Skip to product information
1 of 1

Knopf Publishing Group

Musical Revolutions: How the Sounds of the Western World Changed

Musical Revolutions: How the Sounds of the Western World Changed

Regular price $31.40 USD
Regular price $35.00 USD Sale price $31.40 USD
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.

12 in stock

From the critically acclaimed author of Temperament, a narrative account of the most defining moments in musical history--classical and jazz--all of which forever altered Western culture

A fascinating journey that begins with the origins of musical notation and travels through the centuries reaching all the way to our time."--Semyon Bychkov, chief conductor and music director of the Czech Philharmonic

The invention of music notation by a skittish Italian monk in the eleventh century. The introduction of multilayered hymns in the Middle Ages. The birth of opera in a Venice rebelling against the church's pious restraints. Baroque, Romantic, and atonal music; bebop and cool jazz; Bach and Liszt; Miles Davis and John Coltrane. In telling the exciting story of Western music's evolution, Stuart Isacoff explains how music became entangled in politics, culture, and economics, giving rise to new eruptions at every turn, from the early church's attempts to bind its followers by teaching them to sing in unison to the global spread of American jazz through the Black platoons of the First World War.

The author investigates questions like: When does noise become music? How do musical tones reflect the natural laws of the universe? Why did discord become the primary sound of modernity? Musical Revolutions is a book replete with the stories of our most renowned musical artists, including notable achievements of people of color and women, whose paths to success were the most difficult.

Author: Stuart Isacoff
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 06/07/2022
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 7.80h x 5.80w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780525658634

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2022
Booklist 04/01/2022 pg. 10
Library Journal 04/01/2022 pg. 86
View full details