Reviews for Globalizing American History

The average rating for Globalizing American History based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-10-27 00:00:00 Elliott Garnes There are really nice bits to this. He says at the start that the reason why people chanted parts of the Bible in Church was that chanting carried further than spoken words and also sounds ‘special’ and so ‘more holy’. I really like finding out things like that. Perhaps they are obvious to other people, but I’d never thought of chanting having a functional reason before. The irony is, of course, that then people became obsessed with the musicality of the chanting, and added increasing layers to the music, the words got lost and so the Church spent lots of time trying to stop composers making the music overpower the words. For large parts of history the only music we have is Church music – not because that was the only music there was at these times, but because it was the only music that was written down. The nice thing about this talking book is that he includes snippets of music along the way to show what he is talking about. This is really lovely, but the problem is that I really don’t know enough about music for him to say something about the key that a piece is written in and to then even play three or four notes in that key and for me to really know what I’m supposed to hear. Where this was really very good was in showing the differences between the various historical movements – Baroque, Classical , Romantic, Impressionist, Expressionist and so on – of music and the kinds of over-arching differences that separate those movements. The introduction to twentieth century music was also well worthwhile and while I still don’t really pretend to understand twelve tone music (it really sounds more like a maths problem than music to me), I feel like I’ve been given enough information to want to go on and find out more. What I found particularly interesting were the number of composers who suddenly stopped writing music – you know, lived on for another 30 years without ever writing another piece. This really fascinated me. There is also very high praise for Shostakovich. There is something about Shostakovich that resonates with my soul. Over the last two years I’ve become obsessed with his 24 Preludes and Fugues. I’ve had them virtually on repeat play. Take number seven as a case in point - the fugue in particular just makes me want to weep. Or, a much more challenging piece, this version of number fifteen - I mean, good God… I mention these pieces as I believe Shostakovich was criticised by the Soviet authorities for these being both too conservative – they refer back to Bach’s Well-tempered Piano – and too modern. There was a very fine line one needed to walk to be a musician in the Soviet Union. But as I said, Shostakovich moves me in ways I can barely explain in words. And yes, I really do see that people might think him just wild, drunken noise. But I would find it hard to contemplate a world without his tenth or eleventh symphony or his first string quartet. Sorry, off topic – like I said, this is a really quick and interesting introduction to the history of Classical music. I enjoyed it very much.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-12-08 00:00:00 Timothy Perez Get the audiobook -- on Audible.com. They play examples. Good history, but beyond that, this book KNOCKS YOU OUT. Awesome for going to bed. :) Sweet dreams!