A review by celeste57
Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Day by Clemency Burton-Hill

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

This was an informative and enlightening look into the world of classical music.  Through a piece a day, I was introduced to a vast compendium of music I had never experienced before, as well as learning some of the background behind pieces and artists I already knew and respected.  There were a couple of drawbacks to this book, but those are very much personal preferences.  Firstly, there was far more opera included than I would have expected.  When I hear “classical music” I instantly think of instrumentals, which I know is closed-minded.  I simply have never developed a taste for opera, and thus there was a wide swath of this collection that I suffered through instead of enjoyed.  Secondly, I wish there had been a bit more to the write-ups for each day.  I know they’re meant to be brief, and that the author had a lot to do as there were 366 of them, but I was just left wanting more information to go along with quite a few of these pieces.  But again, those are minor personal complaints.  All in all I found <i>Year of Wonder</i> illuminating, and I’m very glad to have been introduced to so much new-to-me music.