Reclam Universal Bibliothek Die kürzeste Geschichte der Musik / Martin Geck

Martin Geck humorously and vividly recounts several thousand years of music history. In doing so, he combines anecdotes with an accurate view of the decisive developments and trends - from the musical customs of African indigenous peoples or in China at the time of Confucius, to opera, church music and symphonic music to rock ’n’ Roll and hip hop.

Anyone who follows Geck in his concentration on the essentials will get a wonderful idea of ​​what music represents in their respective time and environment. A more entertaining and confident music history has not been written in recent decades.

»Can you tell the history of music in 200 pages? … You can.« (THE TIME)

»If you don’t let Martin Geck get you excited about music, you can’t be helped.« (THE WEEK)


Author information:

Martin Geck was born in Witten in 1936. He studied musicology, philosophy and theology; from 1976 he was professor of musicology at the University of Dortmund. With his numerous books on music history and biographies of great composers, he reached a broad audience beyond specialist boundaries. He was considered the “doyen of musicology.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and as the »last generalist of his guild« (The mirror).

Martin Geck died in Bochum in November 2019. His last book, Listening to Beethoven, was published by Reclam. When flashes of inspiration shatter sacred forms (2020).