Language of the Spirit
An Introduction to Classical Music
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Narrated by:
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Tom Perkins
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By:
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Jan Swafford
About this listen
For many of us, classical music is something serious - something we study in school, something played by cultivated musicians at fancy gatherings.
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.
Language of the Spirit is essential listening for anyone who has ever wished to know more about this sublime art.
©2017 Jan Swafford (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Squeezing cherry-picked facts into a simplistic narrative
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By: Ted Gioia
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Where the Heart Beats
- John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists
- By: Kay Larson
- Narrated by: Jason Wineinger
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
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Composer John Cage sought the silence of a mind at peace with itself - and found it in Zen Buddhism, a spiritual path that changed both his music and his view of the universe. "Remarkably researched, exquisitely written", Where the Heart Beats weaves together "a great many threads of cultural history" (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) to illuminate Cage’s struggle to accept himself and his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Freed to be his own man, Cage originated exciting experiments that set him at the epicenter of a new avant-garde forming in the 1950s.
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Mind Expansion
- By Robert Keith on 04-04-15
By: Kay Larson
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Alan Lomax: A Biography
- The Man Who Recorded the World
- By: John Szwed
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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They Done Good
- By DonnaMarie113 on 06-26-22
By: John Szwed
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Naked at the Albert Hall
- The Inside Story of Singing
- By: Tracey Thorn
- Narrated by: Tracey Thorn
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In her bestselling autobiography, Bedsit Disco Queen, Tracey Thorn recalled the highs and lows of a 30-year career in pop music. But with the touring, recording and extraordinary anecdotes, there wasn't time for an in-depth look at what she actually did for all those years: sing. She sang with warmth and emotional honesty, sometimes while battling acute stage fright.
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Fascinating
- By Jane Sheedy on 01-11-17
By: Tracey Thorn
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan
- A Portrait
- By: Daniel Mark Epstein
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a vivid, full-bodied portrait of one of the most influential artists of the 20th-century - a man widely regarded as the most important lyricist America has ever produced. Acclaimed poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein frames Dylan against the backdrop of four seminal concerts - all of which he attended. Beautifully written, The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a unique, eye-opening portrait of an artist who has transformed generations and continues to inspire and surprise today.
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Excellent book, excellent narration
- By L chandler on 12-22-11
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Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
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Catch a Wave
- The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
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In Catch a Wave, Peter Ames Carlin pulls back the curtain on Brian Wilson, one of popular music's most revered luminaries, as well as its biggest mystery. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before heard studio recordings, Carlin follows the Beach Boys from their earliest days through Brian's deepening emotional problems to his triumphant re-emergence with the release of Smile, the legendarily unreleased album he had originally shelved.
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Not great
- By J. Barker on 08-08-16
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Something Wonderful
- Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution
- By: Todd S. Purdum
- Narrated by: Todd S. Purdum
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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They stand at the apex of the great age of songwriting, the creators of the classic Broadway musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, whose songs have never lost their popularity or emotional power. Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play.
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Fabulous book about Rodgers & Hammerstein!!!
- By BigWally on 06-27-18
By: Todd S. Purdum
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The Fellowship
- The Literary LIves of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
- By: Philip Zaleski, Carol Zaleski
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 26 hrs and 31 mins
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C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J. R. R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met weekly in Lewis' Oxford rooms and a nearby pub. They read aloud from works in progress, argued about anything that caught their fancy, and gave one another invaluable companionship, inspiration, and criticism.
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If You Love Literature...
- By Ray M on 07-14-16
By: Philip Zaleski, and others
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Keats
- A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
- By: Lucasta Miller
- Narrated by: Sally Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
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A Romantic Life
- By David on 05-03-22
By: Lucasta Miller
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Django
- The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend
- By: Michael Dregni
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Django Reinhardt was arguably the greatest guitarist who ever lived, an important influence on Les Paul, Charlie Christian, B.B. King, Jerry Garcia, Chet Atkins, and many others. Yet there is no major biography of Reinhardt. Now, in Django, Michael Dregni offers a definitive portrait of this great guitarist. Handsome, charismatic, childlike, and unpredictable, Reinhardt was a character out of a picaresque novel. Born in a gypsy caravan at a crossroads in Belgium, he was almost killed in a freak fire that burned half of his body and left his left hand twisted into a claw.
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Django in context
- By George MP on 10-08-18
By: Michael Dregni
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It's Fine
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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.
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Brilliant book badly presented
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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.
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Highly recommended!!
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The Cello Suites
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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.
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Pace and voice acting
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Classical Music 101
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In clear and entertaining prose, Plotkin explores a thousand years of music, introduces listeners to more than 100 great works, and profiles in depth many significant composers, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Dvoxak, and Mahler. He describes all the musical instruments in the orchestra, defines major musical terms, and makes music theory comprehensible for the uninitiated. There are also conversations with important musicians who offer fascinating insights about their art.
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Only for true beginners
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The Indispensable Composers
- A Personal Guide
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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.
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A little disappointed.
- By Sher from Provo on 10-19-19
What listeners say about Language of the Spirit
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- E.S. Tosky
- 08-25-22
Life altering: opens the door to a world apart
Jan Swafford opens the door to a world apart in LANGUAGE OF THE SPIRIT. Even if one is not a musician, after reading this book, classical music will make sense. A book about music, unaccompanied by actual music, requires a mastery of language. Jan Swafford possesses that mastery. He describes the quality and impact of musical triumphs and musical missteps. As a composer himself, he introduces his personal experiences with musical landmarks. He makes the reader appreciate that music has been a life altering passion for him and that it can be equally life altering for his readers. Jan Swafford comes across as a man you’d enjoy chatting with on a long train journey.
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- Jay G
- 06-14-18
Great intro to various important composers & works
Listen to this audio book with pen and paper nearby to track suggested listening. insight into the lives of the composers is what I enjoyed most. The breakdown of individual works felt very dry if I wasn't familiar with them. Ideally I would love to listen to this book as I sit in front of a computer so I could access the music as its referenced. Overall very informative and enjoyable.
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13 people found this helpful
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Story
- Douglas McFarland
- 09-28-22
Very Broad Strokes
Sense of history is somewhat mixed, observations pointed and explained (most of the time), but this is very broad and best for beginners. The narrator's pronunciation is so questionable it becomes comic at times.
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1 person found this helpful