Language of the spirit An introduction to classical music

Review by Choice Review

Concise and accessible, this is the perfect introduction to the history of classical music, either as a supplement to academic texts or for casual reading by music lovers. Brief side trips into fundamentals--development of musical notation, even-tempered tuning, 12-tone method, and so on--are informative and will not daunt non-musicians. Details on the lives of composers go well beyond the limited descriptions available in most introductory works. Further enhancing the book are a sensitive portrayal of Maurice Ravel's decline and death due to a mysterious brain ailment, a discussion of Arnold Schoenberg's friendships with George Gershwin and Harpo Marx, and an examination of the author's own experiences hearing Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti. The recommended compositions include standard literature but also some less-known works. Introductory chapters for each historical period place classical music within the broader context of the arts and society. The introduction to modernism and postmodernism (chapter 24) is particularly effective at setting the stage for the vast array of music composed during the last 120 years. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; general readers. --Paul D. Sanders, The Ohio State University at Newark

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

Distilling, adding, and reworking material from his more comprehensive, heavily illustrated The Vintage Guide to Classical Music (1992), Swafford here delivers a popular overview of Western classical music, from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, by way of 27 major composers, from Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) to Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) to György Ligeti (1923-2006), and the more-general periods their music represented. Swafford offers personal and professional biographical information, along with selected recommendations, for each composer entry. Not unlike other such surveys, Swafford pulls up short in engaging with the music of many post-WWII composers, offering only a paragraph or two for the likes of Sergey Prokofiev, Erik Satie, John Cage, and John Adams. Still, a workable foundation from which readers can more deeply and broadly explore the music.--Moores, Alan Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this delightful primer to classical music, composer and music scholar Swafford (The Vintage Guide to Classical Music) conducts us breathlessly on a tour of the highlights of the history of classical music, from the beginnings of music up through the present. Along the way he enthusiastically introduces us to the composers whose work reflected the times in which they lived and plunges us into the deep pleasures of the music they produced. For example, Haydn's works included "108 symphonies, 68 string quartets... 20 operas... and a great deal of other chamber music; some of those genres he changed once and for all." Swafford points out that in the Romantic period, the often-elevated myth that folk music and art arose from the soil and that the national folk song influenced composers such as Schubert and Mahler. In simple and straightforward prose, Swafford provides a crystal-clear explanation of how modern composers such as Schoenberg and Webern create atonal music, often characterized by dissonance. Bach, according to Swafford, was not an ingenious inventor of genres but a composer who brought the entirety of baroque music into a "unique synthesis." Swafford provides excellent suggestions for listening at the end of each chapter, and his entertaining and instructive book encourages us to listen to the breadth and depth of classical music for delight and pleasure. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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