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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Classical Music But Were Too Afraid to Ask by Gareth Malone
Have you ever been carried away by a piece of classical music? In this funny, evocative, personal eBook, previously published as ‘Music for the The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Classical Music’, Gareth takes us on a journey of musical discovery that explains and entertains in equal measure.Have you ever been carried away by a piece of classical music? The sad song of a single violin might make us cry, but the idea of finding out more about classical music can often be intimidating. There are musical terms we don't recognise, dead composers we can't connect with, and a feeling that we were never given the right tools to appreciate, understand, and most importantly, enjoy classical music.So who better to cut through the misconceptions and the jargon than the star of BBC2's Bafta award-winning series The Choir, Gareth Malone. Over the course of three series, Gareth has unearthed a passion for classical music in schoolchildren, reluctant teenage boys, and even a whole town. With his infectious enthusiasm and gift for explanation, Gareth's very personal narrative will provide a foundation of classical music understanding and give the reader the tools to appreciate a whole new world of music – from Bach to Beethoven and beyond.So whether you want to learn more about the great composers, introduce an almost infinite variety into your iPod playlist, or are just curious about what you might be missing out on, Gareth Malone’s Guide to Classical Music will leave you entertained, informed and completely inspired.
Hardcover
First published April 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 16, 2013
It's unusual for a non-fiction book to keep me so interested that I am reading it every moment I can but Gareth Malone's Guide to Classical Music certainly did! It took me about two weeks to read but even though I have finished it this doesn't mean I have finished with it. There is so much information that I will be using the book for many years to come, dipping into certain sections and following up the sound links.
I've always felt a little ignorant about classical music. It has this stigma as being for middle class over 50's (Oh! I fall into one of those categories, damn!!), snooty people. Gareth's approach makes classical music accessible in a down to earth manner. His anecdotes and personal experience make this book fun to read. It was a good feeling to know that even Gareth has sat in a concert counting light bulbs on the ceiling during the boring bits!
Gareth begins reminding us how much classical music we already know through films, adverts, piped music and when hanging on the phone! He pieces the bits together, gives sound links to YouTube and Spotify to hear these pieces and other popular classics and invites us to try others. It may take years for me to investigate all the links but I have already found one gem. Gareth guides the reader through the history of music, periods, composers, what makes an orchestra, what a conductor does, even where to sit in a concert hall for the best sound and urges his readers to go out there and listen live because you can't beat it. I tend to agree even with my limited experience of classical concerts. I also agree with Gareth that some music is best seen and heard live rather than listened to on CD. I remember attending an afternoon concert with a friend where one piece was a showcase for the percussion. If I'd heard this on a CD I probably would have turned it off because the music was quite experimental, not particularly melodic yet seeing it performed was a wonderful experience of the new and risky and completely spellbinding!
There are chapters on the difference between opera, symphony, chamber music and song cycle as well as how music works and lots of recommendations throughout the book to works of music. He says we should try all sorts of classical music to find what we like and gives preparation advice for attending concerts and how to survive them!
There are many golden nuggets here, little gems, and all written about in a laid back easy to understand style.. If you've ever wanted to know what classical music is all about and where to start, this book is for you. It has made me want to learn more.
There was one particular part that I so associated with. A friend of Gareth's went along to a performance of the Messiah (Handel), looked at the programme and thought that it would be a short concert because there were so few words. Hah! Little did he know that those few words were repeated and repeated and repeated.......It was several hours before he emerged from the concert. I spent many a time sitting through concerts like that, glancing at my watch and willing for the end to come. Those were the days when my parents sang in a choral society and me and my brother were dragged along to suffer. It's all so familiar. I survived (just) and a lot of water and music has gone under the bridge since then. I've never ventured back in that direction but it's amazing how many bits of the Messiah I know! And now I am in a choir myself but a long way from choral pieces, still you never know!
I've always felt a little ignorant about classical music. It has this stigma as being for middle class over 50's (Oh! I fall into one of those categories, damn!!), snooty people. Gareth's approach makes classical music accessible in a down to earth manner. His anecdotes and personal experience make this book fun to read. It was a good feeling to know that even Gareth has sat in a concert counting light bulbs on the ceiling during the boring bits!
Gareth begins reminding us how much classical music we already know through films, adverts, piped music and when hanging on the phone! He pieces the bits together, gives sound links to YouTube and Spotify to hear these pieces and other popular classics and invites us to try others. It may take years for me to investigate all the links but I have already found one gem. Gareth guides the reader through the history of music, periods, composers, what makes an orchestra, what a conductor does, even where to sit in a concert hall for the best sound and urges his readers to go out there and listen live because you can't beat it. I tend to agree even with my limited experience of classical concerts. I also agree with Gareth that some music is best seen and heard live rather than listened to on CD. I remember attending an afternoon concert with a friend where one piece was a showcase for the percussion. If I'd heard this on a CD I probably would have turned it off because the music was quite experimental, not particularly melodic yet seeing it performed was a wonderful experience of the new and risky and completely spellbinding!
There are chapters on the difference between opera, symphony, chamber music and song cycle as well as how music works and lots of recommendations throughout the book to works of music. He says we should try all sorts of classical music to find what we like and gives preparation advice for attending concerts and how to survive them!
There are many golden nuggets here, little gems, and all written about in a laid back easy to understand style.. If you've ever wanted to know what classical music is all about and where to start, this book is for you. It has made me want to learn more.
There was one particular part that I so associated with. A friend of Gareth's went along to a performance of the Messiah (Handel), looked at the programme and thought that it would be a short concert because there were so few words. Hah! Little did he know that those few words were repeated and repeated and repeated.......It was several hours before he emerged from the concert. I spent many a time sitting through concerts like that, glancing at my watch and willing for the end to come. Those were the days when my parents sang in a choral society and me and my brother were dragged along to suffer. It's all so familiar. I survived (just) and a lot of water and music has gone under the bridge since then. I've never ventured back in that direction but it's amazing how many bits of the Messiah I know! And now I am in a choir myself but a long way from choral pieces, still you never know!
March 19, 2022
'So sometimes, in order to appreciate music, a little homework is required. My dad’s school motto was ‘nil sine labore’ – ‘Nothing without work’ (how I loathed it when he stood over my piano practice quoting this aphorism).'
Gareth Malone was surrounded by classical music from a young age, as a baby in fact. His parents would lull him to sleep by pieces of the English composer Orlando Gibbons. The genre formed an impression, which he summed up, 'As a young child I felt that classical music was more interesting than popular music'. So much so, that he withdrew his affections from a girl because she only liked pop music.
Popularising classical music is not new to Gareth. Working in English National Opera's Baylis Programme, he was sent to schools to transmit the joys of opera in deprived areas of London. In this book, he sections it into four parts:
Part 1: Listening
Part 2: Discovering
Part 3: Performing and Surviving
Part 4: Appendices
In Part 1, he describes the history of classical music and the complex relationship between composers and royalty. You only need to read the biography of Chopin or of Tchaikovsky to see how many affluent admirers they had - from countesses to kings. Mozart and Beethoven would both receive commissions from Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria; Joseph Haydn had an employer in Nikolaus I, of the famous Hungarian Esterházy family. It was in the 19th century, Gareth writes, that the number of venues increased and its popularity spread. In the 20th century the music became available to all with a gramophone or wireless radio. You might not have caught Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in concert, but for the first time, that was inconsequential. In this century, anyone could conceivably own the recordings of Chopin's Études or all of Beethoven's symphonies; these technologies tore down class doors. Further today, he explains, we can carry the complete works of a composer in our pocket at a quality that even 20 years ago would have seemed far-flung.
Much like I realised when watching Amazon's TV show 'Mozart in the Jungle', attending a concert benefits those in the orchestra. There are approximately 100 musicians in a symphony orchestra, each with 100 different salaries, 100 pieces of sheet music, 100 chairs, etc. The charge of the concert ticket contributes to their welfare and recognises the decades of deliberate practice that they shouldered. More broadly, classical music doesn't have the same popularity as other forms of music. Gareth quotes the Daily Telegraph in noting how the market share in the U.K. dropped from 11% in 1990 to 3.2% in 2010. Although, iTunes and later Spotify might account for some of that. In 2019, physical albums of classical music accounted for 1% of the U.S. market share, or in other words, it was 12th out of the 12 genres that they surveyed. In digital album sales, it was 6th out of 12.
Aaron Copland in 'What to Listen for in Music' offers his own advice on how to listen to classical music. Gareth proffers similar guidance, like creative listening. In this, we use a piece to transport us elsewhere. This, I think, is one of the joys of classical music. As a listener, I get to decide what the music suggests: power, love, ambition, sorrow and view that visually in any way I like (Of course, this is influenced for programme music, but often the composer leaves no indication). He also offers the useful advice that knowing the context of a composer enhances the listening experience. He gives examples of Bach's religiosity, Beethoven's firecracker personality and Elgar's melancholy to show that knowing the composers then affects our listening to their pieces - contextual information personalises the music. He expands on this with J.S. Bach and gives the timeline of his relationship with the Leipzig master.
I will list below other things that I found useful in this book:
Key signatures (major and minor)
The history of the orchestra
The difference between classical music and the Classical period
It is okay to be bored by pieces of classical music (just as one is with other tracks)
Lieder was performed in small salons (that small spaces contrasts to the recordings we hear them from)
Classical music benefits from repeated listening (same advice as Copland's)
The stages of developing a 'friendship' with a new piece (at least 3 'dates' are required, with an eventual viewing of it live by some stage. Unless you hear different interpretations, you don't kno the piece in its entirety)
One of the joys of classical music is finding connections between pieces e.g finding echoes of Mahler in Shostakovich, or hearing some of Beethoven in Chopin, etc. Look for these connections
Organise your listening by date, theme, schools, etc (undertake listening projects!)
Considers the greatest composer to be Franz Schubert (one musicologist said John Lennon and Paul McCartney are the best songwriters since Schubert)
Not all concerts you go to will be good (analogous to not all football matches being like Liverpool's 2005 UEFA Champions League Final against A.C. Milan)
Tickets are not expensive (compared to other forms of entertainment)
In front of you, at a concert, there is a combined 1700 years worth of collective study
Overall, this is an effective book for getting into classical music. There is a generous offering of pieces throughout, and Gareth succeeds in giving you the tools to feel confident in deepening your enjoyment of the genre.
Gareth Malone was surrounded by classical music from a young age, as a baby in fact. His parents would lull him to sleep by pieces of the English composer Orlando Gibbons. The genre formed an impression, which he summed up, 'As a young child I felt that classical music was more interesting than popular music'. So much so, that he withdrew his affections from a girl because she only liked pop music.
Popularising classical music is not new to Gareth. Working in English National Opera's Baylis Programme, he was sent to schools to transmit the joys of opera in deprived areas of London. In this book, he sections it into four parts:
Part 1: Listening
Part 2: Discovering
Part 3: Performing and Surviving
Part 4: Appendices
In Part 1, he describes the history of classical music and the complex relationship between composers and royalty. You only need to read the biography of Chopin or of Tchaikovsky to see how many affluent admirers they had - from countesses to kings. Mozart and Beethoven would both receive commissions from Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria; Joseph Haydn had an employer in Nikolaus I, of the famous Hungarian Esterházy family. It was in the 19th century, Gareth writes, that the number of venues increased and its popularity spread. In the 20th century the music became available to all with a gramophone or wireless radio. You might not have caught Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in concert, but for the first time, that was inconsequential. In this century, anyone could conceivably own the recordings of Chopin's Études or all of Beethoven's symphonies; these technologies tore down class doors. Further today, he explains, we can carry the complete works of a composer in our pocket at a quality that even 20 years ago would have seemed far-flung.
Much like I realised when watching Amazon's TV show 'Mozart in the Jungle', attending a concert benefits those in the orchestra. There are approximately 100 musicians in a symphony orchestra, each with 100 different salaries, 100 pieces of sheet music, 100 chairs, etc. The charge of the concert ticket contributes to their welfare and recognises the decades of deliberate practice that they shouldered. More broadly, classical music doesn't have the same popularity as other forms of music. Gareth quotes the Daily Telegraph in noting how the market share in the U.K. dropped from 11% in 1990 to 3.2% in 2010. Although, iTunes and later Spotify might account for some of that. In 2019, physical albums of classical music accounted for 1% of the U.S. market share, or in other words, it was 12th out of the 12 genres that they surveyed. In digital album sales, it was 6th out of 12.
Aaron Copland in 'What to Listen for in Music' offers his own advice on how to listen to classical music. Gareth proffers similar guidance, like creative listening. In this, we use a piece to transport us elsewhere. This, I think, is one of the joys of classical music. As a listener, I get to decide what the music suggests: power, love, ambition, sorrow and view that visually in any way I like (Of course, this is influenced for programme music, but often the composer leaves no indication). He also offers the useful advice that knowing the context of a composer enhances the listening experience. He gives examples of Bach's religiosity, Beethoven's firecracker personality and Elgar's melancholy to show that knowing the composers then affects our listening to their pieces - contextual information personalises the music. He expands on this with J.S. Bach and gives the timeline of his relationship with the Leipzig master.
I will list below other things that I found useful in this book:
Key signatures (major and minor)
The history of the orchestra
The difference between classical music and the Classical period
It is okay to be bored by pieces of classical music (just as one is with other tracks)
Lieder was performed in small salons (that small spaces contrasts to the recordings we hear them from)
Classical music benefits from repeated listening (same advice as Copland's)
The stages of developing a 'friendship' with a new piece (at least 3 'dates' are required, with an eventual viewing of it live by some stage. Unless you hear different interpretations, you don't kno the piece in its entirety)
One of the joys of classical music is finding connections between pieces e.g finding echoes of Mahler in Shostakovich, or hearing some of Beethoven in Chopin, etc. Look for these connections
Organise your listening by date, theme, schools, etc (undertake listening projects!)
Considers the greatest composer to be Franz Schubert (one musicologist said John Lennon and Paul McCartney are the best songwriters since Schubert)
Not all concerts you go to will be good (analogous to not all football matches being like Liverpool's 2005 UEFA Champions League Final against A.C. Milan)
Tickets are not expensive (compared to other forms of entertainment)
In front of you, at a concert, there is a combined 1700 years worth of collective study
Overall, this is an effective book for getting into classical music. There is a generous offering of pieces throughout, and Gareth succeeds in giving you the tools to feel confident in deepening your enjoyment of the genre.
November 20, 2020
This book is aimed at people who know little or nothing about classical music, so, as a violinist in an amateur orchestra, I'm not really its intended audience. Nevertheless, it was an interesting and entertaining read, and I learned a few new things along the way. Gareth Malone is extremely knowledgeable about the subject matter, but without being pretentious, as is often the case with books about classical music. His enthusiasm for the subject is clear on every page and really rather infectious. I can't wait for live music-making to be up and running again!
September 11, 2022
Descripción de por qué interesarse por la música clásica y como disfrutarla. Interesantes recopilaciones de piezas y conciertos en YouTube.
January 29, 2014
Currently reading this gem from Gareth Malone. Certainly, it's written more for someone with less musical knowledge than myself, but I could see myself using this as a music appreciation recommended reading. I am really enjoying it!
August 14, 2020
A very good start for beginners.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews