Stephen Fry's Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music
A riotous, rambling and incomplete history of classical music, complete with leg measurementsHello, I'm Stephen Fry. Now time for the first outing of a brand, spanking new feature here on The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music... putting some unsuspecting figure in music under the spotlight.' In his Incomplete & Utter History of Classical Music, Stephen Fry presents a potted and brilliantly rambling 700-year history of classical music and the world as we know it. Along this musical journey he casually throws in references to pretty much whatever takes his fancy, from the Mongol invasion of Russia and Mr Khan (Genghis to his friends), the founding of the MCC, the Black Death (which once again became the new black in England), to the heady revolutionary atmosphere of Mozart's Don Giovanni and the deep doo-doo that Louis XVI got into (or 'du-du' as the French would say). It's all here - Ambrose and early English plainsong, Bach, Mozart (beloved of mobile phones everywhere), Beethoven, Debussy, Wagner (the old romantic), right up to the present day. Entertaining and brilliantly written, this is a pretty reckless romp of a history through classical music and much much more.
ArtBiography & AutobiographyMusicHistorySocial HistoryHumor
RELEASED2005
PUBLISHERPan Macmillan
LENGTH322
LANGUAGEEN
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is a British actor, writer, journalist, comedian, television presenter and film director. He first came to attention in the 1982 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation, "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster. As a solo actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the Blackadder television series and is the host of the quiz show, QI. He also presented a 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 U.S. states in six episodes. Fry has become known to American audiences for his recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones. Since the publication of his first novel, *The Liar* (1993), Fry has written three additional novels, several non-fiction works and an autobiography. *Making History* (1997) is partly set in an alternative universe where Adolf Hitler's father is made infertile and his replacement proves a rather more effective Führer. The book won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. *The Hippopotamus* (1994) centers around Edward (Ted/Tedward) Wallace and his stay at his old friend Lord Logan's country manor in Norfolk. *The Stars' Tennis Balls* (2000) is a modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. Fry's book, *The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within*, is a guide to writing poetry. In the United Kingdom, he is a well-known narrator of audiobooks, notably the Harry Potter series. He has recorded audio versions of works by Roald Dahl, Michael Bond, A. A. Milne, Anthony Buckeridge and Douglas Adams, as well as several of his own books. When writing a book review for Tatler, Fry wrote under an alias, Williver Hendry, editor of *A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey*, a field close to Fry's heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in The Listener and The Daily Telegraph, he now writes a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of The Guardian. His blog attracted more than 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks of existence. On 26 May 2009, Fry unveiled The Dongle of Donald Trefusis, an audiobook series following the character Donald Trefusis (a character from Fry's novel The Liar and from the BBC Radio 4 series Loose Ends), set over 12 episodes. After its release, it reached No. 1 on the UK Album Chart album chart list. ([Source][1]) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry
Stephen Fry's Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music
A riotous, rambling and incomplete history of classical music, complete with leg measurementsHello, I'm Stephen Fry. Now time for the first outing of a brand, spanking new feature here on The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music... putting some unsuspecting figure in music under the spotlight.' In his Incomplete & Utter History of Classical Music, Stephen Fry presents a potted and brilliantly rambling 700-year history of classical music and the world as we know it. Along this musical journey he casually throws in references to pretty much whatever takes his fancy, from the Mongol invasion of Russia and Mr Khan (Genghis to his friends), the founding of the MCC, the Black Death (which once again became the new black in England), to the heady revolutionary atmosphere of Mozart's Don Giovanni and the deep doo-doo that Louis XVI got into (or 'du-du' as the French would say). It's all here - Ambrose and early English plainsong, Bach, Mozart (beloved of mobile phones everywhere), Beethoven, Debussy, Wagner (the old romantic), right up to the present day. Entertaining and brilliantly written, this is a pretty reckless romp of a history through classical music and much much more.
ArtBiography & AutobiographyMusicHistorySocial HistoryHumorGenres & StylesClassical
RELEASED2005
PUBLISHERPan Macmillan
LENGTH322
LANGUAGEEN
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is a British actor, writer, journalist, comedian, television presenter and film director. He first came to attention in the 1982 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation, "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster. As a solo actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the Blackadder television series and is the host of the quiz show, QI. He also presented a 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 U.S. states in six episodes. Fry has become known to American audiences for his recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones. Since the publication of his first novel, *The Liar* (1993), Fry has written three additional novels, several non-fiction works and an autobiography. *Making History* (1997) is partly set in an alternative universe where Adolf Hitler's father is made infertile and his replacement proves a rather more effective Führer. The book won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. *The Hippopotamus* (1994) centers around Edward (Ted/Tedward) Wallace and his stay at his old friend Lord Logan's country manor in Norfolk. *The Stars' Tennis Balls* (2000) is a modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. Fry's book, *The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within*, is a guide to writing poetry. In the United Kingdom, he is a well-known narrator of audiobooks, notably the Harry Potter series. He has recorded audio versions of works by Roald Dahl, Michael Bond, A. A. Milne, Anthony Buckeridge and Douglas Adams, as well as several of his own books. When writing a book review for Tatler, Fry wrote under an alias, Williver Hendry, editor of *A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey*, a field close to Fry's heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in The Listener and The Daily Telegraph, he now writes a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of The Guardian. His blog attracted more than 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks of existence. On 26 May 2009, Fry unveiled The Dongle of Donald Trefusis, an audiobook series following the character Donald Trefusis (a character from Fry's novel The Liar and from the BBC Radio 4 series Loose Ends), set over 12 episodes. After its release, it reached No. 1 on the UK Album Chart album chart list. ([Source][1]) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry
