This series of lectures on Classical Music is part of The Modern Scholar group of audio courses. Each chapter focuses on a musical form or style, or illustrates several common, related themes. Audiobooks work best for this sort of instruction -- snippets of music illustrating the points made reinforce the what was just learned in the lecture.

Unfortunately, the subject is quite vast, and each 20 minute or so lecture really doesn't do much beyond scratching the surface. One or two examples often aren't enough to get a firm grasp on the technical nuances between related styles. Freeman isn't the most engaging speaker, either,

I guess I would really like to see a series like this done by Bill McGlaughlin of Exploring Music fame. Not only does he do a better job finding illustrations, but his conversational tone is a little more conducive to learning often obscure minutiae. That he gets 5 hours a week instead of just 20 minutes helps too. ( )