A review by balletbookworm
Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day by Clemency Burton-Hill

4.0

First book finished for #readathon (I only had about 150p left). This is a really solid one-piece-per-day devotional, if you will, designed to dive deep into the classical music catalogue. A few of my favorites are missing (Rhapsody in Blue, where are you?? Enigma Variations? Any ballet music?) but there were a lot of new-to-me composers to explore (starting right away in January with Hildegard von Bingen). Burton-Hill has also very consciously tried to make an inclusive list to try and get outside the white/male boundaries classical music has tried to keep around itself. What I think this collection is missing are some recommendations for which recording to listen to. Some more recent or less popular will have fewer to choose from but something like “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème will have hundreds available.

Burton-Hill has also curated playlists by month (if you’re not bonkers like me and pulling multiple versions, favorites, and complete works rather than movements and are making your own). Search for Clemency (with the blue tick mark) in Spotify or Year of Wonder at Apple Music.