Year of Wonder

Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day

By: Clemency Burton-Hill

Narrated by: Clemency Burton-Hill

“Year of Wonder is an absolute treat—the most enlightening way to be guided through the year.” — Eddie Redmayne

A unique celebration of classical music that showcases one inspirational piece each day of the year, written by an award-winning violinist and BBC Radio personality

Classical music has a reputation for being stuffy, boring, and largely inaccessible, but Burton-Hill is here to change that. An award-winning writer, broadcaster and musician, with a deep love of the art form she wants everyone to feel welcome at the classical party, and her desire to share her passion for its diverse wonders inspired this unique, enlightening, and expertly curated treasury. As she says, “The only requirements for enjoying classical music are open ears and an open mind.”

Year of Wonder introduces readers to one piece of music each day of the year, artfully selected from across genres, time periods, and composers. Burton-Hill offers short introductions to contextualize each piece, and makes the music come alive in modern and playful ways. From Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Puccini to George Gershwin, Clara Schumann, Philip Glass, Duke Ellington, and many remarkable yet often-overlooked voices, Burton-Hill takes us on a dazzling journey through our most treasured musical landscape.

Thoughtfully curated and masterfully researched, Year of Wonder is a book of classical music for everyone. Whether you’re a newcomer or an aficionado, Burton-Hill’s celebration will inspire, nourish, and enrich your life in unexpected ways.

Unusable

As you'd expect from a successful radio personality, Clemency Burton-Hill's narration of Year of Wonder is effective and engaging. The content is fine -- nothing particularly illuminating or insightful, but an enjoyable and idiosyncratic collection of brief introductory vignettes to lots of fantastic music. As an audiobook, though, this title is fatally flawed. I wasn't expecting the music to be included (the licensing would be a nightmare, presumably), but I was expecting each "chapter" to be a separate track. Instead, however, each track corresponds to a month's worth of intros, and even though Audible ostensibly remembers where I've left off each time, this grouping of ~ 30 essays into each track makes the audiobook very hard to navigate. Whoever made this decision clearly didn't spend even a moment thinking about how this book was designed to be read or listened to. I would steer clear of the audio book, and consider the print version instead.

narrator is great but NO Music

says it showcases a classical peice each day but it only includes the intro, it cuts to the next day as soon as she claims "enjoy the following". I guess I should have figured, my disappointment is my own and not the audiobooks fault. The narrator is great and does a fantastic job.