Listen to This, 4th edition

Published by Pearson (May 1, 2019) © 2020
Mark Evan Bonds

Title overview

For courses in Music Appreciation.

Listen to the music. Hear the elements. Connect your playlist.

Listen to This is designed to connect students’ interest in the music on their own playlists with great music from throughout history all over the world. Author Mark Evan Bonds introduces and explains the basic elements of music, including melody, rhythm, timbre, form and more. By listening for these fundamental components, students can better understand how any piece of music works. This elements-centered approach provides a strong foundation for learning about, and enjoying, many musical styles.

The 4th Edition includes expanded coverage of timbre as well as new chapters on additional musical works.

Hallmark features of this title

  • Throughout the text, author Mark Evan Bonds empowers students to listen actively by demonstrating how individual works are built on different combinations of a few basic elements.
  • Listening Guides walk readers through each major work, discussing the musical elements in detail.
  • Feature boxes present fascinating details about composers’ lives and performance practices.
  • Connect Your Playlist features illustrate key concepts through examples from contemporary popular music.
  • Expand Your Playlist features offer an annotated list of music for further listening to help students broaden their knowledge.
  • World music examples throughout the text demonstrate how elements like monophonic texture, ostinato and virtuosity are common in music from different cultures.

New and updated features of this title

  • The 4th Edition includes coverage of several new and expanded topics.
    • Expanded coverage of timbre, including new material on the instruments of the orchestra, further clarifies this important topic.
    • A new chapter on Palestrina’s “Gloria” from the Pope Marcellus Mass illustrates Renaissance polyphony for the Catholic service.
    • A new chapter on Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake serves as an example of Russian Romanticism and ballet music.
    • Coverage of “Dido’s Lament” from Dido and Aeneas provides an additional example of Purcell’s expressive use of ostinato bass.
    • The text includes new selections for Machaut and Alfonso el Sabio based on new recording options.

Key features

Features of Revel for the 4th Edition

  • Streaming audio of the music discussed in the text is available at the click of a button in 2 ways:
    • A simple audio player appears early in each chapter, when students are prompted to listen to the music for the first time.
    • A Listening Guide player appears later in the chapter, after students have been introduced to the key vocabulary and concepts of the chapter.
  • Instruments of the Orchestra videos, created exclusively for Pearson, complement the expanded coverage of timbre in the introductory section, The Elements of Music: A Brief Introduction.
  • Animated notations and graphical scores let students visualize music as it unfolds. These animations were developed by the composer and educator Stephen Malinowski.
  • Auto-graded listening quizzes and concept review quizzes enable students to apply and test their understanding of chapter content.

Table of contents

The Elements of Music: A Brief Introduction

Part 1: The Middle Ages

  1. Hildegard von Bingen, Play of Virtues (excerpt)
  2. San Ildefonso Indians of New Mexico, Eagle Dance
  3. Plainchant Alleluia, “Caro mea”
  4. Francesco Landini, “Behold, Spring”
  5. Guillaume de Machaut, “No More than One Man Could Count the Stars”
  6. Alfonso el Sabio, Songs to the Virgin Mary, no. 147, “The Talking Sheep”

Part 2: The Renaissance

  1. Josquin des Prez, “The Cricket”
  2. Thomas Weelkes, “Since Robin Hood”
  3. William Byrd, “Sing Joyfully”
  4. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Pope Marcellus Mass, “Gloria”
  5. Rhyming Singers of the Bahamas, “My Lord Help Me to Pray”
  6. Tielman Susato, Moorish Dance

Part 3: The Baroque Era

  1. Claudio Monteverdi, Orpheus, selection from Act II
  2. Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas, selections
  3. Mbuti Pygmies, “Marriage Celebration Song”
  4. Barbara Strozzi, “Revenge”
  5. Antonio Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, “Winter,” first movement
  6. Johann Sebastian Bach, Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578 (“Little” Fugue)
  7. Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047, finale
  8. Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantata 140: Awake, a Voice Calls to Us, selections
  9. George Frideric Handel, Messiah, selections

Part 4: The Classical Era

  1. Joseph Haydn, String Quartet in C Major, op. 76, no. 3, second movement
  2. Master Musicians of the Ikuta-ryu, Cherry Blossom
  3. Joseph Haydn, Symphony no. 102 in B-flat Major, third and fourth movements
  4. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony no. 40 in G Minor, K. 550, first movement
  5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 488, first movement
  6. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro, Act I, “Cosa sento”
  7. Jingju, “The Reunion”
  8. William Billings, “Chester”

Part 5: The Nineteenth Century

  1. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, op. 67
  2. Franz Schubert, “Erlkönig,” D. 328
  3. Felix Mendelssohn, Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  4. Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique, fourth movement (“March to the Scaffold”)
  5. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Piano Trio in D Minor, op. 11, third movement (“Song”)
  6. Robert Schumann, “Dedication”
  7. Clara Wieck Schumann, “Forward!”
  8. Frédéric Chopin, Mazurka in B-flat Major, op. 7, no. 1
  9. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Union: Concert Paraphrase on National Airs
  10. Ravi Shankar, Raga Sindhi-Bhairavi
  11. Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata, Act I, selection (“Follie!”)
  12. Richard Wagner, The Valkyrie, Act III, selection (“Wotan’s Farewell”)
  13. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake, Act IV, finale
  14. Johannes Brahms, Symphony no. 4 in E Minor, op. 98, finale
  15. Antonín DvoYák, String Quartet in F Major, op. 96 (“American”), third movement

Part 6: Since 1900

  1. Claude Debussy, Voiles
  2. Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question
  3. Arnold Schoenberg, “Columbine” from Pierrot lunaire
  4. Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Part One
  5. Scott Joplin, Maple Leaf Rag
  6. Robert Johnson, “Terraplane Blues”
  7. Duke Ellington, “Cotton Tail”
  8. Charlie Parker, “Ornithology”
  9. Ruth Crawford, Piano Study in Mixed Accents
  10. Germaine Tailleferre, Concertino for Harp and Orchestra, finale
  11. William Grant Still, “A Black Pierrot” from Songs of Separation
  12. Aaron Copland, “Hoe-Down” from Rodeo
  13. Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, second movement (“Game of Pairs”)
  14. Leonard Bernstein, “Tonight” from West Side Story
  15. John Cage, Sonata II from Sonatas and Interludes
  16. Gamelan Gong Kebyar of Belaluan, Bali, Kebyar Ding III, “Oncang-oncangan”
  17. Philip Glass, “Knee Play 1” from Einstein on the Beach
  18. Mahalia Jackson, “It Don’t Cost Very Much”
  19. Tania León, A la Par, second movement (“Guaguancó”)
  20. Corey Dargel, “On This Date Every Year”
  21. Austin Wintory, “Nascence,” from Journey

Revel Bonus Chapters

  1. Chuck Berry, “School Day”
  2. The Sex Pistols, “God Save the Queen”
  3. Public Enemy, “Fight the Power”
  4. John Williams, “The Walls Converge,” from Star Wars

Author bios

About our authors

Mark Evan Bonds is the Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has taught since 1992. He holds degrees from Duke University (B.A.), Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel (M.A.) and Harvard University (Ph.D.). His books include Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration (1991), After Beethoven: Imperatives of Symphonic Originality (1996), Music as Thought: Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven (2006) and Absolute Music: The History of an Idea (2014). He is the author of numerous essays on the music of Haydn and Mozart, on the nineteenth-century symphony, and on the aesthetics and philosophy of music. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the William N. Reynolds Foundation. The 4th Edition of his History of Music in Western Culture, a textbook for undergraduate music history survey courses, was published by Pearson in 2013. The 4th Edition of Listen to This reflects his experience and dedication to teaching music appreciation to undergraduates for more than 20 years.

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