Enjoying music must be the demanding toy. It exacts not only our time and money, but also knowledge. You should be acquainted with a heap of idiosyncratic terminology, and be able to distinguish masterwork from the mass of lemon. There is no easy workout. All you could do is just listen and listen. Here comes in the critics who coach us what is good or bad. But the problem is this: day by day, new pieces are flooding the market and just reviewing only the title is a daunting task. So most listen what they find surreptitiously.
But the merit of classical music is that all the works are already canonized and there are well established critical mechanics. You don¡¯t need to pick up by yourself. The valuables have been culled over generation and generation. All you have to do is registering the list of the established canon in your mind and choose between players.
This book is written to help audience with encyclopedic survey of masters in Western classical music. This is not the textbook for the class on the history of music, but the reference for the common audience. Subjects are restricted to well-known masters like Bach, Mozart, Brahms or Prokofiev. The discography-like descriptions are provided for masterpieces of each composer by over 50 critics. With no doubt, words are not that suitable to demonstrate the beauty of the music. So writers seem to assume that readers have already given ear to the music or at least have CDs at hand. It¡¯s not that problem for the music can tell itself only with sound in the note not with words in the paper. But the real beauty of this book lies in its comprehensive approach. It offers not only the accounts on music itself, but relates it to the rest of society. Not only they explain each composer¡¯s personal life, but also they set them in the context of their times. Music tells itself. But knowing the social settings that the music was played and enjoyed is definitely helpful to the modern audience. For such purpose, this book contains thousands of illustration showing the social and historical background. This book could, in this regard, be read something of a history in the view of music. This heightens the joy of reading.
But this book has some weaknesses. First, this book is targeted to somewhat advanced reader. So there is no explanation about some basic terminology like polyphony, cord, or counterpoint. Those should be the basic. And this kind of writing style leads to pedantic and textbook-like reservedness, in some cases. But overall, this book is readable and informative.

This 4-volume work is the centerpiece of my collection of books related to classical music. Abundantly illustrated, each volume discusses a period in the history of Western music from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century.

Each volume presents the key composers of that time and discusses how their lives and their personalities, as well as the culture of the time, exerted an influence on their compositions. (Other contemporaneous composers are presented in a section at the end of each volume.)

But that is not all, for separate chapters, called "Interludes", are interspersed throughout each volume giving pictures of the development of instruments, the orchestra, concert halls and opera houses, and much more.

You don't have to be an expert to enjoy these books (I'm not), they offer much for anyone interested in classical music.

This seems to me a monumental achievement in its scope of information, presentation and scholarship yet never pretending to be more than it is and at the same time, far greater than the sum of its facts. Beautifullly illustrated and annotated, this book by Mr. Raeburn takes us through the most interesting of operatic tours from Peri to Maxwell Davies. It is at once a monument to the joy and intelligence which Mr.Raeburn has lavished on this book and to the labor of love which created it. A joy to read with information that meets the reader's needs from every conceivable angle while missing litle detail without overwhelming with a myriad of facts. A coffee table book, if there is really is such a animal, which one can pick up and put down at leasure and with continued pleasure. A heartfelt thanks to Michael Raeburn for writng this masterpiece and to Thames and Hudson for publishing it. I can only hope it will bring joy and profit to all involved: reader, author and publisher. This publication deserves nothing less and much more. Thanks to Amazon.com for the chance to e-mail comments to them. This is my fourth message today. Even if it is never read it was fun writing it.

This book is a wonderfull display of british artwork, it is also extremely informative and a trully usefull and pleasurable book to have. I can not recomend it highly enough.

Loving Picasso is a book that will touch your heart, and my moisten your eyes.

When we visit a museum and see wonderful paintings of striking women, seldom do we think about the conditions under which the art was created. Did the artists and the model have a relationship? If so, what was it? Did they have enough to eat while the work was done? Were they considerate of one another? Was the studio warm or cold? What was the model thinking about as she posed? How had the woman come to model? And so on.

I will never look at another painting or sculpture again of a human model without being filled with such questions, as a result of reaching about the life of Fernande Olivier from her private journal, letters, and memoir as presented in Loving Picasso.

This beautiful, charming woman lived an extremely difficult life. It was so challenging that few could have emerged from such awful circumstances without being distorted in mind and personality. Yet, Ms. Olivier seems to have avoided both, and been a light in the life of her many male admirers, female friends, and an inspiration to Picasso in his most innovative years.

From the book's title, you will think that the material is mostly about the years when Ms. Olivier and Picasso lived together, but that's only about half the book. The book is really an autobiography through the time when the two split up for the final time in 1912.

Readers will be rewarded with many intriguing views of the lives of "starving" artists in Paris, the many distinguished friends of Picasso and Ms. Olivier, and how Picasso changed as he went from an unknown to one of the recognized leaders of avant-garde art along with Matisse.

Having read about Picasso's troubled relationships with other women, I was surprised to see that his relationship with Ms. Olivier was one of the most pleasant and productive connections he had in his life. Certainly, he often chose her as a model for his work, and we will always see her as the young person she was then. Many other details in here will either surprise or shock you about Picasso, and expand your understanding of his creative methods and personality.

One of the most charming parts of the book can be found in the many images of places where she lived, the people she knew, the paintings and sculptures for which she was the model, and her own drawings.

For those who have enjoyed Gertrude Stein's, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, you will probably be interested to know that Ms. Olivier's writing is considered to be a more accurate and complete version of many of the same events. In fact, there is an interesting view of Ms. Stein's apparent efforts to keep Ms. Olivier's writing away from an American audience to preserve the market for Ms. Stein's own writing on this subject.

After you finish this rewarding memoir of a most unique person, I suggest that you think about what the purpose of life is. That's a question with which Ms. Olivier had trouble coming to grips.

Follow your purpose!

This book is about Fernande Olivier, Picasso's lover during his formative years as an artist. It's about a relationship based on control -- Picasso won't let Fernande have shoes so she won't be able to leave the house. This book is extremely interesting but you can't help being astonished by how naive and foolish Fernande is.

This is the third Picasso and ____ book I've read. There are likely more, but the others I've seen are Picasso and Dora (his mistress in the late forties and Life with Picassoby Francoise Gilot who had his attention in his later years.

This book along with the others read like a three part trilogy - this latest one covering the earliest relationship. The book is very good and seems to be honest. Quite readable.

This book should be on the reading list of anyone interested in probing what the heck Picasso was about. Note that he does not get any less difficult in his relationships!! This book is fantastic to see that Picasso is as childish and monstrous in his early relationships as he is in his later ones!