Hear Me Out

by Armando Iannucci

A celebration of music from the creator of Alan Partridge, The Thick of It, Veep and The Death of Stalin .

All my days, I've felt pressurized by the anonymous Keepers of the Cool who tell us what we should be wearing this year, what digital boxsets we should bunker ourselves in to enjoy, what amazing app is the only one we should be shrieking emotions at our recently acquired friends with. Thankfully, I have the one consolation that if I don't quite fit into all of this, everyone else probably feels the same way.

So, I say defiantly, I get more moved and excited by classical music than by any other musical genre. I believe that it is there for us all, inviting us to reach out and touch it.

In Hear Me Out Armando Iannucci brilliantly conveys the joy of his musical exploration, each discovery suggesting a fresh direction of travel, another piece, another composer, another time.

Genres: Music

252 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 28, 2017

About the author

Armando Giovanni Iannucci, OBE ( born 28 November 1963) is a Scottish comedian, satirist, writer, television director and radio producer. Born in Glasgow, he studied at Oxford University and left graduate work on a PhD about John Milton to pursue a career in comedy.
Rising quickly through BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4, his early work with Chris Morris on the radio series On the Hour was transferred to television as The Day Today. A character from this series, Alan Partridge, went on to feature in a number of Iannucci's television and radio programmes including Knowing Me, Knowing You and I'm Alan Partridge. In the meantime, Iannucci also fronted the satirical Armistice review shows and in 2001 created his most personal work, The Armando Iannucci Shows for Channel 4.[2]
Moving back to the BBC in 2005, Iannucci created the political sitcom The Thick of It as well as the spoof documentary Time Trumpet in 2006. Winning funding from the UK Film Council, he directed a critically acclaimed feature film In the Loop featuring characters from The Thick of It in 2009. As a result of these works, he has been described by The Daily Telegraph as "the hardman of political satire". Other works during this period include an operetta libretto, Skin Deep and his radio series Charm Offensive.
Iannucci's latest television project is the HBO political satire Veep. In March 2012 it was announced that he is working on his first novel, Tongue International, described as 'a satirical fantasy about a privatised language'.

Reviews

[Nat Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10
A light hearted, humorous and unpretentious read. Iannucci is not a musician, but discusses classical music from the perspective of a captivated listener, and is frequently perceptive in his comments on composers and classical music culture, especially Bach (though he bangs on about Ligeti countless times without even mentioning Liszt).

My only reservation is that his irreverence towards the more lofty aspects of classical music (ie the unavoidably abstract and perhaps spiritual connotations) seems to miss the point. It's what I imagine the Blair government might have said about classical music (which was, of course, when most of this was written).

Classical music is distinguished from the mundane and that is why people cherish it - this isn't just something stuffy elitists have imagined to exclude the masses. We set up concerts and discuss great composers with reverence because in our drab, nihilistic age, classical music reignites a sense in us that beauty exists. Beethoven isn't just a passing fad, he is timeless and speaks to the common humanity in us all. To me, this seems worth taking seriously - and I think the majority of modern concert-goers agree.

[Adam Fowler · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half is essays, and those where Armando describes his passion for classical music are a joy to read, with all the warmth and humour that you might expect. If, though, you don’t really know anything about classical music, you soon come unstuck.

As much as he enthuses that it is for everyone there are discussions here that really go flying over my head. Are scherzos too flippant to be worthwhile? No, apparently not. Also, what’s a scherzo? I still don’t really know, nor where to start, either. (Luckily I bought Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill which does aim to take you by the hand and show you what’s what).
Most of these essays were written for the magazine ‘Gramophone’, so in retrospect, they were never directed at novices like me anyway.
I give it two stars because despite feeling a little alienated from a lot of Armando’s concerns, it’s still good for a chuckle in places.
Happily, the second half of the book is the libretto he wrote for the opera ‘Skin Deep’ which, if you’re a fan of Armando’s, will be right up your street - an irreverent, fun and funny tale about the pitfalls of plastic surgery. So three stars after all.

[?0?0?0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of brief essays that Iannucci wrote for Gramophone magazine mixed with newly written pieces and ending with the text for a libretto he wrote for a comic opera. Iannucci writes chiefly as a fan and spend a large number of pages, with a clear adoration for music, on arguing against what may seem to outsiders, newcomers, as stuffy and hard-to-penetrate and suggests different attitudes to apply that may make the introduction or further immersion into a long history of imposing symphonies, weird sounds, and difficult personalities, hopefully, easier. One doesn't need to be a fan of Iannucci's work - although I am, so this is an assumption - to get something from, "Hear Me Out", and there's an argument that could be easily advanced as to why this could be taught in grade school to great benefit.

[Aidan · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely closer to 3.5 cos there wasn’t anything obviously bad about it. it’s basically a collection of columns he wrote about classical music so all the chapters are short snappy and necessarily a bit surface level, but it was a nice dip back into being into classical music in a way more than just having a 30-hour playlist i mindlessly shuffle every now and then

oh and it ends with an 100-page comic operetta which he wrote about a plastic surgery clinic (society etc)

[Rh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Armando loves classical music. Lots of people nowadays don’t. He tries to persuade us to like it. And also chucks in a load of columns he’s written for classical music magazines. And then at the end of the book there’s the libretto for an opera he wrote. Entertaining throughout and has made me consider listening to some classical music.

[Samuel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Armando Iannucci's TV and film work; he's one of the most important and influential comedy writers and directors of our time, opening up new potential for the sitcom format. But this book is one of those pointless collections of glib newspaper columns on the subject of classical music. There's not much I can say about it. Some humorous bits, but nothing special.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about the delights of classical music. Iannucci has a gift for talking about the highly specific (a single opera, for example) in a way that is entirely accessible and universal. His assertion that he likes classical music because of 'the noises' fell a bit flat with me, however, as it is 'the noises' that put me off the genre - which, in every other respect, fascinates me.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned: Bonkers but wonderful journey through one mans love of music and opera, with a sprinkling of humour along the way. One to revisit when wanting to enjoy classical music on a more in depth level.