Free PDF The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford
Free PDF The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford
Well, still puzzled of exactly how to get this book The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford here without going outside? Simply connect your computer or gadget to the website and also begin downloading The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford Where? This web page will certainly reveal you the link page to download and install The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford You never worry, your favourite e-book will certainly be sooner your own now. It will be a lot easier to take pleasure in reading The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford by online or obtaining the soft file on your gizmo. It will no matter who you are as well as what you are. This book The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford is created for public and you are just one of them that can take pleasure in reading of this e-book The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford
Free PDF The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford
Locate the secret to be a successful individual that always updates the details as well as knowledge. In this manner can be only exposed by gathering the new updates from many resources. The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford becomes one of the choices that you could take. Why should be this publication? This is the book to recommend because of its power to evoke the information and also sources in always updated. One additionally that will certainly make this book as referral is also this tends to be the current publication to release.
This is not type of typical publication. It gives you amazing web content to acquire the inspirations. Close to, the existence of this book will lead you to always really feel much better. You might not should create or invest more time to go; the The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford can be acquired from the soft data. Yeah, as this is an online collection, you can discover many kinds as well as styles of guides based upon the themes that you truly require.
As related to this referred book, you may have recognized why this publication is awaited. However, for you who are still interested of the reasons, you will recognize he reasons when you begin to review guide. Taking a look at the cover of The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford and also read title will certainly lead you know why lots of people falling in love. Fond of the book that related to the topic you are looking for can make you really feel satisfied. This is what will make you fill up that need.
So currently, just what's even more you will undertake with this book? Simply get The Vintage Guide To Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide For Understanding And Enjoying Classical Music, By Jan Swafford as soon as possible to lead your thought to always develop. When you make small mind-set to think of tough book to read, you will not make any type of improvement. And also see just what you will get, regret will constantly come behind. So, do you intend to turn into one of them? Obviously not! Reading and also checking out become one of the selections that you could try to conquer the troubles.
From the Inside Flap
dable 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.&
Read more
About the Author
Composer and writer Jan Swafford received degrees from Harvard and the Yale School of Music; his work has been played throughout the United States and abroad. Among his awards are an NEA Composers Grant, a Tanglewood Fellowship and a Mellon Faculty Fellowship at Harvard.
Read more
Product details
Paperback: 624 pages
Publisher: Vintage; 1 edition (December 15, 1992)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679728058
ISBN-13: 978-0679728054
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 1.2 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.4 out of 5 stars
62 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#31,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
When I first decided to learn more about classical music, this was the first book I turned to. "The Vintage Guide to Classical Music" is an excellent reference guide for those who love this genre of music but don't know a great deal about it. Using reasonably detailed and very interesting biographical essays on the major composers, author Jan Swafford gives the reader an excellent historical overview of classical music from its beginnings until the early 1990s, when this book was published. Also included are "sidebars" which explain in clear and easy to understand prose different topics such as sonata form, melody, atonal music, etc. Swafford also includes a section which explains how to begin building a classical music library. I found this especially useful in building my own classical CD collection."The Vintage Guide to Classical Music" is extremely well written, and obviously well researched. It's also very entertaining! The author consistently demonstrates not only a wealth of knowledge about his subject, but his love for it as well. For me, this book remains an indispensable guide to classical music. Highly recommended!
Until I got to retirement age, I had been a big fan of classical music without really knowing much about it. I finally ordered this book to get myself some education.The author has his strong opinions, but what the heck, so do I. I am never going to become a fan of atonal music -- in my opinion, the quickest & surest way of emptying a concert hall. But it was a bit disturbing to learn that Richard Strauss was "a pig" and that Bruckner was a "nincompoop" -- not that these facts affect their music in the slightest.Two coincidences strengthened my opinion of this book. I had recently discovered Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 on YouTube (Bernstein / Zimerman) and it blew me away. Swafford agrees that the Fourth is Beethoven's best piano concerto.The second coincidence was Theodore Dalrymple's very enthusiastic mention of the Haydn String Quartets. I began listening to some of them on YouTube and realized that there was a complete universe of beautiful music I had never noticed before. Swafford has basically the same opinion, that classical music has nothing to compare with the Haydn Quartets.There is a world of excellent information in this book, & I recommend it highly.
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 difficult challenges there is in writing but Jan Swafford never waivers, the book is compelling and colorful all the way through. Picked at random, here's a typical description: "In contrast to the thunderous playing of Liszt, Chopin never used fortissimo but rather shaded his dynamics downward toward the intimate and nearly inaudible." Or how about this description of Wagner: "By the late nineteenth century he would haunt the Western cultural tradition as pervasive myth and sacred monster." You just must read on.This book also provides carefully chosen advice on which music you should start with for each composer. Within the body of the book these are detailed with Swafford usual colorful and concise language. At the back an appendix summarizes are the recommendations. So far this appendix has cost me several hundred dollars in happily spent purchases, with many more to come.If you are at all interested in the subject of classical music then this is a splendid gateway.
Enjoy the book very much. For the non-music major, who has not been exposed to a great deal of "classical music", this is a grand start. If one finds certain sections a little lacking, then it's because we were ready to move on to something other than this book. After all, some have been exposed to classical music early. Others have not, and need a place to start. The suggested playlist in the back is excellent. With the help of the wonders of the Internet, Amazon, Naxos, and other websites, we can figure out what versions of what song we want to hear all by ourselves. But we all have to have somewhere to start. Kudos to the author. Only suggestions I could think of at first read, was to improve the glossary, so that it matches closer the book. Some terms were lacking. Is there a possibility of a second version? Just asking.
I want to join the chorus of praise for this book. It's been my only reading matter since I started it and I put it down only to call up YouTube or to play a CD I happen to own. I love the style - high-flown, personal, inspiring, sometimes touching, sometimes snarky. It got a bit shakey during the section on Wagner - not adequate, perhaps, to the polite expression of the author's opinion of Wagner the man. That's as far as I've got - I'm about to start on Verdi. I was thrilled that the greatest of my musical beloveds, Bach and Schubert, were treated with as much admiration and love as even I could wish. I had a quick look ahead and it seems that another of my favourites, Hugo Wolf, doesn't get a mention. Oh well, one can't expect perfection.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 like Monteverdi and Domenico Scarlatti fitted into musical history and which of their works are the most rewarding - the CDs are winging their way to me. I will have lots more new information to digest as the book heads into the twentieth century and I look forward to developing new tastes, because Jan Swafford is a writer who is not ashamed to share his enthusiasms.
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford PDF
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford EPub
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford Doc
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford iBooks
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford rtf
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford Mobipocket
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music, by Jan Swafford Kindle