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Music Appreciation 101

Music Appreciation 101 features many resources to help you increase your appreciation of classical music. Much better than books on the topic, learning on audio about classical music allows you to hear the music being commented on. There are many outstanding lecture courses and audio books on classical music, opera, and the great composers. Listen and learn to love classical music.

Titles on this Topic

Ballet Stories
Ballet Stories
by David Angus

The magic of ballet is evoked in these enchanting stories presented with many musical excerpts from the works themselves...
Benjamin Zander on Music and Passion
 
Benjamin Zander on Music and Passion
by Benjamin Zander

Lift your spirits with the power of classical music! Conductor Benjamin Zander shares his passion for classical music in this TED talk. While the statistics say 3% of the population are classical music lovers, Zander attempts to prove that we are all lovers of classical music.
Classical Music 101
Classical Music 101
by Fred Plotkin

Classical Music 101 is a highly accessible guide to discovering the glories of classical music.
Composers' Letters
Composers' Letters
by Ludwig van Beethoven

In Composers' Letters, the voices of the great figures of classical music come alive through their correspondence. Set against the music we know and love...
Discover Music of the Romantic Era
Discover Music of the Romantic Era
by David McCleery

Amid a background of wars and revolution, the 19th century produced many of the world's best-loved composers, including Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky.
Famous Composers
Famous Composers
by Darren Henley

Following on the success of The Story of Classical Music, Darren Henley and Marin Alsop combine forces again to tell, in more detail, the lives of six key composers: Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak, and Shostakovich.
Great Masters- Mozart: His Life and Music
Great Masters- Mozart: His Life and Music
by Robert Greenberg

This course is a biographical and musical study of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), who composed more than 600 works of beauty and brilliance in just over 20 years.
The History of Classical Music
The History of Classical Music
by Richard Fawkes

From Gregorian Chant to Henryk Gorecki, the first living classical composer to get into the pop album charts, here is the fascinating story of over a thousand years of Western classical music and the composers who have sought to express in music the deepest of human feelings and emotions.
The History of Opera
The History of Opera
by Richard Fawkes

Opera, said Moliére, is the most expensive noise known to man. From its beginnings in the 16th Century, through to today when there...
The History of the Musical
The History of the Musical
by Richard Fawkes

The musical is one of the great art forms of the 20th century.
How to Listen to and Understand Great Music
How to Listen to and Understand Great Music
by Robert Greenberg

After taking this course, you will hear and understand an entire language of unmatched beauty, genius, and power.
How to Listen to and Understand Opera
How to Listen to and Understand Opera
by Robert Greenberg

The history of opera is traced from its beginning in the early 17th century to around 1924.
The Library of Congress: Music and the Brain Podcast
The Library of Congress: Music and the Brain Podcast
by Kay Redfield Jamison

Watch or listen to this great series from the Library of Congress on streaming video or audio podcast. Project chair Kay Redfield Jamison convenes scientists and scholars, composers, performers, theorists, physicians, psychologists, and other experts to talk about cognitive neuroscience and music.
The Life and Works of Beethoven
The Life and Works of Beethoven
by Jeremy Siepmann

For many people, Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived...
The Life of Mozart
The Life of Mozart
by Perry Keenlyside

Hear the story behind today's most often performed classical composer's accomplishments, during his short life of just 35 years.
Masterpieces of Western Music
Masterpieces of Western Music
by Jeffrey Lependorf

From the "Spring" of Vivaldi's Four Seasons to Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, our appreciation of musical masterpieces can be deeply enhanced by an understanding of what makes them great.
Mozart: The Man and the Artist as Revealed in His Own Words
Mozart: The Man and the Artist as Revealed in His Own Words
by Friedrich Kerst

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His name is one of the most recognizable names in history and one of the most enduring of composers. At age 5, this "wunderkinder" took to the stage and began his life as a prolific and celebrated creator-genius of such luminous works the world has not known since.
Opera 101
Opera 101
by Fred Plotkin

Fred Plotkin, an internationally respected writer and teacher and former performance manager of the Metropolitan Opera, introduces listeners, whatever their level of musical knowledge, to all the riches of opera, the fastest growing of all the performing arts.
Pavarotti: My World
Pavarotti: My World
by Luciano Pavarotti

In the world of opera today, there is no one more famous or better loved than Luciano Pavarotti...
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
by Alex Ross

The scandal over modern music has not died down. While modern paintings by Picasso and Pollock sell for a hundred million or more, shocking musical works from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring onward still send ripples of unease through audiences.
Rock 'n' Roll and American Society, Part 1
Rock 'n' Roll and American Society, Part 1
by William McKeen

An author and university professor whose books include scholarly works on The Beatles and Bob Dylan, William McKeen here tackles the role of popular music in American culture.
Selected Letters of Beethoven
Selected Letters of Beethoven
by Ludwig van Beethoven

A selection of Beethoven's letters from the compilation by Dr. Ludwig Nohl and translated by Lady Grace Wallace.
The Story of Classical Music
The Story of Classical Music
by Darren Henley

The lives and music of the great composers of classical music unfold in this entertaining account, introduced by the conductor and musical personality Marin Alsop....
Understanding the Fundamentals of Classical Music
Understanding the Fundamentals of Classical Music
by Richard Freedman

Music is a performative art. It stresses movement through time and engages our suggestive sense of its passing. Music has tendency, it normally invokes goals of various sorts, both near and far.

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