Duet
Eleanor Chan
Category: History,
‘A sensational book. Chan roves across her vast subject with confidence and grace, thrilling the reader with one eye-opening insight after another. I will never see art, and hear music, in quite the same way again’ James Fox, author of Craftland
An ancient shaman raises a conch shell to her lips in a painted cave. A scholar in a Shaolin monastery bends over a manuscript and invents a musical scale. A 21st-century pop star takes her seat at a candyfloss-pink piano.
Music is interwoven into the fabric of our lives. We listen to it. Some of us play it. And from the earliest traces of human existence, we have attempted to capture it – through the instruments we decorate, the spaces we perform in, and in kaleidoscopic paintings, medieval illuminated manuscripts and haute couture.
In this startlingly original and beautifully illustrated history of music, classically trained musician, art historian and BBC Next Generation Thinker Dr Eleanor Chan takes us on an unforgettable journey through sound and vision that will forever change the way we see music.
Reviews
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'From an 18,000-year-old ornate conch shell to the costume Beyoncé wore to the 2017 Grammys, Eleanor Chan’s highly original thesis examines the connection between music and art throughout history. She reveals how the visual and the audible have always been inextricably linked' Hannah Beckerman, Observer
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'Frankly joyous... A dizzy ride, but a thought-provoking, breathlessly enjoyable one' Country Life
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'Scholarly, moving and with an epic scope, Chan's work shows why music is at the core of what it means to be human' Paul Cooper, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Fall of Civilizations
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'A mind-expanding exploration of music as a history of human interactions with the world... Erudite, beautifully written and bursting with ideas, Chan’s Duet opens our ears and eyes to the deep, creative entanglements of music and the visual arts' Professor Jill Burke, author of How to be a Renaissance Woman
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'A swooping, capacious and beautiful history of how we see music, of the intrinsic connection of eye and ear. The scope is breathtaking: no genre, context, or artefact seems out of bounds for Chan’s brilliant and insightful analysis... Duet is a testament to the musicality and artistry of the human experience and, frankly, I wish there were more books like this' Emily MacGregor, author of While the Music Lasts
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'I really enjoyed Duet: An Artful History of Music and having a chance to explore the very human desire to decorate time... The book is a gem' Eleanor Janega, author of The Once and Future Sex and host of Gone Medieval podcast
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'With erudition and elegance, classically trained musician and art historian Chan explores how music is viscerally linked to visual art. This illuminating and impassioned deep dive holds many treasures' Publishers Weekly
