Book description
The dramatic story of five key turning points in a thousand years of
Western music - discoveries that changed the course of history.
Who first invented 'Doh Re Mi...'?
What do we mean by "in tune"?
Looking back down the corridor of a thousand years, Howard Goodall
guides us through the stories of five seismic developments in the
history of Western music. His "big bangs" may not be the
ones we expect - some are surprising and some are so obvious we
overlook them - but all have had an extraordinary impact.
Goodall starts with the invention of notation by an 11th-century
Italian monk, which removed the creation of music from the hands of
the players to the pens of the composers; moves on to the first opera;
then to the invention of the piano, and ends with the story of the
first recording made in history.
Howard Goodall has the gift of making these complicated musical
advances both clear and utterly fascinating. Racy and vivid in a
narrative full of colourful characters and graphic illustrations of
technical processes, he also gives a wonderful sense of the culture of
trial and error and competition, be it in 11th-century Italy or
19th-century America, in which all progress takes place.
Big Bangs opens a window on the crucial moments in our
musical culture - discoveries that made possible everything from Bach
to the Beatles - and tells us a riveting story of a millennium of endeavour.
Howard Goodall is an Emmy, BRIT and BAFTA award-winning composer of
choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores - among them
Red Dwarf
,
QI
and
Blackadder
- as well as a distinguished broadcaster and the author of
Big
Bangs: The Story of Five Discoveries that Changed Musical History
. In recent years he has been England's first ever National Ambassador
for Singing, the Classical Brit Composer of the Year, and Classic FM's
Composer-in-Residence. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the
British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to music
education.
