How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition cover art

How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition

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How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition

By: Robert Greenberg, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Robert Greenberg
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About this listen

Great music is a language unto its own, a means of communication of unmatched beauty and genius. And it has an undeniable power to move us in ways that enrich our lives - provided it is understood.

If you have ever longed to appreciate great concert music, to learn its glorious language and share in its sublime pleasures, the way is now open to you, through this series of 48 wonderful lectures designed to make music accessible to everyone who yearns to know it, regardless of prior training or knowledge. It's a lecture series that will enable you to first grasp music's forms, techniques, and terms - the grammatical elements that make you fluent in its language - and then use that newfound fluency to finally hear and understand what the greatest composers in history are actually saying to us.

And as you learn the gifts given us by nearly every major composer, you'll come to know there is one we share with each of them - a common humanity that lets us finally understand that these were simply people speaking to us, sharing their passion and wanting desperately to be heard. Using digitally recorded musical passages to illustrate his points, Professor Greenberg will take you inside magnificent compositions by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and more. Even if you have listened to many of these illustrative pieces throughout your life - as so many of us have - you will never hear them the same way again after experiencing these lectures.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2006 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2006 The Great Courses
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Robert Greenberg goes on massive tangents at times and can get very effusive. He can also be ridiculously pedantic (getting upset with people saying concertos instead of concerti). In a 32 hour series, he says there is no time to explain the difference between a major and minor key (although he spends hours waffling on about the Italian language).

There are bound to be issues with what he misses out. We have two lectures on Beethoven's 5th, but the 9th hardly gets a mention. The whole series is heavily weighted towards the Baroque and Classical eras. He seems to rush his way through the late nineteenth century and the coverage of the twentieth century is very light (Shostakovich is barely mentioned!).

Overall though it's very good, especially for Bach and Mozart.

32 hours is not enough!

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I enjoyed listening to prof Greenberg, funny guy and very smart in his field which makes each chapter interesting.
a well structured course enabled me to keep on top when tackling new genres.

The downside however, having been drilled so hard about JS Bach and never once covered anything of Vivaldi.

Great for music lovers

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Extremely thought-provoking survey of the sweep of Western music from the Ancient Greeks to the 20th century, taught by a funny, charismatic teacher.

My highest recommendation to anyone looking to dip their toes in this vast subject.

Superb survey course

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I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook course and it's exhuberant presentation by Professor Robert Greenberg and highly recommend it to all lovers of classical music.

Outstanding music course

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Robert does such a great work. I have learned so much and the passion that Robert gives on the subject just makes it even more interesting and worth reviewing. I've always enjoyed Classic Music and now I know why, Thank you so Much

Phenomenal

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