Listen to Top 100 Audiobooks in Arts & Entertainment, Music

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Title: Mozart: Così Fan Tutte

Author: Thomson Smillie

Narrator: David Timson

Format: Original Recording

Length: 1 hr and 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-26-12

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Così Fan Tutte contains some of Mozarts most sublime music. On one level, the opera is purely a social anecdote about young people falling in and out of love; but Mozart was a supreme sensualist and a great humanist, and invested the tale with all his understanding of humanity and young love. In this title, David Timson refutes the charge that Mozart squandered his genius on a work full of trivial nonsense and proves this "miraculous yet problematic" opera to be a great work of theatre. To listen to this thought-provoking examination of the characters and the music is both thoroughly enriching and great fun.

Editorial Reviews:

This is a close-up look at Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, an opera about two young lovers who fall in and out of love. With David Timson's enthusiastic lead, the listener will discover the intricacies and depths of Mozart's work and come to appreciate it beyond the simplicity of its plot. Timson's narration is spirited; his voice will fill the listener's heart. This audio is a must-have for opera lovers; the listener will feel like he is in the theatre experiencing the power and enchantment of Mozart's music first hand.

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Title: Tristan und Isolde

Author: Christopher Cook

Narrator: Christopher Cook

Format: Original Recording

Length: 1 hr and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-26-12

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Tristan und Isolde centers around two lovers who dream of romantic love and yearn for oblivion. No composer had written such a work before. Turning his back on traditional tonality, Wagner changed the course of Western music with Tristan und Isolde. But theres also fact behind the fiction: while he wrote his opera, Wagner was in love with anothers mans wife, Mathilde Wesendonk. So Tristan and Isolde are also Richard and Mathilde.

Christopher Cook explores the making of a masterpiece, the story of lovers gripped by a passion that can only be consummated beyond the grave, a forbidden love that is blind to duty, honor and social obligation.

Editorial Reviews:

This audiobook investigates the revolutionary character of Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde. Author and narrator Christopher Cook combines historical, musical, and critical information. He presents nuanced guidance to this stunning opera. Pointing out the radical nature of its composition in the context of western classical music, Cook leads listeners deep into the psychological heart of this tragic love story. Listeners will be shocked to learn some of philosophy that went on in the composition of the opera - for example, that the stage represented consciousness for Wagner, while the pit orchestra was supposed to be the "deep unconscious" of man. Cook's clear, engaging narration, combined with generous clips from the opera itself, will keep listeners from being pressing pause on this audiobook.

Members Reviews:

To this loveliest of all dreams...

If "Der fliegende Holländer" is Wagner 101, "Tristan und Isolde" is a graduate course.

Travel, magic, mystery, turmoil, torment, deception, love, desire, denial, consummation, and death: all these elements and more are present in this opera. And as author Christopher Cook rightly says, the work which was "never intended to be a romantic love story" also "refuses to conform to any single meaning."

The author presents his intriguing insights with contributions from additional narrators and musical excerpts. He discusses the details of Wagner's initial inspiration, including his tempetuous affair with Mathilde Wesendonck.

Wagner said he embarked on the work because "never in my life having enjoyed the true happiness of love," he would create this opera as "a memorial to this loveliest of all dreams, from which, from first to last, love shall for once find utter repletion."

The music of "Tristan und Isolde" was nothing less than revolutionary with its (now-famous) "Tristan chord," and the prolonged unfinished cadences and harmonic suspensions which reflect the interior drama of the characters. From the first notes to the final "Mild und leise wie er lächelt," Wagner presented innovations that did nothing less than change the course of western music forever. With our modern ears, all too used to movie soundtracks and dramatic effects, we might not realize just how provocative these musical effects were in Wagner's day.

Friedrich Nietzsche was moved to write that the opera expressed "the insatiable and sweet craving for the secrets of night and death." Clara Schumann called it "the most repugnant thing I've ever seen or heard."

One thing is certain: it is not an opera which provokes indifference.

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Title: Verdi: Aida

Author: Thomson Smillie

Narrator: David Timson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-26-12

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Ancient Egypt and the war with Ethiopia is the setting for Verdis grandest opera. It is the story of the love between Rhadames, the Egyptian general, and Aida, an Ethiopian slave, and the jealousy of Amneris, daughter of the King of Egypt. It was written in 1871 to a commission from the Khedive of Egypt to inaugurate the new opera house in Cairo. Aida generally is considered one of the most spectacular of Verdis operas.

But Thomson Smillie, in his fascinating introduction to the work, presented by actor David Timson, says it is, more accurately, "a chamber opera with a grand march through the middle of it". The historic background - how and why it came to be composed - is clearly explained. This is followed by the plot, the characters, and the principal arias and musical moments - a perfect way of getting to know the work.

Editorial Reviews:

With ancient Egypt's war with Ethiopia the setting for this opera's love story, Aida is generally considered one of the most spectacular examples of Verdi's work. Narrator David Timson performs Thomson Smillie's exploration of the historic background behind Aida - how and why it came to be composed - and the difficulties and challenges for its performers. Timson's refined delivery enhances the accessibility and charm of Smillie's words and listeners new to opera will find this audiobook a wonderful introduction to this musical world.

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Title: Don Giovanni

Author: Thomson Smillie

Narrator: David Timson

Format: Original Recording

Length: 1 hr and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-26-12

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Don Giovanni has long been regarded as Mozarts supreme theatrical achievement. The subject seems unpromising - the last day in the life of the notorious womanizer Don Juan - but the skill of the librettist allied to the genius of Mozart at the very peak of his powers has created a work which is not only highly entertaining but reflects an incredible understanding of the human condition.

Editorial Reviews:

Thomson Smillies series of Opera Explained audiobooks on individual operatic works is the perfect introduction for the would-be opera fan. Each title in the series runs about an hour, features plenty of recorded clips, and is narrated with pluck and good humor by David Timson. Your opera education starts here.

"These stunning bars of D-minor...mark the beginning of one of operas strangest and most powerful journeys." So begins Smillies treatment of Mozarts Don Giovanni. This audiobook explains why this lushly told story of the last day in the life of a libertine has become the 10th most performed opera of all time and was greeted to rapturous ovations upon its 1787 premiere in Prague. Also interesting are the biographical details of Mozarts brief, brilliant life.

Members Reviews:

Very short introductions to specific operas!

I have recently developed a passion for opera that has found me attending an opera I know little about beforehand. A colleague in London got tickets for Don Giovanni and I decided my first visit to Covent Garden demanded a little investment in preparation ahead of time. This series from Naxos is just perfect to get you ready to attend an opera with a little bit of historical and musical context to make the experience richer.

The recording is only about 1 hour and 20 minutes long. The narrator is good, he provides not only background for the specific opera in question but also for other operas by the same composer. Clips of the music are part of the 'explanation' - one of the nicest feature of audiobooks vs. reading a regular text.

So, you get a summary of the story, some musical interludes and some historical and musical context - helpful to allow you to focus more attention on the music and the staging once you get to the opera.

Highly recommended!

These books make me enjoy the opera.

The combination of Thomson Smillie and narration of David Timson is magical.

The book explains the opera with just enough history and background to make it intriguing ,the excerpts are beautiful enough to explain the opera and then you'd love going back to watch or listen to that masterpiece .

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Title: Verdi: Rigoletto

Author: Thomson Smillie

Narrator: David Timson

Format: Original Recording

Length: 1 hr and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-26-12

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Rigoletto is simply wonderful entertainment with superb music. It is also much more - a daring (for its time) attack on aristocratic privilege, a tender love story, and an impassioned appeal on behalf of the disadvantaged, all set to music of such wealth and beauty that, with its sister operas La Traviata and Il Trovatore, it has defined Italian opera for 150 years. Overcoming initial trouble with the censors, Verdi's Rigoletto was a smash hit at its premiere and has not been out of the repertoire since. Its not hard to see why.

From Thomson Smillies accessible account, the opera comes alive in this audiobook. David Timson is the perfect exponent of Smillie's vivacious writing, securing a thoroughly entertaining and informative performance.

Editorial Reviews:

Thomson Smillie opens his inviting exegesis of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto by playing the instantly recognizable "La donna e mobile". The approachability of the famous canzone mirrors the general nature of Smillie's teaching methods. Smillie is a renowned lecturer on the performing arts, most notably on elite cruise ships, precisely because he tends to awaken the same passion in his listeners as he himself feels. And he truly shines when explaining opera - both in elucidating the composer's background and the composition itself. In this episode on Verdi, actor David Timson enthuses listeners about Smillie's pet subject in a pleasant, professorial fashion, discussing (amongst many other matters) the Austrian censors that almost brought down the famous Italian Romantic composer.

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Title: Steely Dan's Aja (33 1/3 Series)

Author: Don Breithaupt

Narrator: Victor Bevine

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-26-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 21 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Aja was the album that made Steely Dan a commercial force on the order of contemporaries like Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and Chicago. A double-platinum, Grammy-winning best seller, it lingered on the Billboard charts for more than a year and spawned three hit singles. Odd, then, that its creators saw it as an "ambitious, extended" work, the apotheosis of their anti-rock, anti-band, anti-glamour aesthetic. Populated by 35 mostly jazz session players, Aja served up prewar song forms, mixed meters and extended solos to a generation whose idea of pop daring was Paul letting Linda sing lead once in a while. And, impossibly, it sold. Including an in-depth interview with Donald Fagen, this audiobook paints a detailed picture of the making of a masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews:

Virtuosic, ultra-cool, and polished to perfection, Steely Dan's 1978 stunner Aja remains one of rock and roll's most unique albums. With its sprawling, eight-minute tracks and its wry, sometimes inscrutable lyrics, it'd be tempting to say Aja is to rock what Gravity's Rainbow is to literature, but that would hardly do justice to toe-tapping pop perfection served up on such frothy tracks as "Peg" and "Black Cow". Musician Don Breithaupt unpacks this masterpiece, digging into the music's theoretical underpinnings and putting its singular construction - among other novelties, Steely Dan auteurs Walter Becker and Donald Fagen eschewed the band model and relied primarily on session musicians - into historical perspective. Part of the popular 33 1/3 series, this hip, knowing book gives Aja the analysis it deserves.

Members Reviews:

You Better Know Music Theory

I have 3 degrees in music and all I can say is that this book has taken a great album and made it boring through the overuse of music theory terms that most users will not understand. I was hoping that it would approach the story from a point of how the songs came about rather than saying "This song is based upon a chord progression of the IV-I chords essentially using a plagal cadence." Better save the money and just buy the CD.

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Title: Guns N' Roses' 'Use Your Illusion' I and II (33 1/3 Series)

Author: Eric Weisbard

Narrator: Oliver Wyman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-26-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 16 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

It was the season of the blockbuster. Between August 12 and November 26 1991, a whole slew of acts released albums that were supposed to sell millions of copies in the run-up to Christmas. Metallica, Michael Jackson, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Garth Brooks, MC Hammer, and U2 - all were competing for the attention of the record-buying public at the same time. But perhaps the most attention-seeking act of all was Guns N Roses. Their albums Use Your Illusion 1 and 2, released on the same day, were both 75-minute sprawlers with practically the same cover design - an act of colossal arrogance. On one level, it worked. The albums claimed the top two chart positions, and ultimately sold 7 million copies each in the US alone. On another level, it was a disaster. This was an album that Axl Rose has been unable to follow up in fifteen years. It signaled the end of Guns N Roses, of heavy metal on the Sunset Strip, and the entire 1980s model of blockbuster pop/rock promotion. Use Your Illusion marked the end of rock as mass culture. In this book, Eric Weisbard shows how the album has matured into a work whose baroque excesses now have something to teach us about pop and the platforms it raises and lowers, about a man who suddenly found himself praised to the firmament for every character trait that had hitherto marked him as an irredeemable loser.

Editorial Reviews:

Award-winning narrator Oliver Wyman sounds exactly like a cooler, older friend who knows a great deal more than you do, and listeners will instinctively hang on to every word of his performance of Eric Weisbard's dissection of Use Your Illusion I and II. Wyman's engaging narration is threaded with skepticism as Weisbard is not quite a fan of the band, but Wyman never crosses into sneering, and even lingers over stories about rock star antics with relish. Despite not being an admirer of the music, Weisbard does convincingly make a case for the double album's importance as a turning point in pop music history.

Members Reviews:

Boring.

I didn't even finish this one because I got bored. Maybe it was just a bad choice of subjects and I wasn't interested enough in the topic to finish it.

Warning!!!! Not a documentary

If you are looking for a book on the history or making of the illusions albums this is not it. This is four hours of the author Eric Weisbard criticizing and bashing the band. At one point in this book the author goes through the entire list of songs on the albums and gives his opinion on them, in which 90% are negative. If you are a fan of the band or are just into rock history stay away from this book

Why this guy?

The writer didn't seem to like the albums nor have much affection for the band. So why write it? For most of the book he avoids talking about the two albums the book is supposed to be about. When he does talk about the songs he gives zero insight except for how HE feels about them.

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Title: Patti Smith's 'Horses' (33 1/3 Series)

Author: Philip Shaw

Narrator: Steven Crossley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-26-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Described as the perfect fusion of poetry and garage-band rock and roll (the original concept was "rock and Rimbaud"), Horses belongs as much to the world of literary and cultural criticism as it does to the realm of musicology. While Horses pays homage to the record's origins in the nascent New York punk scene, the audiobook's core lies in a detailed analysis of Patti Smith's lyrics and includes discussions of lyrical preoccupations: love, sex, gender, death, dreams, god, metamorphosis, intoxication, apocalypse, and transcendence. Philip Shaw demonstrates how Horses transformed the possibilities of both poetry and rock music; and how it achieved nothing less than a complete and systematic derangement of the senses.

Editorial Reviews:

Recipient of multiple Earphones Awards as well as the Galaxy British Book Award, narrator Steven Crossley gives another performance so authentic that it feels as though he's lived the experiences himself. Patti Smith's Horses is described as the perfect fusion of poetry and rock, and Philip Shaw provides an exacting deconstruction of the album that does justice to its power and beauty. Crossley vividly evokes the mood and feel of the nascent New York punk scene as Shaw illustrates how Patti Smith's background and life influenced the creation of her debut masterpiece.

Members Reviews:

disappointing

This book wasnt for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

academics with a need to analyze art works using psychological approaches (freudian theory) and philosophies (lacanian psychoanalysis)

Has Patti Smith's 'Horses' (33 1/3 Series) turned you off from other books in this genre?

No

Would you be willing to try another one of Steven Crossleys performances?

maybe

You didnt love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

a few

Any additional comments?

This work was dry an empty enough to suck all the meaning out of a work like the OED. I've appreciated others works in the 33 1/3 series. This one criticized Patti Smith's Horses album from outside the sensibilities of rock. I believed this made the work excessively dry and probably inaccurate. The author continually referred back to arcane philosophy (Slovo Zizek) and psychology (Lacane) to make his analysis.... yearning for the phallus indeed!

He did this at the expense of the rich internal experience of Patti's music. I do not recommend this book.

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Title: Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

Subtitle: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever

Author: Will Hermes

Narrator: Adam Verner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-27-12

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 33 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Punk rock and hip-hop, disco and salsa, the loft jazz scene and the downtown composers known as Minimalists - in the mid-1970s, New York City was a laboratory where all the major styles of modern music were reinvented, all at once, from one block to the next, by musicians who knew, admired, and borrowed from one another.Crime was everywhere, the government was broke, and the citys infrastructure was collapsing; but rent was cheap, and the possibilities for musical exploration were limitless.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire is the first book to tell the full story of the eras music scenes and the phenomenal and surprising ways they intersected. From New Years Day 1973 to New Years Eve 1977, the book moves panoramically from post-Dylan Greenwich Village, to the arson-scarred South Bronx barrios where salsa and hip-hop were created, to the Lower Manhattan lofts where jazz and classical music were reimagined, to ramshackle clubs like CBGB and the Gallery, where rock and dance music were hot-wired for a new generation.

As they remade the music, the musicians at the center of the book invented themselves: Willie Colón and the Fania All-Stars renting Yankee Stadium to take salsa to the masses, New Jersey locals Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith claiming the jungle land of Manhattan as their own, Grandmaster Flash transforming the turntable into a musical instrument, and David Byrne and Talking Heads proving that rock music aint no foolin around.

Will Hermes was there - venturing from his native Queens to the small, dark rooms where the revolution was taking place - and in Love Goes to Buildings on Fire he captures the creativity, drive, and full-out lust for life of the great New York musicians of those years, who knew that the music they were making would change the world.

Critic Reviews:

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire is an almost perfect portrait of New York music culture: specific yet comprehensive, enthusiastic yet objective, and as informed as it is personal. The four-page section of what (seemingly) every interesting person in NYC was doing on the night of the 77 blackout could have been a book unto itself. (Chuck Klosterman,

New York Times best-selling author)

Meticulously researched and engaging. (

Wall Street Journal)

Revelatory. (

Entertainment Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Great stories... no fact checking (pronunciation)

Would you try another book from Will Hermes and/or Adam Verner?

Yes to Will Hermes... Adam Verner mispronounced many many names within the book. I am shocked that the author and Audible let this go without making sure at least most were pronounced correctly .

Would you be willing to try another one of Adam Verners performances?

Not based on this one...

Great text, fine voice, hilarious mispronunciation

Any additional comments?

If you're interested in the art and culture of 1970s NYC, you'll love the book, but you will also laugh out loud more than once at Verner's mispronunciations.

Great New York Rhapsody

The paperback caught my eye some years back and I liked it so much I had to get the audiobook. It's a text tht reads like a novel with multiple characters. We follow Philip Glass Steve Reich, Bruce Sspringsteen, Grandmaster Flash, Patti Smith, Lou Reed etc etc, through their development in the time span 1970-75. There is SO much information here I am listening for a third time right now.

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Title: And Party Every Day

Subtitle: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records

Author: Larry Harris, Curt Gooch, Jeff Suhs

Narrator: Larry Harris

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-30-11

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 72 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Music

Publisher's Summary:

Now it can be told! The true, behind-the-scenes story of Casablanca Records, from an eyewitness to the excess and insanity. Casablanca was not a product of the 1970s, it was the 1970s. From 1974 to 1980, the landscape of American culture was a banquet of hedonism and self-indulgence, and no person or company in that era was more emblematic of the times than Casablanca Records and its magnetic founder, Neil Bogart. From his daring first signing of Kiss, through the discovery and superstardom of Donna Summer, Village People, and funk master George Clinton and his circus of freaksParliament-Funkadelicto the descent into the manic world of disco, this book charts Bogarts meteoric success and eventual collapse under the weight of uncontrolled ego and hype. It is a compelling tale of ambition, greed, excess, and some of the eras biggest music acts.

Critic Reviews:

The book contains detailed evidence of the chaotic manipulation of the music charts in the wild days before computer scanning. This fell mostly under Harris purview, and he offers fascinating insight on what these legendary promo men did back in the day. (

L.A. Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Loved it!

one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen

Great detail about a great Record Company!!!

If anybody wants to know in detail about Casablanca Records, listen to this story it's a great and interesting story about a time in music that was so important and that introduced some great artist. Larry Harris in a great narrator very well spoken speaker.....Enjoy!!! R.I.P. Neil Bogart

A great historical story

This should be curriculum for music schools and start up record labels. Great book from start to finish.

Exclusive information about Casablanca records

If you could sum up And Party Every Day in three words, what would they be?

Party Every Day

What other book might you compare And Party Every Day to and why?

Nothing to Lose: The Making of KISS, they both tell the story of successful entrepreneurship in the music business.

Which character as performed by Larry Harris was your favorite?

Himself - As it was the only character he performed.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yeah, it made me laugh several times, especially when he mentioned how ugly the original KISS members were without makeup.

Any additional comments?

The first chapters are a little boring, but it gets interesting once he gets past his early like and start talking about Casablanca records.

Inside view

This book is an amazing inside view of what the record industry was, the good & the bad. A great read for any bin surfers.