Professor Greenberg has outdone himself. In all his Great Courses productions he is a superb lecturer -- learned; witty; blending music theory with history; delivering scholarship in a thoroughly popular, interesting, accessible way. Here he surpasses even his past excellence, with a survey of music that is truly outstanding and wide-ranging, but with the unifying theme of orchestral work and development. Listening to the lectures, and deftly interwoven musical interludes and snippets, I appreciated the works with even more richness and context. Prof. Greenberg's political and historic insights are especially brilliant, not just as scene-setting but as illuminating and informing the music itself. For instance, his two lectures on Shostakovitch encapsulate the history and psychology of ingrained totalitarian terror, and how it emerges in and shapes musical compositions. Prof. Greenberg's forays into music-theory and note-analysis are useful and informative even to this somewhat tin-eared amateur. This is one of the finest audio-books I have encountered, and I fervently recommend it. ( )

This 32-hour DVD-Book combination begins with a dense and compact exposition on musical forms (e.g., ritornello, minuet and trio, sonata) and orchestral genres. While enlightening, the general impression conveyed is that the reader is in for a heavy time. That turns out to be inaccurate. The next 30 chapters focus on a single work by a renowned composer. Two or more works of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Mozart, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky and single works by 15 additional composers are examined. The final chapter briefly mentions several other composers.

Greenberg begins each of the chapters on musical compositions with a brief synopsis of the life and background of the composer. Anecdotes illustrating significant events in or related to the composer’s life are recounted and psychological insights into the psyche of the composer are offered. An overview of the composer’s body of work follows. This varies in length and detail depending on the composer, the unique nature of the focal work and whether a single or multiple chapters are devoted to the composer’s works. This material is informative, well documented, and every bit as interesting as the material focusing on the composition.

The chapter then turns to a detailed analysis of the focal work. Greenberg selects important movements and segments within those movements and illustrates the how the musical structure differs from the prevailing approach. A well-trained ear is an asset but by no means necessary as Greenberg’s explanation of the concepts and demonstration of them on the piano is easy to grasp. Nevertheless, I sometimes found the components difficult to recognize when the symphonic work was played by a full orchestra as we would hear it on a CD or in the concert hall. Greenberg’s explanation greatly enhanced my understanding of the novel approaches of the composers, because the innovative elements of the symphony meld together into a harmonious composition.

“The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works” is an outstanding CD-Book combination that will increase even the most knowledgeable reader/viewer’s understanding of the featured symphonies and of the ingenious approaches of the composers. It is an excellent reference to keep on your shelf for ease in reviewing a relevant chapter before departing for the symphony hall. Doing so will contribute significantly to your appreciation of the work to be performed. ( )

Ever since I heard Johanna Sebastian Bach's – Air on G (played in a scene in the movie “Seven”) , classical music peeked my interest .

Prof. Greensberg has done a marvelous effort in coming up with this list , starts of with Vivaldi's 4 seasons and through Bach , Hamdel etc only Beethoven gets special consideration ( as he should ) by 2 lectures consecrated for his musical genious . The book is by no means dwells in the technicalities of music , each lecture is independent of the other and is very well crafted to introduce classical baroque renaissance periods and is targeted with the layperson in mind .

Cannot help but notice the stark differences in today's consumeristic formula based pitiful drivel peddled as “music” to unsuspecting ignorant masses when compared to Beethoven's 9th Symphony Ode to joy , Morzart's Cornerstone Opera works or Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker . ( )

It's been kind of a rough end of the year, and my reading has slowed down as the Swedish Death Cleaning has speeded up. But audiobooks are great companions while I'm cleaning, and Robert Greenberg has carried me through some onerous tasks, especially this month. I chose it because I simply wasn't up to Roxane Gay or Ta-Nehisi Coates, or in fact anything that would make me feel sad or guilty or furious.

I chose well because this course of lectures shed light on a great many pieces of music that I'm already familiar with, giving me a deeper appreciation of the works and their composers. As I've said in other reviews, Professor Greenberg's understanding of music history and history in general, is deep, and he uses it to give context to the works he's discussing. He cites Beethoven's terrible, horrible, very bad, no good year as the impetus behind some of his greatest works, and puts Shostakovich's work in the context of Stalinism where composing the wrong thing could earn you a meat axe to the back of the head.

Beyond that, he shows us much of the technique behind the works, which is a way of understanding the history of music itself, of the compositional standards and how they were changed as composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms found them either too restrictive or simply outmoded.

I had a moment of serendipity with the lecture on Gustav Mahler's 5th symphony. As the lecture wound down, I found myself wanting to listen to the whole thing. But it was late and I didn't feel like hunting it down on Spotify. A few minutes later, I turned on the radio and found myself listening to Mahler's 5th, and thinking about what Professor Greenberg had said about it as I lay in bed, finding it a deeper experience for having just heard the lecture.

If you listen to classical music this lecture series, like Greenberg's other series on music, can greatly enrich your listening. I always come away from one of his series with a new appreciation for a composer or a work I'd never given much thought to. ( )