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  • Published: 2 December 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099587170
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:

The Story of Music




Published to accompany Howard Goodall's major new BBC TV series, this is an accessible history for all music lovers

*** Accompanies BBC2's major new TV series and The Story of Music in 50 Pieces on Radio 3 ***

In his dynamic tour through 40,000 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 theatre, the orchestra, dance music, recording, broadcasting – strikes us with its original force. He focuses on what changed when and why, picking out the discoveries that revolutionised man-made sound and bringing to life musical visionaries from the little-known Pérotin to the colossus of Wagner. Along the way, he also gives refreshingly clear descriptions of what music is and how it works: what scales are all about, why some chords sound discordant and what all post-war pop songs have in common.

  • Published: 2 December 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099587170
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:

About the author

Howard Goodall

HOWARD GOODALL is an Emmy, BRIT and BAFTA award-winning composer of choral music (Eternal Light: A Requiem), stage musicals (The Hired Man, Love Story), film and TV scores - among them The Vicar of Dibley, Q.I., Red Dwarf, Blackadder and Into the Storm. He was awarded the CBE in 2011 for service to music education.

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Praise for The Story of Music

A lively zip through some 45 milennia

Christopher Hart, Sunday Times

Goodall is an engaging and erudite guide and this work is both accessible and illuminating

Caroline Jowett, Daily Express

Great length but still leavened with lively wit

Sameer Rahim, Telegraph

[Goodall] knows his stuff, and tells it well

Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

Highly knowledgeable, and a brilliant communicator, Goodall has an infectious enthusiasm and is genuinely respectful of all forms of music

Good Book Guide

An accessible guide to roughly 42,000 years of music in just over 300 pages that manages neither to sacfrifice precise detail nor pugnacious opinion ... Goodall is unfailingly acute ... a clever, engaging read

Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

There is a Jumpin’ Jack Flash liveliness in Goodall’s approach

Iain Finlayson, The Times

He starts right at the beginning, with 25,000-year-old bone flutes ... It's a huge brief, made huger by Goodall's alertness to new thinking in scholarly circles, and his fondness for interesting asides ... a racily written, learned and often shrewdly insightful book

Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph (Review)

A roller-coaster ride, which Goodall tells with verve... a racily written, learned and often shrewdly insightful book

Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph

Who better to demystify the origins of music and trace the evolution of this most universal of artistic disciplines?

Neil Norman, Express

The Story of Music is a lively zip through some 45 millennia … jumping back and forth between classical, folk and pop

Christopher Hart, Sunday Times

An accessible guide to roughly 42,000 years of music in just over 300 pages … The Story of Music is a clever, engaging read

Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

Howard Goodall’s beautifully clear and compelling account is both a hymn to human endeavour and a groundbreaking map of man’s musical journey

Wiltshire News

A clear and compelling account which is a hymn to human endeavor and a groundbreaking musical journey

Kirkham & Fylde

Fascinating – as well as illuminating on how music works

The Lady

Now comes Howard Goodall and all of everyone's prayers are answered ... He is sharply witty and entirely on the ball, but he never acts the smart ass and, most importantly, he obviously has deep knowledge of what he is talking about ... I prophesy that it will not only win prizes but change lives

Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph

Goodall's distinguisihing gift is his ability to explain the mechanics of music instead of gliding hastily over them. He is fearless in unknotting those medieval mysteries of oranum and isorhythms, as well as chords, triads, fugues, keys, equal temperament, atonality, dodecaphony and blues

Fiona Maddocks, Spectator

At his best, Goodall has a facility for lively shorthand…

Adam Mars-Jones, Guardian

This ambitious and all embracing history of 40, 000 years of music will have you dancing in the aisles

Sally Morris, Daily Mail