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The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works
- Narrated by: Robert Greenberg
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
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Publisher's summary
Over the centuries, orchestral music has given us a category of works that stand apart as transcendent expressions of the human spirit. What are these "greatest of the greats"? Find out in these 32 richly detailed lectures that take you on a sumptuous grand tour of the symphonic pieces that continue to live at the center of our musical culture. These thirty masterworks form an essential foundation for any music collection and a focal point for understanding the orchestral medium and deepening your insight into the communicative power of music. While seasoned music lovers will find the lectures a revealing journey through the repertoire, the course welcomes newcomers to orchestral music, offering a very accessible point of entry to this magnificent repertoire.
You'll encounter symphonies, concertos, tone poems, symphonic poems, and suites, delving into the works through extensive musical excerpts. The course covers the major eras and stylistic periods in Western music from the early 18th- to the mid-20th centuries and highlights a wide range of European and American works. Among these: Haydn's Symphony no. 104, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, and Shostakovich's Symphony no. 5. Throughout these lectures, you'll learn about the major musical forms found in orchestral writing and how they're used in conveying expressive meanings. Knowing how these forms work allows you to grasp the structure of the music as you hear it, and also to appreciate how the greatest composers used them, extended them, and finally departed from them in sublimely original ways.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
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- Narrated by: Daniel N. Robinson
- Length: 30 hrs and 11 mins
- Original Recording
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Grasp the important ideas that have served as the backbone of philosophy across the ages with this extraordinary 60-lecture series. This is your opportunity to explore the enormous range of philosophical perspectives and ponder the most important and enduring of human questions-without spending your life poring over dense philosophical texts.
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A Hard Review to Write
- By Ark1836 on 11-20-15
By: Daniel N. Robinson, and others
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Optimizing Brain Fitness
- By: Richard Restak, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Richard Restak
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
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With its up to 500 trillion synaptic connections, your brain is easily the most powerful machine in the world. Even more incredibly: This amazing machine is constantly changing through a process known as brain plasticity. And you can take advantage of this process to improve and enhance your brain’s jaw-dropping powers - at any age.
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Not up to my standards for the Great Courses
- By R. J Kaucher on 04-24-19
By: Richard Restak, and others
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Powerful Women Who Ruled the Ancient World
- By: Kara Cooney, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kara Cooney
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
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What is power and who is allowed to wield it? Why is female power so rare and, often, so feared? What can the women who gained power in the ancient world teach us about the contemporary world and our modern ideas of gender, authority, and equality? Listeners will explore these and other questions as you travel back to the ancient world and uncover the stories of remarkable women who overcame a host of barriers to wield power in a male-dominated world.
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Informative
- By Red-Haired Ash on 05-02-20
By: Kara Cooney, and others
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Basic Music Theory, 4th Edition
- How to Read, Write, and Understand Written Music
- By: Jonathan Harnum
- Narrated by: Jonathan Harnum
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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What do all those lines and squiggles and dots mean? Basic Music Theory takes you through the sometimes confusing world of written music with a clear, concise style that is at times funny and always friendly. The book is written by an experienced music teacher using methods refined over more than 30 years in schools and in his private teaching studio. Lessons are fun, well-paced, and enjoyable.
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A very good portable and study anywhere book
- By Amazon Customer on 06-03-17
By: Jonathan Harnum
What listeners say about The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Alissa McCarthy
- 01-13-14
An absolute delight!
What made the experience of listening to The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works the most enjoyable?
I've been a musician all of my life and yet in each of these lectures there was something new to learn. I enjoyed Dr. Greenberg's delivery and found the contextual information about the composer and the time in which they lived to have a profound impact of how I heard the pieces discussed. I also came away with a new-found appreciation for some of the composers with whom I was less familiar. All in all I was sad to hear it end and will definitely look for another series.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 04-30-19
Exquisite
Bob Greenberg's, knowledge and passion is infectious. I really can't express the joy I have received from his lectures. This one is a gem
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- Sarah F. Burns
- 05-22-15
Entertaining and Educational
Where does The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
It's right up there among my favorite audio books. Professor Greenberg is a fantastic speaker and the content is compelling.
What about Professor Robert Greenberg’s performance did you like?
His performance is very enthusiastic and he uses contemporary quips and analogies to illustrate how timeless this great music is. His arguments are compelling and the way he fleshes out the lives of the artists adds great richness to the enjoyment of the music.
Any additional comments?
This has been really wonderful, however, I recommend you download each orchestral piece in it's entirety, listen to it before and/or after listening to the lecture. Each lecture contains only portions of the music. I also find that if I listened to one right after another I would miss out. It would be better to listen to one lecture, listen to the music and wait a day or so before moving on to another. This isn't really a five hour car ride audio book. More of a daily walk kind of audio book.
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- milene
- 01-09-20
best teacher ever
I never write reviews, but professor Robert deserves it. He is funny, knowledgeable in music and history and gossip and deluvers an amazing, interesting, amusing class! Best great courses evar, and I am not a musician
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- M. R. Leavitt
- 11-03-19
Greenberg's style makes the course great
I liked every minute of the course because Robert Greenberg makes every minute worth listening to. My problem (and it's mine not his) is that I often don't hear what he wants me to hear, so I just don't appreciate what he wants me to. In any case all of the selections are worth hearing and studying. My major learning from the course was often the biographical or historical information that preceded the musical analysis.
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- MZHammer
- 09-05-18
This is exactly what audiobooks are for!
The combination of music pieces played, clear and to-the-point explanations, historical discussions and personal opinions by the narrator is just exceptional.
The narrator/lecturer is funny, opinionated and super knowledgeable. Making it a must hear for any symphony/history enthusiast.
Highly recommended
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- Ark1836
- 08-03-15
A Horizon Expanding Tour Through Musical Greats
This is my third music class by Professor Greenberg. As always, he is a master storyteller and presenter. I started pursuing a musical education from a point of next to zero understanding or appreciation. I was goaded into beginning these courses by my daughter's school requirement that she learn to play a musical instrument. I do not want to be ignorant about anything my daughter is doing, so I started taking these Great Courses lectures to build an understanding. I confess that I did not really expect to like learning about music and just hoped for a decent experience. I have been more than pleasantly surprised by both the quality of the presentations and the subject matter. I never expected it to happen, but these courses have begun to radically change my taste in music. My music collection has grown considerably as I have purchased recordings of the various composers covered by Professor Greenberg. From these courses, I have developed an appreciation of the art form that previously was not part of my life. What started out as just a desire to learn what my daughter is learning is turning into a desire to learn for my own sake.
This course examines thirty great orchestral works. I must disagree with the word "greatest" in the title because the professor admits from the beginning that he wanted to survey orchestral works through time, starting with Vivaldi (who was born in the 1600s) and ending with Shostakovich (who died in 1975). The professor also limited his selections to no more than two works from the same author with an exception for Beethoven who was included three times, and he excluded works that he covered thoroughly in other classes. Therefore, these are not necessarily the thirty "greatest" of all time. These are, however, each masterworks. The professor discusses the context in which each work was written, focusing on either the era that the work was created or the life experience of the composer that led to its creation (or sometimes both). Each lecture includes a brief biography of the composer then analyzes the highlights of the music piece both from a technical perspective and an experiential perspective. The course is somewhat inconsistent in the amount of time the spent listening to the actual musical pieces—some works are discussed with just very brief excerpts while others include long passages. This approach is fine as long as the student is prepared to buy each of the works separately to listen to them in their entirety. Thankfully, most of these works can be purchased at a very minimal price. This is an excellent course well-worth the time.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-29-17
Brilliant
Another thoroughly enjoyable course by an amazing instructor. He can put a passionate desire anyone to continue exploring the world of Classical music.
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- Miles
- 01-10-19
Learn while laughing.
I love history and music, but I know so very little about both. In fact, the more I learn, the less I know. Greenberg does a fabulous job making it deeply insightful. A bit zany, but he really grows on you. Looking forward to hearing more and more from him.
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- Solstice
- 02-21-17
Professor Greenberg delivers another winner
Excellent in depth research matched with superlative musical knowledge and an always entertaining delivery makes this lecture series another must listen for music lovers.
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