A clear piece of musical criticism analysing the formal aspects of Beethoven's 6th symphony. Reviewed as very readable.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). Adult Piano Adventures Classics Book 1 celebrates great masterworks of Western music, including symphony themes, opera gems, and classical favorites. The melodies of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and other master composers are arranged at just the right level for adult beginners and for those who are returning to the keyboard. Section 1 features piano arrangements with minimal hand position changes, and many selections include an optional duet part. Section 2 introduces the I, IV, and V7 chords in the key of C major, harmonizing themes such as Sibelius's Finlandia, Schubert's The Trout, and Mendelssohn's Spring Song. Section 3 presents the primary chords in the key of G major, with arrangements of Vivaldi's Autumn (from The Four Seasons), Mozart's theme from The Magic Flute, Lizst's Liebestraum, and more.

An introduction to birdsong, with enhanced features - audio samples etc.

Associated through descriptive texts with literature, politics, religion, and other subjects, 'characteristic' symphonies offer an opportunity to study instrumental music as it engages important social and political debates of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This first full-length study of the genre illuminates the relationship between symphonies and their aesthetic and social contexts by focussing on the musical representation of feeling, human physical movement, and the passage of time. The works discussed include Beethoven's Pastoral and Eroica Symphonies, Haydn's Seven Last Words of our Savior on the Cross, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's symphonies on Ovid's Metamorphoses, and orchestral battle reenactments of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. A separate chapter details the aesthetic context within which characteristic symphonies were conceived, as well as their subsequent reception, and a series of appendixes summarises bibliographic information for over 225 relevant examples.

Nicholas Cook's guide charts the dramatic transformation in the reception of Symphony No. 9.