This is a book about classical music - for people who say they love
music "but don't understand how it works", as well as for performers and
music students of all ages.
Proposing that deeper enjoyment begins with an understanding of music's
basic structures, the book describes how the simple template of earlier
dance-songs was adapted by composers writing music for instruments. The
instrumental sonata became one of the great formal frameworks of western
music: in symphonies, concertos, chamber music and solo sonatas, it
dominated concert music for some 250 years - yet it is little understood
by many music lovers. To simplify this vast field, Past Sounds singles
out for study "sonatas" for piano trio - piano, violin and 'cello. These
instruments have well-contrasted and easily identifiable sounds, and as
the story unfolds the reader is introduced to many rarely heard but
beautiful works for piano trio.
This is a lively, clearly-written narrative as well as a handbook for
subsequent listening. The book has two distinctive features. Firstly,
technical terms are carefully explained, and for those not familiar with
music notation, audio clips in an accompanying website reproduce the
actual sound of the music described. Secondly, in a broad historical
sweep from mid-18th to 20th centuries, the development of the sonata is
followed in its context of contemporary arts and literature -
demonstrating how the sonata idea of classical music well deserves to be
understood and valued as a western cultural archetype alongside other
great artistic and literary forms.
