-
Johann Sebastian Bach
- The Learned Musician
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 21 hrs and 29 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $25.79
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, this landmark book was revised in 2013 to include new knowledge discovered after its initial publication.
Although we have heard the music of J. S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. As we mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, author Christoph Wolff presents a new picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era. This engaging new biography portrays Bach as the living, breathing, and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship. Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between the composer's life and his music, showing how Bach's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as musician, composer, performer, scholar, and teacher. And throughout, we see Bach in the broader context of his time: its institutions, traditions, and influences. With this highly listenable book, Wolff sets a new standard for Bach biography.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Bach's Musical Universe
- The Composer and His Work
- By: Christoph Wolff
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach's creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art.
By: Christoph Wolff
-
Mozart
- The Reign of Love
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 30 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like Jan Swafford’s biographies Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, Mozart is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: A man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music. As Swafford reveals, it’s nearly impossible to understand classical music’s origins and indeed its evolutions, as well as the Baroque period, without studying the man himself.
-
-
Comprehensive Bio
- By Judy on 01-07-21
By: Jan Swafford
-
Beethoven
- Anguish and Triumph
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 39 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jan Swafford's biographies have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music.
-
-
Huge book - musical reader appreciates best
- By DMgraphicGlass on 01-20-15
By: Jan Swafford
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
-
-
This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion
- By: Bill Messenger, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Bill Messenger
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.
-
-
A Disappointingly Distorted, Myopic View Of Jazz
- By Parallax View on 08-18-13
By: Bill Messenger, and others
-
Life & Works - Johannes Brahms
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann, Jasper Britton, Karen Archer, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brahms is one of the best loved yet most controversial of all the Romantics. Almost uniquely, his works have never suffered the slightest period of eclipse. Profoundly emotional yet governed by an iron discipline, the music, like the man, is a fascinating, entertaining, often deeply moving blend of opposites. He had a gift for friendship and a capacity for love far beyond the ordinary, yet no man could be ruder or more hurtful.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Yvonne Angel on 11-03-21
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
Bach's Musical Universe
- The Composer and His Work
- By: Christoph Wolff
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach's creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art.
By: Christoph Wolff
-
Mozart
- The Reign of Love
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 30 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like Jan Swafford’s biographies Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, Mozart is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: A man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music. As Swafford reveals, it’s nearly impossible to understand classical music’s origins and indeed its evolutions, as well as the Baroque period, without studying the man himself.
-
-
Comprehensive Bio
- By Judy on 01-07-21
By: Jan Swafford
-
Beethoven
- Anguish and Triumph
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 39 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jan Swafford's biographies have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music.
-
-
Huge book - musical reader appreciates best
- By DMgraphicGlass on 01-20-15
By: Jan Swafford
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
-
-
This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion
- By: Bill Messenger, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Bill Messenger
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.
-
-
A Disappointingly Distorted, Myopic View Of Jazz
- By Parallax View on 08-18-13
By: Bill Messenger, and others
-
Life & Works - Johannes Brahms
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann, Jasper Britton, Karen Archer, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brahms is one of the best loved yet most controversial of all the Romantics. Almost uniquely, his works have never suffered the slightest period of eclipse. Profoundly emotional yet governed by an iron discipline, the music, like the man, is a fascinating, entertaining, often deeply moving blend of opposites. He had a gift for friendship and a capacity for love far beyond the ordinary, yet no man could be ruder or more hurtful.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Yvonne Angel on 11-03-21
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
Composers
- Their Lives and Works
- By: DK
- Narrated by: Richard Trinder
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Introduced with more than 90 biographical entries that trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each musical genius and their work. Profiles offer revealing insights into what drove each individual to create the musical masterpieces - symphonies, concertos, and operatic scores - that changed the direction of classical music and are still celebrated as masterpieces today.
-
-
Exceeded my expectations
- By PavFan on 02-21-22
By: DK
-
Life & Works - Franz Schubert
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann, Tom George, Peter Yapp, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The life of Franz Schubert has been a gift to romantically inclined biographers: the beautiful, brilliant, modest boy who sprang to fully fledged genius at the age of sixteen; the quintessential ‘artist in a garret’, entirely consumed by his art and living a hand-to-mouth existence in Vienna (home of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven); the gentle, cheerful, convivial young man who prized friendship almost as highly as music itself; the unworldly poet from whom great music poured like water from a fountain; the unrecognized master who died almost penniless at the age of 31.
-
-
Very well done
- By Jeffrey Keimer on 09-16-14
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
Wagnerism
- Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music
- By: Alex Ross
- Narrated by: Alex Ross
- Length: 28 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alex Ross, renowned New Yorker music critic and author of the international best seller and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics - an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence.
-
-
Not Just for Wagner Experts!
- By Rupert Pupkin on 09-26-20
By: Alex Ross
-
The Life and Works of Chopin
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frédéric Chopin is the pianist-composer par excellence. Here, his life - from his birth in Poland, his famous affair with the French writer George Sand, and his death at the age of 49 in Paris - is told with his music featuring prominently.
-
-
Excellent Through and Through
- By Stephen on 07-16-03
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
The Life and Works of Tchaikovsky
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann, Malcolm Sinclair, Karen Archer, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tchaikovsky is one of the most popular composers of all time. His melodies are known to many people who may never have heard his name. They crop up on mobile telephones, alarm clocks and answering machines as often as on records and concert programs. Like his music, the man himself was widely loved, but his inner life was fraught with sufferings, confusions and a deep vein of self-doubt. The drama of his emotional life is vividly reflected in his music, letters and diaries, all of which play a major part in this intimate portrait-in-sound.
-
-
Comprehensive and Concise
- By Cristina on 01-05-14
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
Life & Works - Antonin Dvorak
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann, Sean Barrett, Jonathan Keeble, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the best-loved composers of all time, Dvorák rose from rural origins to become not only a great but an influential composer. The first composer to put his native Bohemia on the musical map of the world, he was invited to do the same for America. One result was the famous "New World" Symphony, which made him a household name across the globe. Writing music of irresistible color, lilt and peasant vitality, he was also a melodist-in-a-million. This portrait-in-sound follows a lovable and in many ways a very simple, man from hay cart to imperial palace, from tragic loss to heart-warming joy, to pigeon-raising and world celebrity.
-
-
Serviceable, lightweight bio with music
- By Bonny on 07-05-14
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
Joseph Haydn: His Life and Works
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann, David Timson, Nigel Anthony, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No great composer’s story is more predominantly happy than Haydn’s, though even his has its share of clouds. A classic rags-to-riches tale, it sees him move from humble beginnings through decades as a liveried servant to his emergence as the most popular and successful composer of his time. One of the healthiest and least neurotic artists in musical history, he did more than any other single figure to pioneer the symphony, the piano sonata and the string quartet - and he was the first truly great practitioner of each.
-
-
Haydn
- By laurie dahlstrom on 08-22-23
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
The Life and Works of Bach
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann, John Shrapnel, Trevor Nichols, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although now beloved and revered by millions as the greatest composer who ever lived, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was best known in his lifetime as an organist, and was eclipsed in fame as a composer by two of his twenty children. For the last twenty-seven years of his life he was a schoolteacher and choir director whose duties extended to meal supervision and dormitory inspection. Yet throughout his career he composed a vast body of music which is amongst the most joyful, dancing and enrapturing ever written.
-
-
A good introduction to Bach's Life and Work
- By Dr on 01-10-15
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
Schumann
- The Faces and the Masks
- By: Judith Chernaik
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella, Judith Chernaik
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on previously unpublished sources, this groundbreaking biography of Robert Schumann sheds new light on the great composer’s life and work. With the rigorous research of a scholar and the eloquent prose of a novelist, Judith Chernaik takes us into Schumann’s 19th-century Romantic milieu, where he wore many “masks” that gave voice to each corner of his soul.
-
-
Great history, needs music
- By Anonymous User on 10-06-23
By: Judith Chernaik
-
The Enlightenment
- The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
- By: Ritchie Robertson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 40 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magisterial history - sure to become the definitive work on the subject - recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.
-
-
The quickest 40 hour audio book I’ve listen to
- By Joey Caster on 04-02-21
-
The History of Jazz, Second Edition
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic - acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history.
-
-
An Exciting Opportunity Missed
- By Kindle Customer on 02-02-15
By: Ted Gioia
-
The Rest Is Noise
- Listening to the 20th Century
- By: Alex Ross
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 23 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Rest Is Noise takes the listener inside the labyrinth of modern music, from turn-of-the-century Vienna to downtown New York in the '60s and '70s. We meet the maverick personalities and follow the rise of mass culture on this sweeping tour of 20th-century history through its music.
-
-
Learned so much!
- By Paula on 02-18-08
By: Alex Ross
Related to this topic
-
Beethoven
- A Life in Nine Pieces
- By: Laura Tunbridge
- Narrated by: Laura Tunbridge
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven's career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what this tells us about his larger-than-life reputation.
-
-
Engaging, interesting, nice format
- By George on 07-04-22
By: Laura Tunbridge
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
-
-
This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
Brand Luther
- How an Unheralded Young Minister Turned His Small German Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe - and Started the Protestant Reformation
- By: Andrew Pettegree
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When an obscure monk named Martin Luther tacked his theses on the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517, protesting corrupt practices, he was virtually unknown. Within months his ideas spread across Germany then all of Europe; within years their author was not just famous but infamous, responsible for catalyzing the violent wave of religious reform that would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation and engulfing Europe in decades of bloody war.
-
-
Informed, Impacting
- By Bill Martin on 01-14-16
By: Andrew Pettegree
-
The Road to Monticello
- The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson
- By: Kevin J. Hayes
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 25 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson was an avid book-collector, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer - a man who prided himself on his knowledge of classical and modern languages and whose marginal annotations include quotations from Euripides, Herodotus, and Milton. And yet there has never been a literary life of our most literary president.
-
-
Very Boring Book
- By Greg on 05-13-14
By: Kevin J. Hayes
-
Alan Lomax: A Biography
- The Man Who Recorded the World
- By: John Szwed
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remarkable life and times of the man who popularized American folk music and created the science of song. Folklorist, archivist, anthropologist, singer, political activist, talent scout, ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, concert and record producer, Alan Lomax is best remembered as the man who introduced folk music to the masses. Lomax began his career making field recordings of rural music for the Library of Congress and by the late 1930s brought his discoveries to radio, including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Burl Ives.
-
-
They Done Good
- By DonnaMarie113 on 06-26-22
By: John Szwed
-
Thomas Cromwell
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the 16th century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.
-
-
Not about the Tudors
- By J.Brock on 09-18-19
-
Beethoven
- A Life in Nine Pieces
- By: Laura Tunbridge
- Narrated by: Laura Tunbridge
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven's career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what this tells us about his larger-than-life reputation.
-
-
Engaging, interesting, nice format
- By George on 07-04-22
By: Laura Tunbridge
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
-
-
This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
Brand Luther
- How an Unheralded Young Minister Turned His Small German Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe - and Started the Protestant Reformation
- By: Andrew Pettegree
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When an obscure monk named Martin Luther tacked his theses on the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517, protesting corrupt practices, he was virtually unknown. Within months his ideas spread across Germany then all of Europe; within years their author was not just famous but infamous, responsible for catalyzing the violent wave of religious reform that would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation and engulfing Europe in decades of bloody war.
-
-
Informed, Impacting
- By Bill Martin on 01-14-16
By: Andrew Pettegree
-
The Road to Monticello
- The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson
- By: Kevin J. Hayes
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 25 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson was an avid book-collector, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer - a man who prided himself on his knowledge of classical and modern languages and whose marginal annotations include quotations from Euripides, Herodotus, and Milton. And yet there has never been a literary life of our most literary president.
-
-
Very Boring Book
- By Greg on 05-13-14
By: Kevin J. Hayes
-
Alan Lomax: A Biography
- The Man Who Recorded the World
- By: John Szwed
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remarkable life and times of the man who popularized American folk music and created the science of song. Folklorist, archivist, anthropologist, singer, political activist, talent scout, ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, concert and record producer, Alan Lomax is best remembered as the man who introduced folk music to the masses. Lomax began his career making field recordings of rural music for the Library of Congress and by the late 1930s brought his discoveries to radio, including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Burl Ives.
-
-
They Done Good
- By DonnaMarie113 on 06-26-22
By: John Szwed
-
Thomas Cromwell
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the 16th century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.
-
-
Not about the Tudors
- By J.Brock on 09-18-19
-
C. S. Lewis - A Life
- Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet
- By: Alister E. McGrath
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In honor of the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis' death, celebrated Oxford don Dr. Alister McGrath presents us with a compelling and definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis, the author of the well-known Narnia series. For more than half a century, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series has captured the imaginations of millions. In C. S. Lewis - A Life, Dr. Alister McGrath recounts the unlikely path of this Oxford don, who spent his days teaching English literature to the brightest students in the world and his spare time writing.
-
-
Awakening my curiosity and desire to read more!
- By Pearl Glacier on 03-13-13
-
Charlemagne
- By: Johannes Fried, Peter Lewis
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 30 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.
-
-
I really wanted to enjoy this -
- By Doris on 01-19-18
By: Johannes Fried, and others
-
My Rebbe
- By: Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz
- Narrated by: Shlomo Zacks
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part biography, part memoir, part manual for great leadership, My Rebbe explores the evolution of Chabad's global success, its central beliefs and practices, the Rebbe's personal history, and his vision to inspire change. This moving narrative, written by one of today's most influential Jewish thinkers, will motivate listeners to contemplate their own mission in the world and aspire toward meaningful living.
-
-
Exceeds Expectations
- By csm on 07-04-15
-
The Original Black Elite
- Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era
- By: Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This cultural biography tells the enthralling story of the high-achieving Black elites who thrived in the nation's capital during Reconstruction. Daniel Murray (1851-1925), an assistant librarian at the Library of Congress, was a prominent member of this glorious class. Murray's life was reflective of those who were well-off at the time. This social circle included African American educators, ministers, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, US senators and representatives, and other government officials.
-
-
Our History
- By Deidre Jackson on 02-23-19
-
Rebbe
- The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History
- By: Joseph Telushkin
- Narrated by: Rich Topol
- Length: 18 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From his modest headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Rebbe advised some of the world's greatest leaders and shaped matters of state and society. Statesmen and artists as diverse as Ronald Reagan, Robert F. Kennedy, Yitzchak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Elie Wiesel, and Bob Dylan span the spectrum of those who sought his counsel.
-
-
Only good things
- By Ben on 06-01-17
By: Joseph Telushkin
-
The Riddle of the Labyrinth
- The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
- By: Margalit Fox
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records.
-
-
Discovery and Translation of Linear B Script
- By Sires on 01-11-14
By: Margalit Fox
-
Notes on a Century
- Reflections of a Middle East Historian
- By: Bernard Lewis, Buntzie Ellis Churchill
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few historians end up as historical actors in their own right, but Bernard Lewis has both witnessed and participated in some of the key events of the last century. When we think of the Middle East, we see it in terms that he defined and articulated.In this exceptional memoir he shares stories of his wartime service in London and Cairo, decrypting intercepts for MI6, with sometimes unexpected consequences. After the war, he was the first Western scholar ever invited into the Ottoman archives in Istanbul.
-
-
Can't Get Enough of the Book
- By Sanford H. on 12-11-13
By: Bernard Lewis, and others
-
Sacred Treasure - The Cairo Genizah
- The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic
- By: Rabbi Mark Glickman
- Narrated by: Rabbi Mark Glickman
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code in an old Egyptian synagogue - the amazing story of one of the most important discoveries in modern religious scholarship. In 1897, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, and there found the largest treasure trove of medieval and early manuscripts ever discovered.
-
-
Not what I thought it would be, but worth it
- By Lisa on 03-14-12
-
The Glass Universe
- How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
- By: Dava Sobel
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Number-one New York Times best-selling author Dava Sobel returns with the captivating, little-known true story of a group of women whose remarkable contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
-
-
But the seeing, which was everything, was better
- By Cynthia on 01-07-17
By: Dava Sobel
-
What the Ermine Saw
- The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo da Vinci's Most Mysterious Portrait
- By: Eden Collinsworth
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five hundred and thirty years ago, a young woman sat before a Grecian-nosed artist known as Leonardo da Vinci. Her name was Cecilia Gallerani, and she was the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan. Sforza was a brutal and clever man who was mindful that Leonardo’s genius would not only capture Cecilia’s beguiling beauty but also reflect the grandeur of his title. But when the portrait was finished, Leonardo’s brush strokes had conveyed something deeper by revealing the essence of Cecilia’s soul.
-
-
So Many Names
- By Sue Solomon on 12-13-22
-
Outlaw Marriages
- The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples
- By: Rodger Streitmatter
- Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other "for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health" for periods of 30 or 40 - sometimes as many as 50 - years. In short, they loved and supported each other every bit as much as any husband and wife. In Outlaw Marriages, cultural historian Rodger Streitmatter reveals how some of these unions didn’t merely improve the quality of life for the two people involved but also enriched the American culture.
-
-
Sames Sex Couples Through History
- By Susie on 12-11-12
-
The Most Productive People in History: 18 Extraordinarily Prolific Inventors, Artists, and Entrepreneurs, from Archimedes to Elon Musk
- By: Michael Rank
- Narrated by: Kevin Meyer
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They never knew how he did it. Few composers write more than one or two symphonies in their lifetimes. Beethoven spent a year on his shorter symphonies but more than six years on his 9th Symphony. The prodigy Mozart finished his last three symphonies (39, 40, and 41) in the span of a few weeks. His 25th Symphony took only two days.
-
-
Extremely good. It can save you from burnout.
- By Peter on 02-14-21
By: Michael Rank
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Bach
- Music in the Castle of Heaven
- By: John Eliot Gardiner
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 21 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Eliot Gardiner grew up passing one of the only two authentic portraits of Bach every morning and evening on the stairs of his parents’ house, where it hung for safety during World War II. He has been studying and performing Bach ever since, and is now regarded as one of the composer's greatest living interpreters. The fruits of this lifetime's immersion are distilled in this remarkable book, grounded in the most recent Bach scholarship but moving far beyond it.
-
-
Brilliant book badly presented
- By David Steinsaltz on 03-22-15
-
Bach's Musical Universe
- The Composer and His Work
- By: Christoph Wolff
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach's creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art.
By: Christoph Wolff
-
Beethoven
- Anguish and Triumph
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 39 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jan Swafford's biographies have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music.
-
-
Huge book - musical reader appreciates best
- By DMgraphicGlass on 01-20-15
By: Jan Swafford
-
Mozart
- A Life
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Liszt once said that Mozart composed more bars than a trained copyist could write in a lifetime. Mozart's gift and skill with instruments was also remarkable as he mastered all of them except the harp. For example, no sooner had the clarinet been invented and introduced than Mozart began playing and composing for it. In addition to his many insights into Mozart's music, Johnson also challenges the many myths that have followed Mozart, including those about the composer's health, wealth, religion, and relationships.
-
-
For a book about Mozart, not much Mozart.
- By LZ on 04-15-15
By: Paul Johnson
-
Language of the Spirit
- An Introduction to Classical Music
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Language of the Spirit, renowned music scholar Jan Swafford argues that we have it all wrong: classical music has something for everyone and is accessible to all. Ranging from Gregorian chant to Handel's Messiah, from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons to the postmodern work of Philip Glass, Swafford is an affable and expert guide to the genre. He traces the history of Western music, introduces listeners to the most important composers and compositions, and explains the underlying structure and logic of their music.
-
-
Great intro to various important composers & works
- By Jay G on 06-14-18
By: Jan Swafford
-
Beethoven
- A Life in Nine Pieces
- By: Laura Tunbridge
- Narrated by: Laura Tunbridge
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven's career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what this tells us about his larger-than-life reputation.
-
-
Engaging, interesting, nice format
- By George on 07-04-22
By: Laura Tunbridge
-
Bach
- Music in the Castle of Heaven
- By: John Eliot Gardiner
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 21 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Eliot Gardiner grew up passing one of the only two authentic portraits of Bach every morning and evening on the stairs of his parents’ house, where it hung for safety during World War II. He has been studying and performing Bach ever since, and is now regarded as one of the composer's greatest living interpreters. The fruits of this lifetime's immersion are distilled in this remarkable book, grounded in the most recent Bach scholarship but moving far beyond it.
-
-
Brilliant book badly presented
- By David Steinsaltz on 03-22-15
-
Bach's Musical Universe
- The Composer and His Work
- By: Christoph Wolff
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach's creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art.
By: Christoph Wolff
-
Beethoven
- Anguish and Triumph
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 39 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jan Swafford's biographies have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music.
-
-
Huge book - musical reader appreciates best
- By DMgraphicGlass on 01-20-15
By: Jan Swafford
-
Mozart
- A Life
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Liszt once said that Mozart composed more bars than a trained copyist could write in a lifetime. Mozart's gift and skill with instruments was also remarkable as he mastered all of them except the harp. For example, no sooner had the clarinet been invented and introduced than Mozart began playing and composing for it. In addition to his many insights into Mozart's music, Johnson also challenges the many myths that have followed Mozart, including those about the composer's health, wealth, religion, and relationships.
-
-
For a book about Mozart, not much Mozart.
- By LZ on 04-15-15
By: Paul Johnson
-
Language of the Spirit
- An Introduction to Classical Music
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Language of the Spirit, renowned music scholar Jan Swafford argues that we have it all wrong: classical music has something for everyone and is accessible to all. Ranging from Gregorian chant to Handel's Messiah, from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons to the postmodern work of Philip Glass, Swafford is an affable and expert guide to the genre. He traces the history of Western music, introduces listeners to the most important composers and compositions, and explains the underlying structure and logic of their music.
-
-
Great intro to various important composers & works
- By Jay G on 06-14-18
By: Jan Swafford
-
Beethoven
- A Life in Nine Pieces
- By: Laura Tunbridge
- Narrated by: Laura Tunbridge
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven's career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what this tells us about his larger-than-life reputation.
-
-
Engaging, interesting, nice format
- By George on 07-04-22
By: Laura Tunbridge
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
-
-
This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
Mozart
- The Reign of Love
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 30 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like Jan Swafford’s biographies Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, Mozart is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: A man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music. As Swafford reveals, it’s nearly impossible to understand classical music’s origins and indeed its evolutions, as well as the Baroque period, without studying the man himself.
-
-
Comprehensive Bio
- By Judy on 01-07-21
By: Jan Swafford
-
What to Listen for in Music
- By: Aaron Copland
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fascinating analysis of how to listen to both contemporary and classical music analytically, eminent American composer Aaron Copland offers provocative suggestions that will bring listeners a deeper appreciation of the most viscerally rewarding of all art forms.
-
-
Started common, ended uncommon
- By Sher from Provo on 06-05-24
By: Aaron Copland
-
The Cello Suites
- J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece
- By: Eric Siblin
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One fateful evening, journalist Eric Siblin attended a recital of Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites and began an epic quest that would unravel three centuries of intrigue, politics, and passion. Winner of the Mavis Gallant Prize for Nonfiction and the McAuslan First Book Prize, The Cello Suites weaves together three dramatic narratives: the disappearance of Bach's manuscript in the 18th century; Pablo Casals's discovery and popularization of the music in Spain in the late-19th century; and Siblin's infatuation with the suites in the present day.
-
-
Pace and voice acting
- By rrs2 on 10-01-24
By: Eric Siblin
-
Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion
- By: Bill Messenger, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Bill Messenger
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.
-
-
A Disappointingly Distorted, Myopic View Of Jazz
- By Parallax View on 08-18-13
By: Bill Messenger, and others
-
The Life and Works of Bach
- By: Jeremy Siepmann
- Narrated by: Jeremy Siepmann, John Shrapnel, Trevor Nichols, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although now beloved and revered by millions as the greatest composer who ever lived, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was best known in his lifetime as an organist, and was eclipsed in fame as a composer by two of his twenty children. For the last twenty-seven years of his life he was a schoolteacher and choir director whose duties extended to meal supervision and dormitory inspection. Yet throughout his career he composed a vast body of music which is amongst the most joyful, dancing and enrapturing ever written.
-
-
A good introduction to Bach's Life and Work
- By Dr on 01-10-15
By: Jeremy Siepmann
-
Beethoven's Shadow
- By: Jonathan Biss
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 1 hr and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The American pianist Jonathan Biss is known to audiences throughout the world for his artistry, musical intelligence and deeply felt interpretations. What is less known until now is that Jonathan Biss writes about music in a most compelling and engaging way. For anyone who has ever enjoyed a Beethoven concert or a Beethoven recording or one of the many films about Beethoven, this audiobook is an inspiring listening experience. For those of you who have heard Beethoven in concert or listened to a Beethoven recording, Jonathan Biss takes you behind the scenes of those performances.
-
-
Without the music itself this makes no sense as an audiobook
- By Peter Arnberg on 02-08-18
By: Jonathan Biss
-
The Indispensable Composers
- A Personal Guide
- By: Anthony Tommasini
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 20 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Indispensable Composers, Tommasini offers his own personal guide to the canon - and what greatness really means in classical music. What does it mean to be canonical now? Who gets to say? And do we have enough perspective on the 20th century to even begin assessing it? To make his case, Tommasini draws on elements of biography, the anxiety of influence, the composer's relationships with colleagues, and shifting attitudes toward a composer's work over time.
-
-
A little disappointed.
- By Sher from Provo on 10-19-19
-
How Music Works
- The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond
- By: John Powell
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry? Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), and more.
-
-
Nearly everyone will get something out of this!
- By Tim on 02-18-11
By: John Powell
-
Great Piano Works Explained
- By: Catherine Kautsky, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Catherine Kautsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The glorious repertoire for solo piano includes many of classical music’s most beloved masterpieces. In these 24 musically rich lectures, you’ll dig deeply into this magnificent tradition, in an in-depth exploration of the art of listening. With Professor Kautsky’s inspired guidance and expert playing, you’ll highlight key works of each composer, and unpack their structure, the musical materials that drive them, and the specific features that affect listeners so strongly, giving you a clear grounding in how to approach and hear this great music.
-
-
Highly recommended!!
- By Meichiko on 10-27-22
By: Catherine Kautsky, and others
-
The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles
- How Music Has Shaped Civilization
- By: Howard Goodall
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Music is an intrinsic part of everyday life, and yet the history of its development from single notes to multilayered orchestration can seem bewilderingly complex. In his dynamic tour through forty thousand years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop, Howard Goodall leads us through the story of music as it happened, idea by idea, so that each musical innovation—harmony, notation, sung theater, the orchestra, dance music, recording—strikes us with its original force.
-
-
Great intro to musc history
- By Enthusiast on 03-06-16
By: Howard Goodall
-
Van Gogh
- The Life
- By: Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 44 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials. While drawing liberally from the artist's famously eloquent letters, they have also delved into hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh's troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist.
-
-
Empathy for a True Artist
- By Sojourning Hope on 05-04-21
By: Steven Naifeh, and others
What listeners say about Johann Sebastian Bach
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael Michael Motorcycle
- 12-01-22
In Awe
Magnificent in many ways. Most germaine to me is the understanding that Bach and Newton stand unopposed as initial beacons of their separate but related arenas.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael M
- 05-20-24
A must have for Bach scholars and enthusiasts.
An incredibly thorough essay. I believe that this book will continue to be the go-to volume in scholarly studies of the greatest composer of all time. Very clear and thoughtful narration.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- L. Jensen
- 05-14-19
Has all the boring details...
If you want to know all the boring details of Bach's life, this is the biography for you. I will say it is very well researched and written and the reader is one of the best I've heard, but I found it at times difficult to listen to because it was quite often just uninteresting. For example. the author details the textbooks that Bach's school teachers likely used when he was a schoolboy, talks about possible numbers of chorus members at the church where Bach directed based on the number of chairs ordered (and possibly re-upholstered) by the church, analysis of the delivery paper to Bach's home, a run down of every recorded instance of every groschen, thaler, and pfennig Bach earned in his entire life, etc., etc. I suppose this information is valuable in some way, but to me it is just extraneous details that don't need to be shared for the reader to understand Bach's life. I'd rather hear the "meat" of his life and significant moments rather than the details of his firewood allowance.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Max
- 09-27-19
Exhausting
Certainly comprehensive and no wonder it is 21 hours plus in length.
Unfortunately, in many parts and for mind numbing periods it is a collection of statistics being read out to the listener.
And then there is the pronunciation of the frequent essential german names, towns, etc., - just awful.
I am fluent in german but could not understand what the narrator was trying to articulate.
Gave up after 2 hours of listening.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christian
- 08-28-19
Tiring
I love long biographies, but this book seems to be an exposition of the authors exactitude and ability in looking up minor details and fact checking suspicions. I understand this is a challenging element to telling Bach’s story, but leave them in a footnote somewhere for the footnote guys! A biography is see the story strained from the mud of details! I don’t recommend this as an audio book, it’s almost like listening to a phone book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful