The orchestra has tuned, the lights in the hall have dimmed, and the conductor's baton signals the downbeat for the beginning of the romance. Settle back - it's telling you something... The history of classical music is littered with murder, adultery, bigamy, fraud, sado-masochism, riches, poverty, gluttony, nervous breakdowns, bizarre behaviour and terrible, terrible toilet humour (Mozart was the prime exponent of the latter). Classical music -nice? Not at all. It's the most immediate expression of mental and emotional extremes: often deceptive, sometimes dangerous and frequently a discomforting revelation. Swooning documents the all too human flaws in the lives of the great composers by loosely following the sequence of emotions as experienced in a love affair - one that doesn't work out, of course. In this fully revised and updated edition, Christopher Lawrence leads us through the listening experience, from anger and...

Electronic reproduction. Collingwood : Nero, 2015. Requires OverDrive Read (file size: N/A KB) or Adobe Digital Editions (file size: 1825 KB) or Kobo app or compatible Kobo device. (file size: N/A KB) or Amazon Kindle (file size: N/A KB).