The Vintage Guide to Classical Music by Jan Swafford

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The Vintage Guide to Classical Music by Jan Swafford

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The Vintage Guide to Classical Music 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.
Swafford, Jan: - Jan Swafford is an award-winning composer whose music has been played around the US and abroad by ensembles including the symphony orchestras of St. Louis, Vermont, and Harrisburg, and by the Dutch Radio Orchestra. He is the author of Johannes Brahms: A Biography, which was a New York Times Notable Book, and Charles Ives: A Life with Music, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the PEN/Winship Award. He is also the author of The Vintage Guide to Classical Music. His writing and commentary on music has been featured on NPR and in Slate, the Guardian, Gramophone, and elsewhere. Swafford teaches music history, theory, and composition at the Boston Conservatory.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780679728054
ISBN 10 0679728058
Title The Vintage Guide to Classical Music
Author Jan Swafford
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Random House USA Inc
Year published 1992-12-15
Number of pages 624
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.