Armando Iannucci

The man behind The Death of Stalin, I’m Alan Partridge and The Thick Of It is a big classical music fan, and his new book explores this passion. In Hear Me Out, he has written about a range of composers from classical greats such as Beethoven and Mahler to contemporaries such as Philip Glass and John Adams, approaching the music from the position of curious amateur rather than technical expert.

“All my days, I’ve felt pressurized by the anonymous Keepers of the Cool who tell us what we should be wearing this year, what digital boxsets we should bunker ourselves in to enjoy, what amazing app is the only one we should be shrieking emotions at our recently acquired friends with. Thankfully, I have the one consolation that if I don’t quite fit into all of this, everyone else probably feels the same way. So, I say defiantly, I get more moved and excited by classical music than by any other musical genre. I believe that it is there for us all, inviting us to reach out and touch it.”

In Hear Me Out Armando Iannucci brilliantly conveys the joy of his musical exploration, each discovery suggesting a fresh direction of travel, another piece, another composer, another time.