For those of you who take long car rides, I recommend the tape version of this book; for educators the CD format is best for instant access to any composer. As for the material itself, it is a superb "beginner's guide" to the history of opera. Running just short of 320 minutes (each CD is packed up to nearly the 80 minute limit), the not too cultivated British voice of the narrator takes us through the stages of the development of opera with copious illustrations drawn from the mammoth Naxos catalogue. The information is beautifully organized and very very clearly expressed. I transferred my CD copy to tape so I could hear it several times while on the road and let the information sink in. There is a Naxos set along the same lines that traces the history of all Western music; but there I felt that 4 CDs were not enough. Here I congratulate whoever did the abrigement for a fine job.

It seems the most popular budget classical music label, Naxos, not only makes most of the Western musical output available at very reasonable prices (no top stars who demand absurd fees make this possible), but it has also issued three very nice boxed sets of recordings on cassettes and CDs (I have the latter) that together give you a quick, fairly accurate, and quite enjoyable survey of three major topics. Perry Keenlyside's (NA 314412) is on three tapes or CDs and more or less delivers what the title promises in about 3 hours and 40 minutes. The text is considerately divided into sections--"Mozart, the child prodigy," "January 1762, the first journeys," "Paris and London, 1763-4," and so on--with tracking cues for each section. The narration and quotations from letters and journals of the time are accompanied by the appropriate music drawn from the bottomless Naxos catalogue. Nigel Anthony is the narrator, aided by Paul Rhys (Mozart), Edward de Souza (Leopold Mozart), with David Timson and Anna Patrick in "other parts." I have not seen the original books to see how much of an abridgment this is, if at all, but that is immaterial. The voices are personable, the information digestible, the whole project very worth while, especially at the price. Those last two sentences are true for the other setsas well. Richard Fawke's (NA414012) and (417612) are both on 4 tapes or CDs and read solo by Robert Powell. I am afraid that just a little five hours is not enough to handle the first topic with any satisfying degree of completeness; but it does give a 'Monarch Notes" glance at an enormously wide and complicated topic and is just enough for anyone who wants a head start before plunging into longer works. On the other hand, I greatly enjoyed the Opera set, timed at only 5 minutes more than the other recording. Trying to cover less, it does it better; and it even has room for some amusing incidents such as the one about the famous one-act opera that was entered into a contest (which it won) by the composer's wife who had more faith in it than did the composer. [No, you listen to the recording to learn which opera I mean.] My only objection to the Naxos recordings of books in the low recording level that makes it a bit difficult to hear on a walkman set up on (say) a noisy train. But this should offer no problem to home hearing or even in your car. These sets are really perfect listening for long trips.

From Gregorian Chant to Henryk Gorecki (the first living composer to get into the pop album charts), Richard Fawkes' The History Of Classical Music presents the fascinating and informative story of more than a thousand years of Western classical music and the composers who have sought to express in music the deepest human feelings and emotions. Welsh also explains polyphony, sonata form, serial music, and other musical expressions with a text that is illustrated by performances from some of the most highly praised recordings of recent years. Fawkes' superb text is ably narrated on in this four compact disc collection by Robert Powell (Running Time: 5 hours, 20 minutes). The History Of Classical Music is also available on audio cassette. Also highly recommended is the unabridged Naxos Audiobook edition of Richard Fawkes' The History Of Opera.

I have been in software development for the past 20 years, from IBM mainframe to client/server environments. I needed to "get in" on the new technology. I created the development environment I thought was needed to make the most of this book. It carried me, step-by-step, through development methodology in client/server development. However, the web applicaton development portion of the book is sorely lacking in usable information. I found the guidance somewhat lacking in understandable instruction concerning development for web applications. The downloaded program listing doesn't compile correctly, because of a lack of a class. The class is developed in the book, but there are no instructions on how to incorporate the class. Also, SQL Server is used as a database, but no reference is made to it as necessary to create and run the listings in the book.

I have most of the better selling C# books on the market. That gives me a unique perspective. Among all of the books dealing with ADO.NET / C# data access, this one stands alone in showing the reader how to construct a Domain Object Model to hold data, and moreover how to use some of NET's more advances features like Reflection and Attributes to assist in the creation of this code. To me, the chapter outlining this process was worth the price of the book alone. Like I said, it is absolutely unique. Most writers, perhaps because of a lack of in-depth understanding, just rehash the ADO.NET Dataset concept. But you can do so much more with NET that anyone concerned with building a proper DAL would do themselves a dissservice if they skipped over "C# and the NET Framework".

This book is a good introduction to c# and .net. Unlike some c# books totally devoted to sytax, which is not a problem for c++/java programers, this one covers a lot of areas in .net applications using c#, such as windows form, web form and web service. But the book does not provide a deep insignt into .net. As some viewer said, "basic introduction...but enough to give the reader a taste".

The topic, "The C++ Perspective", in my opinion, doesn't make much sense. There are some minor errors in the book, but to correct them is not a problem.

To sum up, if you want to know a little more than tutorials, try this one; if you want to dig into .net framework, maybe Jeffrey's Applied MS .NET Framework Programming or some il books.