1997 / Ebook / 112 pages / UK
****
It's not my favourite album from a band that wouldn't crack my top 10 1960s artists, but this is a good analysis of why it's such a big deal, even if the potted socioeconomic British history proved more interesting than the song breakdowns. 'A Day in the Life' is good though.
1993 / Ebook / 140 pages / UK
**
Musical analysis takes a backseat to trying to pin down what the composer was getting at and whether he eventually got there. If you only know the famous intro, you're not going to come out of the other end much the wiser, though it was nice to learn that the piece is more thematically relevant to 2001 than I'd figured.
1998 / Ebook / 132 pages / UK
**
Representing the favourite instrument of the under-10s, our chronicler endeavours to find the magic at the heart of this working through clinical dissection and the exhumation of dead clarinetists. It's not clear whether he thinks he succeeds.
1999 / Ebook / 132 pages / UK
***
Humanises the usual technical analysis by inviting us intrusively inside the composer's mind to speculate on his motivations, inspirations and barely legal muses.
1991 / Ebook / 136 pages / UK
***
A secular guide to the music and how it relates to the composer's other work (an oddity) and other masses (subverting the traditions of that square Haydn). It thankfully keeps the spiritual discussion to a brief consideration of the deified composer's authoritative scores, which are prone to sending less restrained Beethoven books into religious mania.
