# Best Book on Learning and Loving Classical Music



## edge

Hi,

I have been listening intermittently for many years without knowing much other than the name of a few composers. I had a music appreciation class in high school that was taught by someone who would rather have been teaching something else. 

I would like to deepen my appreciation with a beginner to intermediate book on classical music. Amazon has several to choose from so I was hoping for a recommendation or two here.

Here are a few from the first page of searches:

- The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection : The 350 Essential Works by Theodore Libbey 

- The Vintage Guide to Classical Music by Jan Swafford

- The NPR Listener's Encyclopedia of Classical Music by Theodore Libbey 

- Classical Music for Dummies by David Pogue, Scott Speck and Glenn Dicterow

- Classical Music 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Classical Music by Fred Plotkin 

- Classical Music by Phil G. Goulding 

- Classical Music: Third Ear: The Essential Listening Companion by Alexander Morin

- The NPR Classical Music Companion: An Essential Guide for Enlightened Listening by Miles Hoffman (Nov 22, 2005) 



Thanks for your time.

Joe


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## kv466

Greetings, Joe. 

Hmm, I've never read any book on appreciating classical but I'll tell you one thing I always loved reading which greatly helped in my appreciation: the inner sleeves to beautiful recordings. Take a chance. Get something you think you'll like. Oh,...and our 'current listening' thread is a jewel box chock full of some of the finest pieces not only ever written but ever recorded. Either way, I hope you gain what you can from the forum and wish you the best.


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## starthrower

A couple of months ago I picked up a used copy of the Third Ear guide. Although it's a bit outdated (no listings for recordings made in the past decade) I am really getting great use out of this volume. They have a lot of great recommendations for recordings, and the contributors are especially enthusiastic about 20th century music. But this book like many others you listed is a record guide, not a classical music appreciation book.


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## Weston

While it's ancient by today's standards, Aaron Copland's "What to Listen for in Music" is a pleasant read. He is very conversational and makes the basic concepts interesting. 

I sometimes have the best luck just reading along the reviews at Allmusic.com while listening to a piece on Rhapsody or even trying a piece out first on YouTube before purchasing. That or the liner notes as kv466 suggests.


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## Chi_townPhilly

edge said:


> I have been listening intermittently for many years without knowing much other than the name of a few composers. I had a music appreciation class in high school that was taught by someone who would rather have been teaching something else.


Heh, heh, heh... I know the feeling!

I've sometimes said that the best thing that could be said for my college Music Appreciation class is that the course didn't succeed in ruining my then-nascent appreciation of Classical Music. Anyway...

This was a topic on our sibling forum not too long ago. I made a little contribution on this topic over there...

You can find it *here*.


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## edge

My thanks to all who applied. I ordered both the Copland book and the Third Eye Guide from used bookstores. I am pleased to discover the Magle forum, the inner sleeves suggestion, as well as the current listening thread. 

I have been stocking up on the Amazon MP3's. I have several of the "99 Most Essential ...." albums for $4.99. I know they might not be the best recordings, but it gives me something to start with. 

Thanks again for your assistance.

Joe


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## Webernite

Don't be afraid of using Wikipedia or classicalarchives.com to get information about specific pieces of music. The internet's probably a better resource than any book.


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## starthrower

The Composer Guestbooks threads on this forum is another great way to quickly familiarize yourself with many composers and their works.


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## Vaneyes

Third Ear is way out of date (2002), but it's still wacky, er interesting reading. Fifty plus scrambled 
reviewers, all writing styles, all biases, working together to produce something you don't ordinarily read. Entertaining more than informative. That's more than some guides give you.

Re German composers, I found this "free book" online, you might enjoy. I've been reading the Haydn portion.

http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/g/5823-the-great-german-composers-by-george-t-ferris?start=24


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## josecamoessilva

I find (as I'm sure many do) that one learns to appreciate music by listening to it, so I second the idea of getting the cheap "99 most essential" collections as a starter.

As for books, here are some ideas:

"The NPR Listener's Encyclopedia" by Ted Libbey is more of a reference book, though it's fun to occasionally browse at random and learn (or recall) something interesting, though I find doing the same on Wikipedia almost as entertaining. Many of the recordings referenced in my edition are hard to find, though.

There are quite a few "classical music for dummies" books, which generally are worse than buying the "99" sets from Amazon and listening to them.

There are also quite a lot of enhanced catalogs of performances, which can help build a collection. Many of the modern performances can be watched or listened to on the labels' websites or -- sometimes -- on YouTube. The quality is bad, but the idea is to sample the content, not to use it as a primary listening source.

For some more serious learning about "classical" music:

"A History of Western Music," by Burkholder, Grout, and Palisca. It's an actual textbook in some music programs.

"The Great Composers," by Michael Steen. Unlike many contemporary biographies it's not about their lives so much as about their music.

The Aesthetics of music, by Roger Scruton

There are some very good books on specific composers:

Hermann Abert's magnum opus, "W. A. Mozart," weighing in at 1700 pages and 15 pounds.

Christian Wolff's "Bach: The learned musician."

(I'm sure others can suggest books on other composers.)

An interesting thing to do, if you can read music notation, is to get the scores to the pieces you like most (and of which you have many performances, I'm sure) and follow the performance from the score, to see what choices the performers make.

NOTE: Regarding my use of quotes around "classical": Am I the only one bothered by all music from Hildegard von Bingen to composers who are still below the legal drinking age in 2011 under the category "classical," while bass-and-drumline synthesizer dance music rates "electronica," "dance," "trance," "techno," and "house"?

Cheers,
JCS


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## TrazomGangflow

I have a book titled: 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die. Its very informative. Has the pieces roughly organized in chronological order by date of publishment. For each piece or grouping of pieces it gives some information about each composition and gives some information about the suggested recording.


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## edge

Thanks very much to everyone. You have been very kind and helpful. There has been so much wonderful advice that it's going to take me a while to sort through and try it all.

While waiting on my books to arrive I signed up on rdio (www.rdio.com) for a two week free trial and I'm loving it. It's a music streaming service. They hope that after the free trial you'll sign up for their US$9.99/month subscription.

I've been looking through some of the forum posts and trying to find that cd's that are recommended. I think there were 176 albums shown when I searched for "Vivaldi Four Seasons" but not the one in particular that was mentioned. Nonetheless I found one from Joshua Bell that I thought was excellent. After listening to all of that album I skipped around a bit and tried several others. I've found that I really like Vivaldi concertos for strings. I'm sure that says something about my taste in music but I'm sure there are also others I will like just as much or better.

Thanks again.


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## perempe

hi,

I want a guide book to concerts with music sheet examples. which book do you recommend?


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## perempe

I'm interested from the romantic era.


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