David W. Barber

When I read this book, I laughed aloud-- several times. It tells music history in a way you wouldn't find most other places: as bawdy, absurd, and ironic. From Schumann's love life to Vivaldi's nickname, the humanity of music's "giants" is revealed with gusto. But though the book is decidedly light-hearted, a true music lover might find that they come away from it with an enhanced sense of identification, both with the composers they've always enjoyed and with themselves. When we can laugh show more at the foibles of history's great men and women, we can probably appreciate them more deeply. And the same goes for ourselves. show less

A pleasant diversion into a lighthearted view of musical history. While reading I checked a few facts to see if it was made up, and usually found what he stated.

My favorite part of the whole book is a paragraph that helps me tell two composers apart:

"For some reason, many people have trouble telling Schubert and Schumann apart. It's really quite simple: Schubert was the short, dumpy one, with curly black hair and little wire-rimmed glasses. Schumann was taller and married to Clara." (Page 97)

Cute book but with excessive focus on humor and trivia which hurt the overall coherency an readability. And I really don't like his style of footnotes. I found myself either looking carefully at every word to see if there was a footnote marker OR, if I'd reached the end of the page somehow having missed a reference to a footnote, I'd have to laboriously scan the entire page again for the marker.

Update:

The humor is lame. I stopped reading the footnotes entirely and I realize now that the main show more text is no different. Mounds and mounds of childish humor that has nothing to do with the content. I'm lowering my rating to one star.

I'm convinced this book is written for 8-10 year olds - and even then I'm not sure they would find the humor good enough to keep slogging through it. And the content is probably a little too hard for that age. (What child is going to care about all the places Bach lived?) And he makes useless references to other things without explanation. And without actual tracks to listen to, this book is near useless. show less

Even more humorous than the other two of his books that I have read. Bach, Beethoven and the Boys: Music History as It Ought to Be Taught and When the Fat Lady Sings: Opera History as It Ought to Be Taught) Lots of laughs because from the situation setup to the punch line is a paragraph or two (because it is a dictionary.)