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£14.99
Published
1 October 2024Hardback
9781913083656Ebook
9781913083663Press Release
Coming soon.By Andrew Ford:
‘If it was translated into a score this would say the word “allegro” at the top. But The Shortest History of Music never feels rushed… Sometimes brevity allows boldness.’ TEDDY JAMIESON, THE HERALD
Although music is as intrinsic to human life as the air we breathe, we must never fall for the line that it is a universal language. Music is neither universal, nor a language.
From an infant’s first experimental sounds to the voice of Elvis – via Hildegard of Bingen, Beethoven and bebop – The Shortest History of Music sets out to understand what exactly music is, and why humans are irresistibly drawn to making it.
Ranging across millennia, Andrew Ford explores music’s great themes: writing it down and recording it; paying for it and making it modern. With brilliant insight, he traces the story of the symphony and the opera, blues and jazz; the oral traditions of folk singers and chain gangs; and the lives of the greats – Bach and Mozart, Clara Schumann and Schoenberg, Charlie Parker and Nina Simone.
From lullabies to national anthems, songlines to streaming, this is a sparkling account of what music has meant at different times and in different places.
‘A wonderful read… as erudite as it is enjoyable; as riveting as it is revelatory. Andrew Ford’s history of music may be short, but it is deep. With the lightest of touches, he has excavated many layers of human history and global culture… A highly readable (and persuasive) thesis of what music is, why it exists and how we couldn’t survive without it. Indispensable’
—Clemency Burton-Hill
- ‘Brilliantly readable and bursting with insight, wit and wisdom. Ford is a master storyteller’
—Michael Spitzer, author of The Musical Human - ‘Exhilarating… evokes a world of creative destruction where rules were made, broken and remade… Note to prospective readers: stop and listen to any piece that is mentioned more than once. It will deepen the experience profoundly… The Shortest History of Music is an achievement in brevity and balance’
—The Saturday Paper - ‘A top-notch critic… our answer to America’s Alex Ross’
—Rolling Stone - ‘Ford’s historical and technical knowledge is vast, the depth of his research astounding… This book is fascinating, broad and (like all good histories) has humanity at its centre’
—Prospect Magazine - 'Ambitious… There is something undeniably impressive about both Ford’s compressed marshalling of such varied material and his desire to make connections sing across different musical cultures'
—Times Literary Supplement - ‘Ford’s writing is impressively engaging given the highly compressed format. There’s much to recommend in this book: a refreshingly non-European starting point … and pithy, thought-provoking statements and quotations which drive his energetic prose’
—Katy Hamilton, BBC Music Magazine - ‘Andrew Ford is the most literate of composers; the most musical of writers’
—Australian Book Review - ‘Filled with insightful musical analysis made accessible for a general audience… a work of high craft and interest’
—Sydney Morning Herald on Earth Dances
Andrew Ford
ANDREW FORD is a composer, author and broadcaster. His music has been performed around the world by ensembles such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Brodsky Quartet and the New Juilliard Ensemble. He presents The Music Show on Australia’s ABC Radio National. He has written ten books on subjects ranging from sound in film to the songs of Van Morrison. Brought up in England, he has lived in Australia since the 1980s.