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tete1030's review against another edition
4.0
Selecção óptima, adorei o conceito e já comprei o segundo (e espero fervorosamente que venha a haver mais porque já me habituei à rotina de ouvir música ao pequeno-almoço. Só não leva cinco estrelas por causa dos comentários da autora que, às vezes, eram particularmente irritantes e asininos. Suponho que seja defeito de profissão dizer "enjoy and relax" ou "have fun" ao apresentar uma música, mas sinto que a autora podia ter sido mais pedagógica.
forgottensecret's review against another edition
4.0
'I’m a big believer that music is music. This sounds blindingly obvious, but by this I mean that, just as all human beings are created from the same essential building blocks, so is every piece of music that has ever been or ever will yet be written. This is worth pointing out because so often people feel that so-called ‘classical’ music is something ‘other’; something different from the kind of music they like; something they need to ‘know’ something about before they can let themselves enjoy it. It’s not – it all comes from the same source. And when I chance upon a piece like this one, this hypnotic little charmer from the very earliest years of the seventeenth century... [it] reminds me how intimately we are all connected, whether we realize it or not.'
I appreciated my time spent with 'Year of Wonder'. Before bed, I would sit up reading the work on Kindle, the pieces playing from my phone on an accompanying playlist on Spotify. Clemency Burton-Hill, known for her work on BBC Radio 3 and other broadcasting roles, is a musician herself. Her resume includes time being a soloist on the violin as well as orchestral work. On the year of publication, Burton-Hill survived a brain haemorrhage which left her unconscious for 17 days. This sprinkled the book with a sense of fortune.
The premise of the book is simple, a piece of classical music for every day of the year. Burton-Hill introduces a piece and then writes a short extract on each. The book is therefore dotted with tales of composers, and this colours their music with contextual meaning.
These tales included: the exhaustion of Max Bruch at having to play his violin concerto again instead of his other compositions; quotes by Clara Schumann of why she loves composing; Olivier Messaien composing a work in a concentration camp during WW2; Dimitri Shostakovich's run-ins with Stalin; the anecdotes of Erik Satie being 'the laziest student in the Conservatoire'; Richard Strauss's happy marriage of 56 years; that Gabriel Fauré was a student of Camille Saint-Saëns and taught Maurice Ravel; that in his day, C.P.E. Bach was given the epithet 'the Great Bach' and that Mozart revered him; Camille Saint-Saëns wrote the first ever film score and so many other accounts.
Touched on in Aaron Copland's 'What to Listen for in Music', classical music can be inaccessible for some. Copland offered his own suggestions to remedy this, but Burton-Hill offers another avenue in. By reading stories about the composers who made the pieces, we begin to listen to a piece with both the person and the piece in mind. There might still be no meaning to cling on to in the work, as Copland talks about, but at least we have the character of the composer to journey with.
Some of the works from 'Year of Wonder' that I particularly became fond of:
Max Bruch - Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor
Olivier Messiaen - Quatuor pour la fin du Temps: V
Elena Kats-Chernin - Unsent Love Letters
Philip Glass - Echorus
Gregorio Allegri - Miserere
Alban Berg - Piano Sonata, Op.1
J.S. Bach - Concerto for 2 Violins in D Minor
Maurice Ravel - Piano Concerto in G Major
Munich Piano Trio- Libertango
Claudio Monteverdi - Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti, SV 251
Erik Satie - Je te veux
Evelyn Chang - Nocturne
A recommended book for those who want to widen their classical music playlist, and to get a better sense of the composers behind the music.
I appreciated my time spent with 'Year of Wonder'. Before bed, I would sit up reading the work on Kindle, the pieces playing from my phone on an accompanying playlist on Spotify. Clemency Burton-Hill, known for her work on BBC Radio 3 and other broadcasting roles, is a musician herself. Her resume includes time being a soloist on the violin as well as orchestral work. On the year of publication, Burton-Hill survived a brain haemorrhage which left her unconscious for 17 days. This sprinkled the book with a sense of fortune.
The premise of the book is simple, a piece of classical music for every day of the year. Burton-Hill introduces a piece and then writes a short extract on each. The book is therefore dotted with tales of composers, and this colours their music with contextual meaning.
These tales included: the exhaustion of Max Bruch at having to play his violin concerto again instead of his other compositions; quotes by Clara Schumann of why she loves composing; Olivier Messaien composing a work in a concentration camp during WW2; Dimitri Shostakovich's run-ins with Stalin; the anecdotes of Erik Satie being 'the laziest student in the Conservatoire'; Richard Strauss's happy marriage of 56 years; that Gabriel Fauré was a student of Camille Saint-Saëns and taught Maurice Ravel; that in his day, C.P.E. Bach was given the epithet 'the Great Bach' and that Mozart revered him; Camille Saint-Saëns wrote the first ever film score and so many other accounts.
Touched on in Aaron Copland's 'What to Listen for in Music', classical music can be inaccessible for some. Copland offered his own suggestions to remedy this, but Burton-Hill offers another avenue in. By reading stories about the composers who made the pieces, we begin to listen to a piece with both the person and the piece in mind. There might still be no meaning to cling on to in the work, as Copland talks about, but at least we have the character of the composer to journey with.
Some of the works from 'Year of Wonder' that I particularly became fond of:
Max Bruch - Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor
Olivier Messiaen - Quatuor pour la fin du Temps: V
Elena Kats-Chernin - Unsent Love Letters
Philip Glass - Echorus
Gregorio Allegri - Miserere
Alban Berg - Piano Sonata, Op.1
J.S. Bach - Concerto for 2 Violins in D Minor
Maurice Ravel - Piano Concerto in G Major
Munich Piano Trio- Libertango
Claudio Monteverdi - Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti, SV 251
Erik Satie - Je te veux
Evelyn Chang - Nocturne
A recommended book for those who want to widen their classical music playlist, and to get a better sense of the composers behind the music.
thisisgettingstupid999's review against another edition
3.0
For someone who’s more used to pop, classical music can be hard to access. Burton-Hill clearly loves classical and, while most of her choices are just background music to me, I have discovered a few absolute gems. Using a streaming service (Amazon, in my case) can be difficult. The titles are often long and multi- part ( eg 6 Études de concert, op. 35, 2: ‘Autumn’ ) and , because Amazon lists them by the performer rather than the composer, it can be hard to find the right piece. So I do think including recommended recordings of each piece would improve the book no end.
lamom77's review against another edition
5.0
I started this book on January 1, 2023 and read and listened to it each morning. I learned a lot about classical music and I found some music that I absolutely loved - here's looking at you Hildegard of Bingen and the Danish String Quartet. I still don't like opera - I tried. I have marked about 100 of the songs in the book to relisten to over and over and will begin [b:Another Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Day|59958235|Another Year of Wonder Classical Music for Every Day|Clemency Burton-Hill|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1640692484l/59958235._SX50_.jpg|94472593] tomorrow. What a wonderful book! Highly recommend!
asburris325's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
I really enjoyed this tour through a diverse array of classical music encompassing so many different styles and time periods. The author is knowledgeable and passionate and I learned so much about what I personally enjoy listening to.