Duet: An Artful History of Music

by Eleanor Chan

A lush new history of music that transcends eras, borders, personalities, and genres by revealing how music is something seen, as well as heard. Classically trained musician and art historian, Eleanor Chan, takes us deep into the visual and material manifestations of music, transforming our understanding of the story of art and music. Plunging the reader into the body of a performer and the eyes of an art historian, this wonderful book explores the history of music through a series of objects, both everyday and unusual, revealing how music has always been something that we visualize. From the sumptuously illuminated manuscripts of Ethiopia and Safavid Iran to the decorated porcelain flutes of China, from Brazilian opera houses to the jazz-inspired abstract paintings by artists throughout the world, Chan opens windows onto the ways that art has been heard, and music has been seen, throughout time. From France, India, Brazil, Guyana, Iraq, Italy, Turkey, Ethiopia, Egypt and Armenia, to Greece, China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Iran, the Netherlands, Germany, Wales, Nigeria, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, An Artful History of Music reveals just how many connections and cross-pollinations there have been between art and music-making cultures over the centuries and across the globe. Music is interwoven into the fabric of our lives. We listen to it, some of us play it, but throughout history we have also attempted to capture it from the musical images of Ancient Sumer to Frozen's Elsa standing on the side of a mountain, her voice making crystals in the air. In this harmonious tale of music and art, the reader embarks on visual journey through sound. With the same wonder as Katherine Rundell’s Vanishing Creatures and the paradigm-shifting power of The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessell, this deep and winding exploration of music’s visual and material manifestations transforms our understanding of its story - to one built by communities and the every (wo)man, not just by the artists, performers, composers whose flame shines brightest.

Genres: History, Music, Nonfiction, Art, Audiobook

352 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 2025

Reviews

[Umar Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know a lot about music or art. In fact, I probably listen to no more than 30-60 minutes of music a month, and, in some months, none at all . When I do listen to music it's primarily classical music or some hits from the last century. So, I began this book not knowing what to expect, and learned a lot. So many interesting historical figures are woven into this book by Eleanor Chan, and there is often a focus on religious traditions. I also needed Chan with me when I visited the British Museum because I have no recollection of some of the items she mentioned from my self-guided visit.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really interesting! Especially as someone coming from an art history + music performance background.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a background in both music and art history, Eleanor Chan is well positioned to talk to us about the places that the two arts have intersected, and she casts a wide net to do so, across many cultures, beginning in the painted caves of France and ending with Beyonce. Depending upon your personal background with the disciplines you might find some examples more or less persuasive. She talks about how music is represented in art, and about how the writing down of music presents us with interesting visual phenomena, and about how some artists take inspiration from music to create purely visual works. I really enjoyed her brief excursion into what musicians write into their scores while learning and rehearsing pieces, and her thoughts on the position of the hymnal in the development of the English church.

She writes extremely well and the book was entertaining and pleasant to read. Parts of her introduction and conclusion, where she ventured into her own experiences as a singer, really struck me personally. As a young singer she was in the children's chorus for La Boheme at Glyndebourne, and it gave her the dreaded nodules, so she just couldn't sing at all for nearly ten years and had to find other ways to do what she did. Writing about this in the introduction, she briefly meditates on the meaning of that loss. "Mine is just one story among thousands, probably millions, of children who find an early passion and who, as they grow, find it drifting out of reach because their body or their brain or even just money, parents and guardians, or schooling, won't allow it. Walk down the street and you won't struggle to find people who once dreamed of playing children in the musicals Billy Elliot, Oliver!, or Matilda, or in operas like La boheme. ... The ether is full of these little balloons, inflated with the helium of hope and ardour, tugged loose from so many hands." OMG those little balloons, I had a little balloon or two myself. That's an image I'll never forget.

There were a couple of moments that should have been caught by an editor. The one that I felt strongly enough about to write a marginal note (which feels in keeping with the ethos of this book, actually) was on page 103, "When Philip II, Holy Roman Emperor..." Philip II never became Holy Roman Emperor. He was king of Spain, and his father Charles V was the Holy Roman Emperor but it was Philip's first cousin who became emperor after Charles. I've read enough Tudor history to know about Philip.

[Julian Pond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great read, well researched and enlightening. However the chapters are very long and there are numerous points that could have been broken into smaller chapters or parts.