Showing results by author "Robert Greenberg" in All Categories

In The Life & Times of Beethoven, celebrated composer and music historian Professor Robert Greenberg of San Francisco Performances gives you a unique perspective on a musical genius the likes of which the world had never seen before - or since. Blending biography, history, and music appreciation, these 10 lectures portray Beethoven’s extraordinary (and still modern-sounding) music as a direct outgrowth of his life, environment, and interior emotional landscape.

More than anyone before him-more than Beethoven, Byron, even the preternatural Paganini-it was Franz Liszt who created one of the most enduring archetypes of the Romantic era: that of the artist "who walks with God and brings down fire from heaven in order to kindle the hearts of humankind." An innovative composer both for his own instrument and on an orchestral scale, Liszt was without a doubt the greatest pianist of his time and perhaps the greatest of all time, stunning even the most jaded critics and listeners everywhere he went with his sheer virtuosity and almost unbelievable musical gifts-even while playing whatever instrument was available in whatever hall he could find during his arduous travels by mail coach throughout Europe. Yet even though his fame and achievement make him one of the most written about composers of the 19th century, musically he remains the least understood. And as for his life, perhaps a good place to begin is with Felix Mendelssohn's observation that Liszt's character was "a continual alternation between scandal and apotheosis." Still-for every lover of music, Liszt remains someone you must understand, and this 8-lecture series is an ideal place to begin your acquaintance with both the man and his music.

More than many other composers, Gustav Mahler's works are highly personal expressions of his inner world, a world of overwhelming alienation and loneliness. You'll learn, through both lectures and musical excerpts, how his symphonies are vast repositories of his intellectual, emotional, and spiritual expression that made him the first exponent of Expressionism, the early 20th-century art movement that celebrates inner reality as the only reality - but explored by Mahler using the musical language of the century just ended.

Nowhere is Mozart's maturity and mastery more apparent than in the chamber music he wrote during the last 10 years of his life. These 16 lectures take you deep inside the structure of Mozart's chamber masterworks to reveal his hand at work. This is an amazing opportunity to hear, study, and enjoy a selection of immortal musical compositions that Professor Greenberg calls "a blessing of inconceivable richness". You will learn the basic "language" that all 18th-century composers used to write Classical music. You'll also explore the subtleties of Mozart's technique as a composer: his ability to make art "artless".

This collection of classic horror stories is sure to give you goose bumps, raise the hair on the back of your neck, and put some fright in your night. Includes Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch, Coin of the Realm by Charles L. Grant, Something Had to be Done by David Drake, The Graveyard Rats by Henry Kuttner, The Small Assassin by Ray Bradbury, Calling Card by Ramsey Campbell, The Words of Guru by C.M. Kornbluth, and Passengers by Robert Silverberg.

In all the annals of Western music, there has never been a couple like the Schumanns: he a pioneering critic and composer (the only ever to achieve greatness as both), she one of the leading concert pianists of Europe, as well as a composer of no small talent herself. This series of eight lectures by an award-winning composer and acclaimed teacher includes excerpts of works by both of the Schumanns as part of an introduction to an extraordinary couple and the musical legacy left to us in spite of the difficulties that dogged their marriage.

Would you like to make it in the music business? If so, All You Need to Know About Making It in the Music Business is the all-in-one audiobook you have been searching for.

Bobby and Georgia live in a normal house with their mum and their dad and their pet dog, Rory. But in that house, there's a whole world going on that they know nothing about... the world of the greeblies! Greeblies like Hemi the bedbug, Spritzer the dust mite, Darren the blowfly and Nick the tick. Five of the funniest (and grossest!) stories you'll ever read - complete with lots of disgusting bug facts - The Greeblies is about all those itchy little critters that live right under our noses (and in our hair!).