• Title: Year of Wonder
• Author: Clemency Burton-Hill
• Genre/Subject: Classical music
• Publisher: Headline
• Publication Date: 2017
• Start date: 1/1/24
• Finish date: 7/26/24

Review:

This was a Christmas gift and a nice premise, that is one reads a page each day and listens to the musical selection being discussed. That I made it to the end of July is a testament to my perseverance and courage because this was awful.

At first I figured I would be the ideal audience for this book, and it sounded exactly like something that would broaden my musical horizons. I am a devoted classical, early music and opera enthusiast. Unfortunately, the book itself provides very little value added over the actual music pieces. The author does not provide any useful information about how to listen to the music, what to listen for and how to understand it in border context. Instead, the author chooses to accompany her daily selection with trite gossipy trivia (such as that the composer had eight kids, was gay, black, black and gay, or was a ‘badass’) you’re so woke babe. Or she provides explanations of how the music makes her feel – again, who cares? Every pianist, composer or artist is immensely talented, under appreciated, virtuoso, misunderstood or simply genius. She probably thought this will somehow make classical music more palatable to us plebians, but all it did was to make me think less of the author herself. 

So today after reading the word heartfelt for the 100th morning in a row I decided to mark the racing form with a big fat DNF and move on with my life. But I did it with superlative genius.