Though I have listened to this many times and found myself falling asleep even more times while doing it, it was by no means the fault of the set. It is a very accessible history with plenty music illustrations and explanations minus your eyeballs. Recommended.
The History of Classical Music
by Richard Fawkes
Read by: Robert Powell
UNABRIDGED
From Gregorian Chant to Henryk Gorecki, the first living classical composer to get into the pop album charts, here is the fascinating story of over a thousand years of Western classical music and the composers who have sought to express in music the deepest of human feelings and emotions. Polyphony, sonata form, serial music - many musical expressions are also explained - with the text illustrated by performances from some of the most highly praised recordings of recent years.
Also available as part of a Box Set with "The History of Opera"
Music: From Gregorian Chant to Stravinsky and Gorecki - 150 musical excerpts illustrate the narrative
Running Time: 5:12:49
4 CDs: £16.99 ISBN: 962634140 8 Cat no: NA414012
- posted on 08/16/2005
Sounds like a good LWD (listening-while-driving) project for me (NPR can be boring at times, you know). Are you sure it always puts people to sleep? Can be dangerous if so.
gadfly wrote:
Though I have listened to this many times and found myself falling asleep even more times while doing it, it was by no means the fault of the set. It is a very accessible history with plenty music illustrations and explanations minus your eyeballs. Recommended.
The History of Classical Music
by Richard Fawkes
Read by: Robert Powell
UNABRIDGED - Re: The History of Classical Music by Richard Fawkes from Naxos labelposted on 08/16/2005
Attention wanders. My experience was that you would do better paying full attention to it while listening. Otherwise you would have a too fragmentary experience to be happy about. But it is so hard to concentrate for an hour (about an average CD length) nowadays and the set runs 5+ hours.
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