What Makes It Great: Short Masterpieces, Great Composers - Hardcover

by Rob Kapilow (Author)

A fresh guide to classical music from the acclaimed creator of NPR's ""What Makes It Great""(TM)

Rob Kapilow has been helping audiences hear more in great music for two decades with his What Makes It Great? series on NPR's Performance Today, at Lincoln Center, and in concert halls throughout the US and Canada. In this book, he focuses on short masterpieces by major composers to help you understand the essence of each composer's genius and how each piece--which can be heard on the book's web site--transformed the musical language of its time. Kapilow's down-to-earth approach makes music history easy to grasp no matter what your musical background.

• Explores the musical styles and genius of great classical composers, including Vivaldi, Handel, J.S. Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Chopin, Puccini, Wagner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and Debussy
• Features an accompanying web site where you can see, hear, and download each short masterpiece and all of the book's musical examples
• Introduces you in depth to popular pieces from the classical repertoire, including ""Spring"" from the Four Seasons (Vivaldi), ""Dove Sono"" from The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde (Wagner), and ""Trepak"" from The Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovsky)
• Written by acclaimed composer, conductor, and pianist Rob Kapilow: ""You could practically see the light bulbs going on above people's heads"" (The Philadelphia Inquirer); ""Rob Kapilow is awfully good at what he does"" (The Boston Globe); ""A wonderful guy who brings music alive!"" (Katie Couric)

This book, along with the music on the companion web site, is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in classical music, whether first-time listener, experienced concertgoer or performing musician, offering an entree into the world of eighteen great composers and a collection of individual masterpieces spanning almost two hundred years.

Front Jacket

Anyone who is familiar with the "What Makes It Great?" series--which airs on NPR's Performance Today at Lincoln Center as well as at other concert halls around North America--knows about Rob Kapilow's special gift for helping listeners of all kinds deepen their understanding and appreciation of classical music.

In this book, Kapilow focuses on short masterpieces by major composers to help you understand the essence of each composer's genius and how each piece--which can be seen as well as heard on the book's companion website--transformed the musical language of its time. His down-to-earth approach makes these great pieces easy to grasp no matter what your musical background.

You'll explore the musical styles and genius of eighteen great classical composers, including Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Chopin, Puccini, Wagner, Dvoak, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and more. You'll delve deeply into some of the most popular music from the classical repertoire, such as Vivaldi's "Spring" from "The Four Seasons" and Tchaikovsky's "Trepak" from "The Nutcracker Suite." With Kapilow's guidance, you'll get to know each short piece measure by measure, phrase by phrase, and layer by layer, and gain a rich, in-depth understanding of its language and style.

As you listen to each composition, you'll discover how the piece is put together, what makes it great, and how it exemplifies the composer's style. This combination of close listening--via the easy-to-use website--and historical and musical context will not only foster a deep understanding of these pieces and composers, but also inform and enrich your experience when listening to classical music.

Whether you're a first-time listener, an experienced concertgoer, or a performing musician, "What Makes It Great?," along with musical examples on the book's website (with a scrollbar that allows even those who don't read music to follow along), offers an invaluable point of entry into the world of some of Western music's greatest composers and a collection of individual masterpieces spanning almost two hundred years.

Back Jacket

Praise for Rob Kapilow

"Kapilow . . . has been helping audiences hear more in great music for almost twenty years. . . . Clearly, he wants to switch people on to classical music, to encourage the same people who 'get' the music of a Broadway show similarly to get Vivaldi and Beethoven."
--"Gramophone" on "All You Have to Do Is Listen"

"Kapilow gets audiences in tune with classical music at a deeper and more immediate level than many of them thought possible."
--"Los Angeles Times"

"Rob Kapilow is awfully good at what he does. We need him."
--"The Boston Globe"

"A wonderful guy who brings music alive!"
--Katie Couric

"Rob Kapilow leaps into the void dividing music analysis from appreciation and fills it with exhilarating details and sensations."
--"The New York Times"

"You could practically see the light bulbs going on above people's heads. . . . The audience could decipher the music in a new, deeper way. It was the total opposite of passive listening."
--"The Philadelphia Inquirer"

Author Biography

Rob Kapilow is a composer, conductor, pianist, author, and music commentator. His "What Makes It Great?" programs, which began on NPR, have been developed into full-length concert evenings that are a mainstay of Lincoln Center's "Great Performers" series and are also presented on a recurring basis in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Kansas City, in California at Cerritos, and in Canada at the Toronto Symphony. They have also been turned into CD recordings and video podcasts. He appears regularly throughout the United States and Canada, both with "What Makes It Great?" and "FamilyMusik," and has been featured in print and on television, including on NBC's "Today" show and "Live from Lincoln Center" on PBS. In 2008, his first book, "All You Have to Do Is Listen," was selected as the Best Book in Music & the Performing Arts by the Association of American Publishers. In 2009, he was the subject of "Summer Sun Winter Moon," a PBS documentary about his Lewis and Clark symphony in collaboration with a Blackfoot poet.