Written by Robert Greenberg
Read by Robert Greenberg
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 256 Kbps

This course can permanently enrich your life: With Professor Greenberg as your teacher, you will hear and understand an entire language of unmatched beauty, genius, and power.

Why Is Concert Music so Powerful?

How can concert music—once it is understood—so move our lives? Professor Greenberg explains in his introductory lecture: "Music, the most abstract and sublime of all the arts, is capable of transmitting an unbelievable amount of expressive, historical, and even philosophical information to us, provided that our antennas are up and pointed in the right direction. A little education goes a long way to vitalizing and rendering relevant a body of music that many feel is beyond their grasp.

"And why is an understanding of concert music worthwhile? I would suggest a few reasons:

“The skills one brings to listening to music—imagination; abstract, nonconcrete thinking; intuition; and instinctive reaction and trusting those instincts—have gone uncultivated in our educational system and culture for too long.

“Music, as a universal, nonverbal language, allows us to tap into the social, cultural, and aesthetic traditions of different cultures and historical eras. We become more aware of our shared humanity and the wisdom and vision of others.

“Music allows us to transcend our own world and partake in utterly different realities.

“Last, but certainly not least, good music is fun to listen to, relatively inexpensive—we can do it by ourselves or with others—and there are any number of ways to expand our knowledge and appreciation of the art."

Course Lecture Titles
48 Lectures
45 minutes / lecture


1 Music as a Mirror
2 Sources—The Ancient World and the Early Church
3 The Middle Ages
4 Introduction to the Renaissance
5 The Renaissance Mass
6 The Madrigal
7 An Introduction to the Baroque Era
8 Style Features of Baroque-era Music
9 National Styles—Italy and Germany
10 Fugue
11 Baroque Opera, Part 1
12 Baroque Opera, Part 2
13 The Oratorio
14 The Lutheran Church Cantata
15 Passacaglia
16 Ritornello Form and the Baroque Concerto
17 The Enlightenment and an Introduction to the Classical Era
18 The Viennese Classical Style, Homophony, and the Cadence
19 Classical-era Form—Theme and Variations
20 Classical-era Form—Minuet and Trio: Baroque Antecedents
21 Classical-era Form—Minuet and Trio Form
22 Classical-era Form—Rondo Form
23 Classical-era Form—Sonata Form, Part 1
24 Classical-era Form—Sonata Form, Part 2
25 Classical-era Form—Sonata Form, Part 3
26 The Symphony—Music for Every Person
27 The Solo Concerto
28 Classical-era Opera—The Rise of Opera Buffa
29 Classical-era Opera, Part 2—Mozart and the Operatic Ensemble
30 The French Revolution and an Introduction to Beethoven
31 Beethoven's Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, op. 67, Part 1
32 Beethoven's Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, op. 67, Part 2
33 Introduction to Romanticism
34 Formal Challenges and Solutions in Early Romantic Music
35 The Program Symphony—Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Part 1
36 The Program Symphony—Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Part 2
37 19th-Century Italian Opera—Bel Canto Opera
38 19th-Century Italian Opera—Giuseppe Verdi
39 19th-Century German Opera—Nationalism and Experimentation
40 19th-Century German Opera—Richard Wagner
41 The Concert Overture, Part 1
42 The Concert Overture, Part 2
43 Romantic-era Musical Nationalism
44 Russian Nationalism
45 An Introduction to Early 20th-Century Modernism
46 Early 20th-Century Modernism—Claude Debussy
47 Early 20th-Century Modernism—Igor Stravinsky
48 Early 20th-Century Modernism—Arnold Schönberg