h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't mean to be too picky, but I don't see how Debussy's "Le Mer" could be included as a middle-romantic piece. It's form, tone-color, and harmonies are actually indicative of late-romantic and early 20th century styles. In fact, it is generally regarded as transitional piece between those two periods.

I also found curious the inclusion of Prokoviev's "Classical Symphony" in the classical section, but you addressed that in another posting and I really can't argue with your reasons for listing it as such, except that it might confuse readers who listen to other works by Prokoviev.

In all I found your article an amazingly accurate and concise primer for those that might be interested in learning about orchestral music. Perhaps I, or someone else, should write similar articles about other types of music (pre-baroque, chamber, vocal music, etc.).

Well done.

You're probably right. Le Mer probably fits better into Late Romantic than Middle Romantic.

I deliberately tried not to introduce terms like Impressionist, Neo-Classical and Extended Tonality, as this is supposed to be for beginners. Once a listener has learnt a little bit, they are of course at liberty to totally disagree with the way I've classified these pieces. If they do, then I've achieved my aim of starting them off on the fascinating journey through orchestral music.