An introduction to Classical music, Multimedia CD-Rom (Research MachinesPC) Pounds 49.95.
Attica Cybernetics, Unit Two, Kings Meadow, Ferry Hinksey Road, Oxford OX2 0DP. TCHAIKOVSKY’S 1812, Multimedia CD-Rom (Research MachinesPC) Pounds 34.03. Mindscape, The Software Toolworks, Priority House, Charles Avenue, Malting Park, Burgess Hill, West Sussex RH15 9PQ. The subject of classical music presents a particular challenge to the multimedia author.
What can you do apart from play the music, provide some historical facts on composers and attempt some explanations of musical theory and structure?
Most CD-Rom productions take a single composition and weave a multimedia tapestry of historical and cultural connections; the best also provide an introduction to the mechanisms of the music itself.
With so many good examples of both production and content about, An Introduction to Classical Music is disappointingt. This disc breaks most of the rules of good practice for multimedia. It takes an existing book, Get into Classical Music, and subjects it to a multimedia treatment, as though being popular at station bookstalls is enough to make it educationally sound.
Even though the text has been tidied since its release, the music examples are often noisy and badly edited. There is a glossary, but no hypertext link from the biographies or database. If you are seeking a proper introduction to classical music on CD-Rom, this is not it.
Tchaikovsky’s 1812 , as its title suggests, takes a single music composition as its focus. This is a confident, imaginative response to the concert overture we all think we know but probably have never listened to in its entirety. It contains some wonderful music outside the martial pomp-and-cannon fusillades.
In addition to the complete work as a CD track, you can investigate the work’s “Structure” connecting to a guided “Listening” section. This includes some really excellent descriptions of what’s going on in short sections of the music.
A very extensive biography section is full of interesting pictures and has a time-line feature enabling you to locate information by year.
The instruments of the orchestra can be heard and seen individually by watching short video clips. The accompanying information is accurate and sensible.
