How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition Audiobook By Robert Greenberg, The Great Courses cover art

How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition

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How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition

By: Robert Greenberg, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Robert Greenberg
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About this listen

Great music is a language unto its own, a means of communication of unmatched beauty and genius. And it has an undeniable power to move us in ways that enrich our lives - provided it is understood.

If you have ever longed to appreciate great concert music, to learn its glorious language and share in its sublime pleasures, the way is now open to you, through this series of 48 wonderful lectures designed to make music accessible to everyone who yearns to know it, regardless of prior training or knowledge. It's a lecture series that will enable you to first grasp music's forms, techniques, and terms - the grammatical elements that make you fluent in its language - and then use that newfound fluency to finally hear and understand what the greatest composers in history are actually saying to us.

And as you learn the gifts given us by nearly every major composer, you'll come to know there is one we share with each of them - a common humanity that lets us finally understand that these were simply people speaking to us, sharing their passion and wanting desperately to be heard. Using digitally recorded musical passages to illustrate his points, Professor Greenberg will take you inside magnificent compositions by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and more. Even if you have listened to many of these illustrative pieces throughout your life - as so many of us have - you will never hear them the same way again after experiencing these lectures.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2006 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2006 The Great Courses
Music Funny Thought-Provoking Witty Inspiring
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Engaging Storytelling • Integrated Musical Examples • Passionate Delivery • Comprehensive Historical Narrative
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Would you listen to How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition again? Why?

Absolutely, lots of insightful information

Who was your favorite character and why?

Guillaume de Machaut

Which character – as performed by Professor Robert Greenberg – was your favorite?

n/a

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

n/a

Any additional comments?

I have listened to classical music all my life, but never really had a deep knowledge of its forms or history. This lecture series has given me a much deeper understanding and greatly broadened my musical pallet.

I especially enjoyed the history of ancient music.

A fascinating, entertaining, and informative jour

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

(This field requires I write 15 words or 25 characters, but I don't have an answer to the question. This is a nonfiction book, and most of my friends like fiction.)

What other book might you compare How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition to and why?

(This field requires I write 15 words or 25 characters, but I don't have an answer to the question.)

Which character – as performed by Professor Robert Greenberg – was your favorite?

(This field requires I write 15 words or 25 characters, but I don't have an answer to the question. This is a nonfiction book.)

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

(This field requires I write 15 words or 25 characters, but I don't have an answer to the question.)

Any additional comments?

His lecture provides a basic understanding of Western "classical" music (he prefers the term "concert" music), along with a heavy dose of Prof. Greenberg's personal preferences. Nonetheless, his lecture style may appeal to some and turn off others -- like a heavy spiced curry, you're likely to either love it or hate it. For example, he says "my friends" when introducing new points in his lectures. This happens a lot.

Prof. Greenberg's lecture style wears a little thin if you batch-listen to the lectures -- they are better spaced out. Like my art history teachers in school, his explanation of history not within his field of expertise is oversimplified to the point of being misleading -- if you studied Western history in some detail, you may find some of his somewhat old-fashioned understanding of change in European history a turn-off. This is most egregious in his first lecture, where he discounts all music in the non-Western tradition as unworthy of study because it did not change -- an assertion that would shock scholars of, say, Chinese operatic traditions, just to name one. But most folks will probably be fine with it, and you know who you are in either case.

One problem is that the course materials are not included with the purchase. Prof. Greenberg refers to these in passing several times, and it would be extremely helpful to have a copy handy for reference. It took all my creative googling skills to find the name of a medieval French song (it turned out to be written "Quant en moy" by the prolific Guillame de Marchaut) with only a knowledge of modern French to guide me (I had imagined "Contes en noir" in my head from only hearing it said briefly, so this took some time!). Having the course materials available would have made such searches much easier in tracking down recordings.

Interesting lectures, lacks course material

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Dr Greenberg is really passionate about music and it's infectious. He does a really great job explaining the material and helping students not only identify the types, eras, and parts of music pieces, but also to follow the story like narratives in each example. I loved his biographical sketches, debunking the myths we have about composers and bringing out their quirky, often neurotic, and very human personalities. He periodically reviews material that we learned earlier to help it really sink in. He's definitely a master teacher.

So much enthusiasm

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An excellent course to gain a framework to discuss concert/"classical" music. The lecturer is also a fun guy. I definitely recommend this to anyone wanting an entry point to the intimidating world of Western musical culture.

Excellent Overview of a Challenging Topic

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My friends, Professor Greenberg has to be one of the best teachers to ever walk this world. He commands his subject fully (music) but he also has a total comprehension of those historic processes that shaped our culture. The course is a jewel; beautifully researched, built, narrated and recorded. 48 lectures filled with wit, passion and knowledge about western music that will help you to finally grasp that elusive difference between classical and baroque music, between a cantata and a sonata, between German and Russian composers. If you ever wanted to be able to explain how a symphony incorporates the structure of a sonata, take this course. Take it right now.

Simply put, one of.the best experiences of my life

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Professor Greenberg does a fantastic job of sharing his love and knowledge of music in this course. I've always enjoyed "classical" music, however I felt like there was more to glean from it. By framing the historical significance and technological and artistic developments, the music comes more alive. Greenberg breaks down several pieces into their parts, so that even someone like me, with no musical history or skill, can understand what the composer is doing. I highly recommend this to everyone.

Beautiful course

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I'm totally hooked 20min in... Professor Greenberg is so brilliant and funny! I literally laughed so hard several times. Love his passion and enthusiasm. okay, going back to listen more...

Hooked 20min into Chapter 1!!!

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Would you listen to How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition again? Why?

I periodically re-listen to the entire 35+ hour lecture series. Professor Greenberg does what seemingly every "Intro to Western Music" class fails to do: provides a critical framework for interpreting the major broad strokes of European music, from ancient to post-modern.

What did you like best about this story?

Professor Greenberg brought the music to life in a way that continues to captivate my imagination. I love thinking about the culture that created the Seikelos Epitaph, an Ancient Greek work studied in this lecture. I love putting myself in the heads of the monks who composed chants, or into the brains of the Renaissance composers creating a tonal system, or into the heads of the German Baroque or Classical composers and comparing their approach to that of the Italians, French, or Russians.

What does Professor Robert Greenberg bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He injects enough personality to be like a tour guide to the subject. He gives context just when it is needed, and in just the right amounts. He knows when to re-emphasize themes, what is fresh in our heads and what overwhelms the listener. I feel like I'm listing to a true fan and student of the Western music tradition, someone with his own idiosyncrasies, yes, but also a broad and empathetic appreciation of each composer and era.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Everything you wanted to know about Classical Music but were embarrassed to ask

Any additional comments?

After a dozen or so lecture series on the humanities, arts, history, and other topics, I return to this as the cream of the crop. This remains the most captivating of my Audible purchases, one that I return to periodically to retrain my ear for, and appreciation of, the vast diversity of Western concern music. At this price point, I simply cannot recommend it enough.

The Definitive Survey of Western Art Music

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I have a bettet understanding and appreciation for orchestrial music. The narrator was able to convey extreme music theory in an entertaining manner.

Narrator is excellent.

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What made the experience of listening to How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition the most enjoyable?

All of the elements of this work contributed to its success. Professor Greenberg is a powerful teacher and profound scholar in that he takes us into the love of his life, and shares with us everything we ever wanted to know about music, how it works and why it is so indispensable and elemental to us.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Professor Greenberg breathed life into each historic character he has presented here, including the character of the music he introduces us to.

Which scene was your favorite?

My favorite moment is the course so far has been the reviving of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for our listening ear. We are able to see the brilliant intention and architecture of Beethoven, rescued from the oblivion of its own success as an icon of our society.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. This is an audio book that shifts the Person of your being, because music changes us. If you give yourself to owning this work as Professor Greenberg has given himself to preparing it, you cannot possibly be the same person, and such changes take time. My words seem extravagant to our all too sophisticated "Talking Head" sound-bite sensitivities. However, we have trivialized our lives, and this work helps us back to a gravitas we thought lost forever.

A Music and History Master Class

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