Five Straight Lines A History of Music [Audiobook]

At the same time, he explores developments in musical style and changes in forms, techniques and instrumentation, not only in music for the court and church but as sung in pubs, theatres, the streets and at home. The final chapters describe the modernist revolutions personified by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok and Messiaen. They show how, with the advent of mass media, different forms of music - from pop, blues and musicals to classical, opera and jazz - along with music from places such as South America, Africa and the Far East, all began to influence each other in a series of percussive but productive collisions. The account ranges widely across time and space. It is authoritative, scholarly and consistently enjoyable. It presents a series of coherent arguments, spiced with unexpected detail and anecdote. This an audiobook, in short, for everyone interested in music.