The best concise introduction to an essential subject.

Is music a science or an art? It’s both, as Andrew Gant reveals in this lively and accessible account o what music is and what i’s for. Music has been central to life since the dawn of hymankind and is intimately bound up with the origins of language.

Andrew Gant introduces us to its long history and its many genres and manifestations. He explains how composers compse, players play and singers sing. He looks at how musical styles develop, the ways they fall in and out of fashion, and why certain kinds of music – dancing and love songs, for example – is a universal in human culture. He considers how musis us composed, the nature of genius and the working of inspiration. He shows how music can be composed and used to stir patriotism, instill courage, reinforce identity, sell a product, or make a political point. And he goes beyond humans to examine music in the natural world in the creativity of birdsong. This is, in short, the ideal introdction to a very big subject.

 

Andrew Gant is the author of Christmas Carols: From Village Green to Church Choir and O Sing unto the Lord: The History of English Church Music. He is a composer, choirmaster, university teacher and writer. He has directed the choirs of The Guards’ Chapel, Worcester College Oxford, and Her majesty’s Chapel Royal. He lectures in music at St. Peter’s College, Oxford.