page_title: The Story of Music
section_title: Contents
hierarchical_section_title: The Story of Music / Contents
caption_attribution_description: Hildegard von Bingen and her nuns
context_page_description: The Story of Music is a work of nonfiction by English composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall, first published in 2013 by Chatto & Windus, which covers the history of largely Western classical music from pre-history to 2012. The book is associated with the 2013 BBC2 documentary series Howard Goodall's Story of Music. The book's reception was broadly positive, with the main criticism being of its treatment of Schoenberg and the atonal movement.
context_section_description: The book is organised on a similar scheme to the television series, based on time periods but with slightly different divisions into eight chapters plus the introduction. "The Age of Discovery, 40,000 BC–AD 1450" starts with the earliest evidence for musical instruments, and goes on to cover the invention of modern musical notation by Guido of Arezzo in around 1000 AD. The chapter also reviews the earliest named composers including Hildegard of Bingen and Pérotin. "The Age of Penitence, 1450–1650" covers the development of improved musical instruments and the introduction of opera, as well as composers including Josquin, Dowland and Monteverdi.
  "The Age of Invention, 1650–1750" focuses on J. S. Bach and the invention of the equal temperament tuning system and the piano. It also reviews other composers of the era, including Lully, Corelli, Biber, Vivaldi and Handel. "The Age of Elegance and Sentiment, 1750–1850" surveys the classical era, focusing on Haydn and Mozart. It then goes on to cover the early Romantic era, focusing on Beethoven and also reviewing Schubert, Mendelssohn, Field, Schumann and Chopin. The later Romantic era is covered in "The Age of Tragedy, 1850–1890", with composers including Berlioz, Verdi, Liszt, Dvořák and Wagner. 
  "The Age of Rebellion, 1890–1918" opens by reviewing Modernist composers broadly within the classical tradition including Satie, Mahler, Schoenberg, Richard Strauss, Mussorgsky, Debussy and Stravinsky. It then introduces popular music including jazz and Blues. The chapter also covers the invention of recording technology. The final pair of chapters, "The Popular Age I, 1918–1945" and "The Popular Age II, 1945–2012", open with the invention of radio broadcasting, and focus on the growth of pop music and its interaction with classical forms. 
  The book is illustrated with 38 photographs, mainly in colour, as well as occasional diagrams and musical quotations interspersed throughout the text. There is a 17-page index. A playlist is appended, listing a few key pieces of music for each chapter; these are also available for download via Spotify on Goodall's website. There are 2 pages of books suggested for further reading.
caption: Hildegard of Bingen (left), one of the earliest composers whose name is known
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