Friday, February 20, 2009

The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra


Ganeri, Anita. 1996. The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

Inspired by Benjamin Britten's piece, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, which was composed in 1945 as an introduction to orchestral music, Anita Ganeri has written this informative yet fascinating guide to the orchestra. The accompanying CD is narrated by Ben Kingsley. He "gives listeners a lively guided tour of Britten's music, describing the sounds made by each instrument." The book is full of information, but it is accessible. It is a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be! If you'd asked me beforehand, I would have bet it would be boring and dry. But it's far from that. The CD and book complement one another well. It is not a recording of the book itself. It stands alone--could stand alone--from the book. And the book could be read and appreciated apart from the CD. However, it only makes sense to give both a try! You might find yourself preferring one over the other. After all, we all learn differently.



© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
If you're reading this post on another site, or another feed, the content has been stolen.

3 comments:

Shelley said...

This sounds really good and I love Ben Kingsley. I may actually buy this one.

Annette Laing said...

Thanks for reviewing this, Becky! I am now homeschooling my son, and am always on the lookout for fun stuff. :-)

Anonymous said...

I love the symphony but feel like I don't know enough to truly appreciate it. This book sounds like it would help me. Thanks for the review.