Customer Reviews
Very enjoyable and interesting - By: PhilosopherKing, 22 Nov 2008 
This is a very interesting & enjoyable History of Classical Music on four CDs. It contains excerpts from over 50 pieces of Western Music.
I have read some musical history before but I found that this set of CDs dealt more thoroughly with the thousand years of development from around 600 AD to around 1600 AD.
The CDs are are follows:
CD1 The Early, Medieval, & Renaissance Periods
This includes Gregorian Chant; Ambrosian Chant; the Dorian, Phrygian & Lydian Modes; Hildegard of Bingen; the Gothic Age; the Motet; the troubadour tradition; Guillaume de Machaut; the Madigral - Landini; Dufay & Ockeghem; the Agincourt Carol - 1415; the Renaissance - Palestrina; the High Renaissancein England; the French Chanson & the madrigalin Italy & England; John Dowland; Andrea & Giovanni Gabrielli.
CD 2 The Baroque Period (c 1600 - C 1750)
The Classical Period (c 1750 - c 1800)
This includes:
The Birth of Opera; Claudio Monteverdi; Musicin England - Henry Purcell; Handel; Bach; Music for Keyboards - Couperin, Bach; the violin; the development of the solo concerto - Vivaldi; the Age of Reason - the Classical Period; Mozart; von Dittersdorf; Haydn; Mozart; Gluck; Mozart; Beethoven.
CD 3 The Romantic Period (C 1827 - 1900)
This includes:
The concept of Romanticism - Beethoven; Berlioz; Schubert; The piano; Chopin; Schumman; Dvorak; Grieg; France - Cesar Franck; Russia - the Mighty Handful - Borodin; Liszt; Bruckner; Brahms; Mahler; Tchaiskovsky; The Concerto - Mendelssohn; the amateur choral tradition - Brahms; Opera - Rossini; Meyerbeer; Bel Canto - Bellini, Donizetti; Offenbach; Bizet; Verdi; Puccini; Weber; Wagner.
CD 4 The Twentieth Century
This includes:
Stravinsky; Impressionism - Debussy; New Directions; Stravinsky; SErialism - Schoenberg; Richard Strauss; Holst; Elgar; Sibelius; Vaughan Williams; Rachmaninov: Shostakovich; Prokofiev; Szymanowski; Bartok; Copland; Villa-Lobos; Rodrigo; Varese & Boulez; Minimalism - Reich, Glass & Adams; Gorecki; Tippett; Britten; Arvo Part.
Altogether an enjoyable treat.
