Listening in Paris: A Cultural History

Rating:
Summary: Music History and More
Review: This is a fascinating account of musical life in Paris between 1750 and 1850. Although Johnson is trying to discover why opera audiences became silent during this period, he has a lot more than just silence on his mind. The book explores the decline of aristocratic control over music and its take-over by bourgeois audiences; it also traces how music moved from being a cerebral experience to an emotional one. Johnson writes extremely well, and knows how to pick appropriate and witty anecdotes to keep the text moving along. This is one of the few books that both academic scholars and ordinary readers should be able to appreciate and enjoy; it is easily one of the best books on music history to come along in years, and fun to read as well.