Getting down with Ludwig

Ludwig Van Beethoven. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Johann Sebastian Bach. Oh yes, we all know about those guys. We know we’re supposed to nod our heads appreciatively at the mere mention of their names. But for most of us, classical music is the aural equivalent of green vegetables. They’re good for you, no doubt about it -- but not a lot of fun.

Robert Greenberg begs to disagree. A composer and professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Greenberg believes that classical music can be exciting and contemporary when examined with a touch of irreverence and within the proper context -- which he provides on a number of lectures distributed by the Teaching Company, a mail-order firm that offers college courses on audio, video and DVD.

“A lot of people don’t like my irreverence,” he says. “For them, classical music is a badge of sophistication, and their enjoyment of it sets them above and beyond the rubble that they perceive all around them. Then someone like me comes along who’s clearly knowledgeable, has no patience for their aristo attitude and treats the music like an American consumer object. They’re very annoyed with me.”

A clear example of Greenberg’s gift for demystifying the classics can be found on his recently released 32-lecture course “The Symphonies of Beethoven.”

Moving restlessly from a blackboard to a CD player to a piano, where he interprets choice bits of music to illustrate a specific point, Greenberg adds a touch of manic intensity to his presentations -- demolishing any pomposity with his acid wit, nonstop barrage of anecdotes and passionate point of view.

“Life’s easy for me,” he quips. “I’m dealing with Beethoven. All I have to do is open the window for you and Beethoven to have a little chat.”

The “little chat” is facilitated by an invention of Greenberg’s known as the WordScore guides. These are detailed charts that help you follow the development of a composition, creating the illusion that you’re reading music even if you have no academic training. The guides are printed in booklets that accompany the courses’ videos or CDs.

“The WordScores help the listener perceive the basic structure of a piece of music,” Greenberg says. “Anyone with a pair of ears can do such a thing. None of this is meant to be mysterious or difficult. It’s just something from a culture with which we’re not necessarily conversive.”

Greenberg’s courses for the company include introductory overviews to instrumental classical music and opera, as well as more in-depth titles devoted to the operas of Mozart and the works of Bach.

The professor, currently designing a half-dozen additional titles, relishes his irreverence.

“If you think I’m bad news, you should eat with Beethoven,” he chuckles. “If you had a meal with this guy, you’d never listen to his music again. He was a slob and a pain in the [behind]. The first thing he would do after he looked you up and down was hit you up for money.”

The Teaching Company’s other courses focus on the expected subjects: history, religion, literature, science, philosophy. A few cover less familiar territory: a survey of jazz, a history of Impressionism, a guide to understanding poetry. There’s a certain dryness to the presentations (inevitably, we see a professor standing in front of a classroom), but the videos are complemented by graphics and various images.

More often than not, however, the instructors’ effervescent personalities inject a vitality that most of us never enjoyed during our college years.

A humorous 12-lecture astronomy course taught by Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of the book “The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist,” is ideal fare for those who are curious about science but were turned off by it in high school.

“Learning is often associated with being graded, and people find it painful to be sorted out like weeds,” says Thomas Rollins, the company’s founder and CEO. “There’s something very refreshing about studying a course just for the sheer pleasure of the subject.”

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The Teaching Company

Cost: The Teaching Company’s courses can be pricey, ranging into the hundreds of dollars, depending on the format and length. But the company offers a 70% discount on all titles at least once a year.

Info: www.teach12.com