• Title: DK Classical Music
• Author: DK Books
• Genre/Subject: Music history
• Publisher: DK Books
• Publication Date: 2020
• Start date: 11/13/23
• Finish date: 12/27/23

Review:

This was excellent, really it was. Like all DK books it is our world told in pictures, and of course experts providing the text. I’ve been a classical music lover since the 1980s but I learned a lot. A LOT! That’s better, I needed the emphasis to show just how much I learned.

From the beginnings in Greece with the discovery of pitch and tone on a vibrating string right through to the latest modern composers this volume instructed and informed. It was written by experts but in such a way as to be easily understood by everyday fans of music, without a degree in music theory.

Naturally I started at the beginning with my favorite genre, early music. I learned a lot more about the composers than I had known, meaning I knew about their music but not about their lives or how they came to compose such excellent music. But the parts I really enjoyed were the transitional periods and the composers therein. So think CPE Bach as a bridge between the baroque period and the classical and romantic eras, or Monteverdi as the bridge between medieval music and renaissance music.

Not only was this an excellent read, but it will be an invaluable resource for the future. When I want to find out more about an era, an instrument, or a particular composer I can just go to the shelf and find out all I need.