Musically Speaking Audio Books

Of the many remarkable violinist-composers Italy produced during the Baroque era, the most remarkable of all was Antonio Vivaldi.

Handel's Water Music is a collection of short orchestral pieces composed to serenade King George I of England during a boating party on the Thames river in 1717.

As the 20th century winds to its close, Igor Stravinsky stands securely as its most important and influential composer....

The work of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) has been called the culmination of the Classical era or the wellspring of the Romantic era in European music....

By the time Mozart turned 20 he was already one of the most skilled composers of his day. His output included not only symphonies and concertos but piano pieces, serenades, arias, operas, and smaller species of musical theater, songs, and church music.

Like all tone poems, Thus Spake Zarathustra follows a program or story line which, to some extent, dictates its musical form and details....

The music of Franz Schubert is cherished for its beautiful flow of melody; melody that runs through the composer's songs and instrumental compositions like a clear and inexhaustible stream.

One of the great composers of the 19th century, Schumann wrote piano solos, chamber music, choral pieces and opera, dozens of superb songs, and some of the finest works in the orchestral reperotry....

In an era when his colleagues were exploring new modes of musical design, Brahms showed that sonata-form, fugue, and theme-with-variations still held great potential....

Berlioz had a passionate and idealistic personality, one given to incandescent enthusiasms and uncompromising struggles....