Customer Reviews

Composers

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CLASSICAL & ROMANTIC COMPOSERS is a classic family card game (age 8 and up) that teaches about Western classical music history. European composers of the 18th and 19th centuries are profiled along with their music. Each playing card in the deck has a composer's portrait plus music note graphics that show a musical theme, or passage, from one of the 52 compositions in the game. Music-reading ability is not required. There are some interesting, if short, biographical notes which include composer birthdays (Beethoven's is December 16, 1770).

The composers are Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel (from the "Baroque" musical period); Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven (from the "Viennese Classical" style of the "Age of Enlightenment"); and Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky and Edvard Grieg (from the "Romantic" era). Most of these seem to be composers who lived or studied, at one time or another, in the musical environments of Leipzig or Imperial Vienna.

Like the American game of AUTHORS, this is a "quartet" game with the cards representing musical, instead of literary works. A good example of a "Composers" card would be "Papageno the birdcatcher's song" (from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's singspiel opera, "The Magic Flute"/"Die Zauberflote"). If you already have the "Papageno" card you can call on other players for one of the remaining three Mozart compositions. Of course, if someone else is trying to collect "Mozart" cards and asks you for that musical work, your "Papageno" card has to be surrendered! Another time you might find yourself having to fish from the card pile for Franz Schubert's song, "The Trout"/"Die Forelle" in order to complete a "quartet" of "Schubert" cards.

I think this is a wonderful music teaching game and resource for either music lessons or home schooling. Academic enlightenment aside, it can also be a great impromptu party game. Especially if you're having a "Schubertiade"!

We had a very old game of authors that my dad brought out from when he was a kid. We loved the game and had tons of fun with it! Since we are a very musical family we thought that a game with the same rules as authors, but with composers would be incredible. I looked on Amazon and they had it! I bought it as a Christmas present for my brother, and we absolutely love the game! It so much fun for young and old, yet it is very educational too! Now we are learning even more compositions from the composers that we have always loved. And with a couple measures of each piece at the top of the card we can know how the music really sounds! It also has the ability to be played as other game, as it has the markings on a regular deck of cards. This is a great game and I would highly recommend it!

I used playing this game as an intro to our composers study as a home school teacher. It was a fun way to inspire interest.

As a person who doesn't listen to classical music often, I still want to know about it. This is a fun way for my family and I to learn a little bit.

I found this to be a fun game with some educational benefits. I had a good time playing it. However, if you are using the deck for reference it is flawed. The title of the deck is Classical and Romantic Composers, but some of the composers included were from the Baroque period such as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel. Handel lived in both the Baroque and Classical period, but some of his featured pieces were written in the Baroque.