Robert Greenberg, a composer and music historian, presents a comprehensive, accessible guide to how music has mirrored Western history that will transform the experience of listening for novice and longtime listeners alike. You will learn how to listen for key elements in different genres of music-from madrigals to minuets and from sonatas to symphonies-along with the enthralling history of great music from ancient Greece To The twentieth century. You'll get answers to such questions as: Why was Beethoven so important? How did the Enlightenment change music? and what's so great about opera anyway? How to Listen to Great Music will let you finally hear what you've been missing.

"The great courses"--Spine.

Arnold Schoenberg's Vienna and Expressionism -- Postlude.