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"Good music is a personal interpretation of experience, shaped and endowed with meaning, ordered by a particular intelligence and a particular sensitivity" writes Dhun H. Sethna in the first chapter of Classical Music for Everybody. "This book challenges the listeners to reach out and examine the music, and then reexamine themselves, so that it becomes a joint effort to make sense of life--a shared world created through sound, to be imagined, explored and interpreted."

Although the writing is occasionally awkward, Sethna's approach to teaching about classical music works well. He examines it one musical snippet at a time, looking at each piece for what it can tell us about human life and death, among other issues. Taking an intensive look at one song, such as Schubert's "Der Erlkonig," or one movement from a larger work ("The March to the Scaffold," from Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique), he explores the history behind the music and what it is intended to express. Sethna thus provides interested listeners with a solid base of information on which they can build their knowledge. The brief discographies for each selection, which concentrate on budget issues that will help you build a compact disc library, are also helpful. [via]