigods is a real achievement.My favorite two lines are from the section on twentieth century composers Based on a medieval co A real pleasure to read Be...My favourite introductory guide to classical music I love Swafford s style high flown, personal, inspiring, sometimes touching, sometimes snarky The little essays on technical subjects are clear but it s the historical overview that has been really helpful to me I ve got books on most of my favourites but it s nice to have my understanding of their works reinforced and, often, expanded I also enjoyed seeing just where other composers I know little about, like Monteverdi and Domenico Scarla My favourite introductory guide to ...I picked this up as my starting point into the world of classical music, and I couldn t bepleased with my choice I found a first favorite composer Beethoven, quite obviously But also Brahms and Wagner and Prokofiev , and gained some great insight into appreciating the music in general I found myself itching fordepth into the pieces or into the process of listening to music, but rather than a detraction, I see that a...Exactly what this adult piano student was looking for some context and background for the pieces composers I ve been playing This isof a reference book than something to read cover to cover and there s a lot of material here I made my way through the composers I was most interested in, but plan on buying the book for second and third readings as my experience playing and exposure to classical music grows The structure is simple an overview of each musical era with chapters on the mos Exactly what this adult piano student was looking for some context and background for the pieces composers I ve been playing This isof a reference book than something to read cover to cover and there s a lot of material here I made my way through the c...This is one of four general guides I own to classical music I have other books specifically on orchestral, concerto, chamber, choral and opera, but this is one that covers all the different forms The Miller Barnes and Noble Introduction to Music goes over such things as tone, rhythm, melody, etc The Hurwitz Beethoven or Bust goes over the various forms the concerto, for instance and their various types Goulding s Classical Music concentrates on the core...This serviceable overview of the history of classical music is primarily a collection of biographies of the lives of major composers It gives short shrift to music before the classical period, which is a shame because the story of Medieval and Renaissance music is every bit as interesting and rather less well known thanrecent developments Swafford is a lively writer and the lives of composers are rarely dull His treatment of Wagner left me disgusted and bitter, but then many music histo This serviceable overview of the history of classical music is primarily ...Swafford kept me engaged in this interesting history of classical music with his vivid character protrayals of composers, his accessible explanations of musical forms as they developed over time, and his way of placing the composers in the context of their times His passion for the subject comes through so well that every time I read about a composer, I listened to some music by that composer When I had finished the book, I had a familiarity with the composers and with the history of classical Swafford kept me engaged in this interesting history of classical music with his vivid character protrayals of composers, his accessible explanations of musical forms as they developed over time, and his way of placing the composers in the context of their times His passion for the subject comes through so well that every time I read about a...More likely 4.5 stars I love it.Classical music has always enchanted me, but at the same time eluded me It is, as Jacques Barzun said in his From Dawn to Decadence, the most difficult art form As a result, I succumbed, I let go I l...

01 September 2018

Jan Swafford