This course can permanently enrich your life: with Professor Greenberg as your teacher, you will hear and understand an entire language of unmatched beauty, genius, and power.

Why is Concert Music So Powerful?

How can concert music—once it is understood—so move our lives? Professor Greenberg explains in his introductory lecture: "Music—the most abstract and sublime of all the arts—is capable of transmitting an unbelievable amount of expressive, historical, and even philosophical information to us, provided that our antennas are up and pointed in the right direction. A little education goes a long way to vitalizing and rendering relevant a body of music that many feel is beyond their grasp.

"And why should an understanding of concert music be worthwhile anyway? I would suggest a few reasons:

• The skills one brings to listening to music—imagination; abstract, non-concrete thinking; intuition; and instinctive reaction and trusting those instincts—have gone uncultivated in our educational system and culture for too long.
• Music, as a universal, non-verbal language, allows us to tap into the social, cultural, and aesthetic traditions of different cultures and historical eras. We become more aware of our shared humanity and the wisdom and vision of others.
• Music allows us to transcend our own world and partake in utterly different realities.
• Last, but certainly not least, good music is fun to listen to, relatively inexpensive—we can do it by ourselves or with others—and there are any number of ways to expand our knowledge and appreciation of the art."

What You'll Learn: The Tools, The Times, The Composers, and Their Music

"Grammar:" Professor Greenberg gives you an outstanding grasp of musical forms, techniques, and terms—the "grammatical" elements that make you fluent in the "language" of music. 

"Music, like any pseudo-science, requires an adjectival palette by which we can isolate events that without proper terms we might not even be able to notice. It's an interesting question to what degree language allows us to perceive things that are not language-associated. I'm a strong believer that if you've got the right word to identify something, you can perceive it. I think my favorite pseudo-science when it comes to this kind of thing is wine-tasting, where one has to come up with an adjectival palette that is almost a cartoon unto itself. But silly as these phrases may be—'Oh, this has a hint of young tobacco, and old oak fragrant with raspberries'—silly as these terms are, they allow us to draw distinctions without which we may not be able to draw at all. So we will create a useful vocabulary."

Rich Context: Professor Greenberg teaches the powerful influence of social context on musical creation. Best-selling author James Collins, writing in Inc. magazine, explains: "The Greenberg series combines a history of western civilization with a history of great music from ancient Greece to the 20th century. Greenberg's 48 lectures come alive with passion and knowledge. The course illustrates the interplay between societal change and innovation and offers a unique perspective on the acceleration of change wrought by the 20th century."

Professor Greenberg's lectures show how musical creativity has provided a vibrant means of expression for grand spiritual, intellectual, political, social, and economic forces throughout the history of our civilization.

Whether it's the profound influence of Lutheran spirituality on Bach or the effect of the French Revolution on Beethoven (to give just two examples), you'll see how such forces have swirled through the lives of music's creators and listeners in various historical epochs. You'll also grasp how these forces have stimulated the creation of musical masterpieces that are both transcendent works of art and compositions deeply rooted in their respective eras, telling us something central about the human condition in each one.

The Composers: The course examines the contributions of nearly every major composer. But one of Professor Greenberg's aims is to make their music accessible, and, for this, we must accept that every one of them was human and no more. (He observes at one point that, in English, Giuseppe Verdi would only be "Joe Green.") You will remember their music, and you will never forget the composers, who are brought to life throughout the lectures. 

The Music: Central to this course is great music itself. Using digitally recorded musical passages to illustrate his points, Professor Greenberg will take you inside magnificent compositions by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and more. You have listened to many of the illustrative pieces all your life—you will never hear them the same way again after Professor Greenberg has opened them up. Look at the titles of the lectures in this course to see how much you'll learn.

A Great Teacher

Professor Greenberg holds degrees from Princeton University and the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a Ph.D. in music composition in 1984. He has composed more than 45 works and has lectured for many prestigious musical and arts organizations in the United States.

He has received three Nicola De Lorenzo Prizes in composition, and commissions from the Koussevitsky Foundation of The Library of Congress and the Alexander String Quartet, among others.