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The Oxford History of Western Music
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The New Oxford History of Music: Volume I: Ancient and Oriental Music (New Oxford History of Music, Vol.1)

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The New Oxford History of Music: Volume I: Ancient and Oriental Music (New Oxford History of Music, Vol.1)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The New Oxford History of Music: Volume V: Opera and Church Music 1630-1750 (The New Oxford History of Music, Vol 5)
The New Oxford History of Music: Volume IV: The Age of Humanism 1540-1630 (The New Oxford History of Music, Vol.4)

ASIN: 0193163012

The Oxford History of Western Music (6 Volume Set)

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Interested in 'Classical Music'? A MUST READ!
A Landmark Work of World Culture
Taruskin *****, Oxford *
Let's set the record straight, folks
Brilliant work

The Oxford History of Western Music (6 Volume Set)
Richard Taruskin
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195169794

Amazon.com

The history of "history"--our changing perspectives on the act of narrating and trying to "recapture" the past--encompasses the most profound seismic shifts in modern consciousness. Once seemingly commonsensical, the science-aspiring ambition of historiography to recount the past "as it actually was" (to borrow Leopold von Ranke's famously misunderstood phase) now betrays anachronistic naivete, if not a dangerous arrogance masquerading as objectivity. And the business of cultural history provides a particularly fascinating--and contentious--index to the larger issues at stake. The very urgency of the debate over "how" to tell the story (and indeed what the story is) continues to intensify in proportion to the uncertainty of our times.

Considering its official title (bearing an impressive imprimatur from Oxford University Press, the vanguard of scholarly reference works), Richard Taruskin's grand opus might appear at first glance to eschew the more-heated arenas of debate involving cultural history. Quite the contrary: Taruskin throws down the gauntlet at once and passionately joins in the fray. In the process, he strips the story of music's development in the West (i.e., Europe and America) of its deceptively innocuous trappings and received ideas, thrusting it into the spotlight of contemporary critical inquiry. The result, virtually a priori, is a highly controversial reexamination of a narrative that will cause even the most open-minded music lover to do a number of double-takes. What's extraordinary about Taruskin's achievement is how immensely engrossing, insightful, provocative, fresh, and downright brilliant the "history of Western music" becomes in his weaving of it.

But why yet another sweeping history when the New Grove Dictionary of Music has been recently overhauled (in an edition to which Taruskin prolifically contributed), and when long-standing classic texts such as Paul Henry Lang's Music in Western Civilization continue to be reissued? The heart of the matter lies in the very ambition behind this new history. First, some of the fun factoids: at nearly 4,000 pages (along with an additional resource volume containing master index, chronologies, and bibliography), The Oxford History of Western Music weighs nearly 20 pounds and took a decade to write. In other words, this isn't history-by-committee. Its perspective from the point of view of one massively learned individual is at once the work's chief strength and its Achilles heel. Taruskin's powerful voice echoes the kind of "old-fashioned" synthesis, with its attempt at an "overarching trajectory," of such pioneering cultural historians as Jacob Burckhardt or perhaps even the epic sweep of Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire—-an antidote to the curse of ivory-tower specialization. But, more crucially, Taruskin arms that voice with the toolkit of contemporary historiography to pursue a critical rethinking of how Western music turned out as it did, and where it is today. His singular viewpoint anchors Taruskin's attempt to show that "the literate tradition of Western music is coherent at least insofar as it has a completed shape."

It's important to realize, as Taruskin early acknowledges, that his work is meant not as a stock-taking "survey" but as a history. That is, it involves an unfolding both of that larger coherence and of many smaller narratives that are its tributaries: not of the artwork (or composer) alone, but those of its production, its social and political context, and its (often-changing) reception as integral components of musical "meaning." Taruskin's aim is to filter out the distorting perspectives of "historicism" (the myth of purposeful, goal-oriented evolution through history) and aestheticism (which considers the artwork as a "pure," timeless entity). Along the way, this means smashing rows upon rows of icons and legends (not surprisingly, the bulk of these stemming from the 19th-century Germanic tradition, but also comprising a good deal of 20th-century received ideas about Stravinsky, Soviet composers such as Shostakovich, and various postwar "elitisms").

Inevitably, Taruskin doesn't prove immune to resorting to some legends of his own. In an extraordinary overview of Wagner, for example, he persuasively debunks the routine citation of Tristan und Isolde as pointing toward the coming "collapse of tonality," demonstrating how such thinking is the epitome of "the historicist tendency to write history backward with an eye toward giving the present a justification." Yet he's also capable of reducing the Wagner of the Ring to an obsession with a "cult of strength" in what is an otherwise deeply insightful discussion of "the Wagner problem." In terms of the larger stakes of this history, Taruskin's strongly argued debating points (and debunkings) at times veer in more eccentric directions, especially when it comes to such pivotal figures as Stravinsky, who gets a particularly intense thrashing. And regardless of Taruskin's theoretical stances, the reader must be alert to alarming occasional lapses of "mere" fact (how, one wonders, could an editorial team of over 40 not notice the claim that Carmina burana is scored for eight soloists in their fact checks, or fail to ensure that the endnotes match actual citations in the text?) Other tics, such as the author's fondness for scare quotes, may leap out depending on one's particular allergies.

Despite its imperfections, Taruskin's work is undeniably a stunning and stimulating achievement. It's impossible to describe adequately the sheer artfulness of his method, whereby he can distill a multiple series of investigations into a few wonderfully insightful sentences. Ever the master contrapuntalist, Taruskin weaves his various levels of discourse into a meaningful whole. There is true virtuosity in his ability to toggle from social history to in-the-trenches musicological analysis, zeroing in with his uncanny intuition to the most rewardingly illustrative points. His method of the exemplifying metonym--using just a few examples to wring out maximum insight, like the linear perspective of Renaissance artists--becomes a tour de force in his examination of figures such as Du Fay, D. Scarlatti, J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Schoenberg, or Britten. Taruskin's scope moreover is as radically reorienting as the Big Bang theory when it comes to the relative proportions he accords the narrative of Western music. Beginning with the advent of "literate" musical culture in Carolingian times, he devotes a great deal of attention to what was long thrown together as the "pre-Bach" era. Even more radically, around 40% of the total text is devoted to music of the 20th century (two of the five volumes of the history proper). Within this span, amid all its mind-boggling diversity, a number of centripetal themes emerge: the interdependence of "absolute" and "program" music, the interplay of oral and folk with literate musical cultures, the power of myth, and the possibility for musical "meaning." Taruskin's journey is endlessly fascinating, and his work makes an enormous contribution to the field. For all the controversy it's destined to generate, it will become impossible to ignore. Perhaps its surest mark of success is the sense of urgent importance and connectedness with which this history invests the cultural matter of music. Wherever you dip in, Taruskin invites an open conversation that leaves plenty of new, revealing perceptions in its wake, but probably more questions that when you started. Indeed, there's a sense that Taruskin would consider his work to have failed if the reader were only to nod in assent to all he has to say. --Thomas May

Book Description

Sweepingly ambitious, The Oxford History of Western Music will illuminate, through a representative sampling of masterworks, those themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to each musical age. Taking a critical perspective that challenges the received wisdom of the field, Richard Taruskin sets the details of music, the chronological sweep of figures, works, and musical ideas, within the larger context of world affairs and cultural history. Written by an authoritative, opinionated, and controversial figure in musicology, The Oxford History of Western Music provides a critical aesthetic position with respect to individual works, a context in which each composition may be evaluated and remembered. Taruskin combines an emphasis on structure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in each age, to illustrate how the music itself works, and how contemporaries heard and understood it. It also describes how the context of each stylistic period-key cultural, historical, social, economic, and scientific events-influenced and directed compositional choices. Unlike earlier surveys, Taruskin provides greater attention to the full range of 20th century music, including American music as part of the mainstream tradition of western music, women in music, and popular musics. The main five volumes are filled with helpful illustrations that enhance the historical context of musical composition, as well as musical examples and black-and-white pictures throughout. The sixth volume provides a comprehensive chronology, further reading and other source material, and an index to the entire set. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, The Oxford History of Western Music will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse tradition. Pre-publication price until December 2004. $699.00 thereafter.

Customer Reviews:

Interested in 'Classical Music'? A MUST READ!.......2006-09-22

This 6-volume history is both entertaining and highly idiosyncratic. For a 'survey', that's an unusual combination, but in this case the idiosyncracies are a great advantage. The reader is treated to a comprehensive tour of Western music, from a cultural perspective infused with brilliant social and political insights. For example, the extended discussion of 'Romanticism' and 'The Folk', with all the psycho-social baggage attendant to the latter is a stunning tour-de-force. You won't agree with all of Taruskin's observations: the charm he finds in Mozart's 'Magic Flute' (with its high dose of 'Das Volk') falls flat with me. Mozart wrote several operas head and shoulders above that one, to my ears. But one need not agree with Taruskin to find the journey wondrously edifying.

As history, Taruskin's work is surprisingly readable. I learned more about the history of Europe in the Middle Ages from Volume I than I ever could have from a straight history book.

In the end, the achievement of these books is awe-inspiring. If you love 'Classical Music' (Taruskin is at his best taking that loaded phrase apart) you will find Taruskin's large-scale meditation on the subject both a challenge and a delight.

A Landmark Work of World Culture.......2005-11-05

This work is amazing in every way, a magisterial survey that has long been needed. It equals Edward Gibbon stylistically for starters. It is a model for all such historical works in the arts: music, poetry etc. We need such surveys of the arts by a single person. The section on Britten gets him absolutely right and "Max" is a hoot (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen of Britain's Music since 2002). One problem is that the Index is in typography that is too small for easy reading. I also cannot see the value in the hardcover despite the work's brilliance. This work far surpasses Lang, the prior survey, now very outdated with new knowledge and discoveries. One omission is that the author does nto deal with non European and US "western" music (eg in China, Japan, Australia, South America etc) but you can't have everything. A paperback is urgently needed.

Paul Knobel
Australia citizen
(written in the Linrary of Congress, Washington DC, the world's greatest library)

Taruskin *****, Oxford *.......2005-09-19

Oxford gets two very black eyes for this one. Here are five magnificent textbooks for graduate music-history classes. But they can't be ordered separately: my class of 15 are sharing a single library copy of vol. 4 (and lapping it up).

The text volumes, all but one around 800 pp., have no indexes or bibliographies; those are in vol. 6: sixty-nine separate chapter bibliographies, the entire index in a single alphabet. Did anyone at Oxford give a moment's thought to how these books would be used?

Let's set the record straight, folks.......2005-01-20

"Anonymous IV" has a right, of course, to dislike Richard Taruskin's magnificent Oxford History of Western Music, and to express that opinion - however unfathomable it may seem -- on amazon.com.
But inaccuracies, especially at the core of so damning a response to a new book, must not remain unchallenged.
Let's start with Anonymous IV's insinuation that Taruskin lacks expertise in music before 1800. (According to Anonymous IV, Taruskin's "superficial" and "sketchy" first two volumes summarize "the extent of what the author knows about music before 1800"; he is "obviously... on home turf" only in the 19th and 20th centuries.)
Perhaps Anonymous IV cannot imagine a musicologist being on home turf in more than one period. But Taruskin is just such a rare being: a formidable scholar of 19th- and 20th-century Russian music, he is equally celebrated in the realm of early music. His influential book, Text and Act (1995), contains numerous essays on pre-19th-century music. And even the brief author's biography on the back cover of that book informs us that Taruskin has published "numerous editions of Renaissance music, including a complete edition with commentary of the sacred music of [the 15th-century composer] Antoine Busnoys," and that while teaching at Columbia University, Taruskin had a distinguished performing career in early music. (Among other activities, he conducted the Cappella Nova, a New York-based choir specializing in medieval and Renaissance music; as a viola da gambist he recorded and toured with the Aulos ensemble.)
Anonymous IV's whining that Taruskin "rushes through more than 1000 years of music history" is no less mystifying. Hello! Taruskin devotes 1,612 pages to the first 1000 years of notated music in the Western world - rather more than the 843 pages in which Grout/Palisca, to which Anonymous IV repeatedly compares Taruskin, covers the entire history of Western music.
But most importantly: if Anonymous IV has indeed read Taruskin's History of Western Music, he/she will have found, in its opening paragraphs, (pp. xxi and xxii), a clear statement of the book's aim. It is not, Taruskin explains, a survey à la Grout. Rather, it is "an attempt at a true history" - that is, an attempt "to explain why and how things happened as they did" - in short, not the usual laundry list that has too often passed for music history. To compare Taruskin to Grout on this count is rather like faulting a cognac for not being a beer.
Taruskin fulfills his stated aim exhilaratingly. His book is a towering achievement of scholarship and intellect; a challenge to complacency; a joy to read.
As to the accusation that Oxford's production of Taruskin's book is shoddy: well, I do not know what Anonymous IV has been doing with his/her copy. I have been reading mine, for some weeks now, and have had no problem whatsoever with its binding.

Brilliant work.......2004-12-16

Taruskin challenges many of the deep-seeded assumptions about music history. His work is compelling, smart, and deeply-layered. This five-volume set will prove to a be landmark in the study of western classical music, one which come to be valued as *the* reference.

His distracters are often noisy, for it is their work which is called into question by Taruskin. He is considered a "new musicologist," one who seeks connections between music and culture, and looks to explain music as part of a larger whole of life and history rather than in the insular autonomous space preferred by traditional musicologists. Many of us were trained by these old-school musicologists; coming to grips with scholarship which lies outside that scope requires thoughtful work and reevaluation. It is well worth it, and Taruskin is the man to alleviate those border tensions.

The Guitar and Its Music (Oxford Early Music Series)

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The Guitar and Its Music (Oxford Early Music Series)
James Tyler , and Paul Sparks
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Mel Bay Concise History of the Classic Guitar

ASIN: 019816713X

Book Description

More than twenty years ago James Tyler wrote a modest introduction to the history, repertory, and playing techniques of the four- and five-course guitar. Entitled The Early Guitar: A History and Handbook (OUP 1980), this work proved valuable and enlightening not only to performers and scholars of Renaissance and Baroque guitar and lute music but also to classical guitarists. This new book, written in collaboration with Paul Sparks (their previous book for OUP, The Early Mandolin, appeared in 1989), presents new ideas and research on the history and development of the guitar and its music from the Renaissance to the dawn of the Classical era. Tyler's systematic study of the two main guitar types found between about 1550 and 1750 focuses principally on what the sources of the music (published and manuscript) and the writings of contemporary theorists reveal about the nature of the instruments and their roles in the music making of the period. The annotated lists of primary sources, previously published in The Early Guitar but now revised and expanded, constitute the most comprehensive bibliography of Baroque guitar music to date. His appendices of performance practice information should also prove indispensable to performers and scholars alike. Paul Sparks also breaks new ground, offering an extensive study of a period in the guitar's history--notably c.1759-c.1800--which the standard histories usually dismiss in a few short paragraphs. Far from being a dormant instrument at this time, the guitar is shown to have been central to music-making in France, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and South America. Sparks provides a wealth of information about players, composers, instruments, and surviving compositions from this neglected but important period, and he examines how the five-course guitar gradually gave way to the six-string instrument, a process that occurred in very different ways (and at different times) in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Britain.

Jan Dismas Zelenka: A Bohemian Musician at the Court of Dresden (Oxford Monographs on Music)

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A grand attempt at a very hard task

Jan Dismas Zelenka: A Bohemian Musician at the Court of Dresden (Oxford Monographs on Music)
Janice B. Stockigt
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198166222

Book Description

Only in the latter half of the twentieth century did the star of Jan Dismas Zelenka begin to ascend. Why did this major Bohemian composer of the Baroque era - who was known to, and esteemed by Johann Sebastian Bach - remain in the shadows for so long? Although most of Zelenka's music was composed to serve the Catholic liturgy, he left a handful of secular compositions, including six remarkable chamber sonatas. When these were first published in the 1960s, the resurrection of the almost-forgotten Zelenka was heralded. Drawing upon surviving musical materials, contemporary accounts, and Jesuit documentation, this volume presents insights into Zelenka's life and his music and the brilliant context in which he worked - the Dresden court during the reigns of the Kings of Poland and Electors of Saxony, Friedrich August I and II. A catalogue of Zelenka's compositions is also included.

Customer Reviews:

A grand attempt at a very hard task.......2002-04-19

Dr. Stockigt is probably one of the best English speaking authorities on JD Zelenka. She did a fine job of tracking down the life of a man who was a Catholic outsider in the Lutheran world of Saxony. The challenge is great because of damage wrought by the fires set in Dresden by the Austrians and Prussians in the seige of 1760 and then the damage wrought by the holocaust in 1945 and then possible Soviet pilfery of the Dresden archives. Whole parts of the Zelenka catalogue are missing and some manucripts are missing sections.

Zelenka was not cooperative with historians. He left no portrait and had no children or close students to whom he could have confided his secrets. He kept no known personal diary. Zelenka is not recorded as having married. Leaving so little behind makes the task of defining the man difficult.

Dr. Stockigt weaves together a picture of life as a Bohemian child learning music, one which Zelenka must have lived. She shows the world of Zelenka as he matured, from Count Sporck's orchestra to the Dresden hopfkappel. She shows the Byzantine politics of the Dresden Court, the tensions between the Catholics who are tolerated for political reasons and the Lutheran majority who resent "Papist" influences in the Court. We learn of the thread of the Jesuits throughout Zelenka's life, from his education at the Klementium to his life at the Dresden Court. The Jesuits, the feared agents of the counter-Reformation, are to be seen at every turn in Zelenka's adult life.

She chronicles Zelenka's triumphs, his downfall at the hands of Hasse and his eventual death and then his legacy as a composer.

Dr. Stockigt focuses closely on Zelenka's music, offering analyses of themes, technical points and performance practices. We learn that the Dresden Catholic Chapel had castrati, who went on "strike". Dr. Stockigt reveals that Zelenka's patroness, the Empress Maria Josepha, protected him and we are shown his loyalty and devotion in return. We learn of her critical role in preserving his musical legacy and in how Zelenka crafted for her fine works of devotion.

We are gratified to know that many of the best composers of the time esteemed and valued Zelenka's music - even Lutherans who had no great love of Catholics in general and Jesuit trained Catholics in particular. This does not exclude J.S. Bach, with whom Zelenka collaborated on Masses and compositional practices at the Dresden Court. We discover that Zelenka's help was critical to the first performance of Bach's mass in b minor. We are also told of the fellowship and friendship between Zelenka and Johann Georg Pisendel, much admired violinist. We also learn the G.P. Telemann, one of the greatest composers of his day, attempted to publish Zelenka's "Responsora" at risk to himself.

Dr Stockigt shows the "afterlife" of Zelenka, from his relative neglect after death, to his legacy during the years preceding the Dresden holocaust, to his hesitant but sure "renaissance" today. It is obvious at every turn that Dr. Stockigt is fascinated with the man, loves his music and shares both with the reader.

This book reveals a long gone world, warts and all, to those who value the music of those times. This book also attempts to show, as best as can be done, the man behind the compositions.

Gene Herron

Courtly Love Songs of Medieval France (Oxford Monographs on Music)

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Courtly Love Songs of Medieval France (Oxford Monographs on Music)
Mary O'Neill
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Hardcover

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On Political Equality
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Running Alone
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation

ASIN: 0198165471

Book Description

This book is the first full-length study of the courtly love songs of the trouvere to address the central musical problems of the repertoire as a whole, embracing source studies, interpretation, historiography, and analysis. The argument of the book revolves around three axes, each of which is essential to the appreciation of the others: problems concerning the extant manuscript tradition; the crucial role of orality; and stylistic changes and plurality in the reperotire. For the first time, a full overview of the sources and notation is undertaken. This reveals the idiosyncrasies of individual manuscripts but, more importantly, it identifies two basic phases in the manuscript tradition. The study of melodic variants reveals the performance art that lies at the heart of the courtly grand chant; processes and techniques of variation are examined, bringing us to a closer understanding of the tenets of the melodic art of the early trouveres. A close study of select trouveres from the different generation reveals stylstic change and plurality, particularly in the melodic art which in some respects was less prescribed than the poetic texts. Consequently the courtly songs of the trouveres truly come alive in this book.

R.V.W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford Lives)

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Splendid biography!

R.V.W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford Lives)
Ursula Vaughn Williams
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Clarendon Paperbacks)
Vaughan Williams

ASIN: 0192820826

Book Description

Ursula Vaughan Williams's intimate and detailed biography of her husband is now made newly available as a Clarendon Paperback.

Customer Reviews:

Splendid biography!.......2005-05-14

Written by his wife, Ursula, this is as authoratative as it gets. Filled with details, annecdotes, facts, histories and stories with a warmth that invites us to know and understand RVW as a person and as a composer.

I came to this book after reading many books about Gustav Holst. In doing so, I quickly learned of his friendship with RVW. The two were great friends. In this book, you get another perspective on that friendship and friendship with others. RVW was a kind, open, down-to-earth individual.

This is a remarakable biography about a remarkable human being. I'm glad he lived and wrote the music he shared with us all. This book helped me to understand the man and his times and his music. Highly recommended!

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Musicology Encyclopedia + Composer Biographies
Better or Worse than its Predecessor?
Excellent reference for those who love classical music

The Oxford Companion to Music

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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The Oxford Dictionary of Music
The Harvard Dictionary of Music: Fourth Edition (Harvard University Press Reference Library)
The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music
The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (Harvard University Press Reference Library)
The Oxford Companion to Western Art

ASIN: 0198662122

Book Description

This is a completely new edition of one of the most famous Oxford Companions of all time, published in one handy volume for the first time in over 30 years. It replaces both the classic single-volume Oxford Companion to Music by Percy Scholes, first published in 1938 and now in its tenth edition (1970), and the subsequent two-volume New Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Denis Arnold and published in 1983. The new edition draws on Arnold, but has a more concentrated focus on the Western classical tradition. About 70 per cent of the text is new or has been extensively rewritten. Apart from the brief definition-type entries requiring no change, all the material has been thoroughly revised and updated. There are hundreds of new entries. Alison Latham has assembled a distinguished team of over 80 international contributors, bringing their distinctive voices to an exceptionally broad sweep of musical subjects ranging from composers, performers, conductors, individual works, instruments and notation, and forms and genres, to music scholarship and aesthetics, music education, broadcasting and publishing, all aspects of music theory, and performance practice, as well as jazz, popular music, and dance.

Customer Reviews:

Musicology Encyclopedia + Composer Biographies.......2005-10-28

This updated (2002) Oxford Companion is probably the best choice if you are looking for a serious reference for the many aspects of musicology AND in-depth biographies of the major and minor composers. This guide gives about 2-4 full pages of text to "the big guys" like Bach, Beethoven and Liszt and only 1-3 paragraphs to the less influential composers like Biber or Locatelli. But this will probably not be enough to fully satisfy the more serious student's interest (the multi-volume New Grove Dictionary is the place to go then). The OCM also gives a few pages each to describing the major eras of music (Renaissance, Baroque etc). Its descriptions of musical terms (like what is allegro, a sarabande dance, a hurdy gurdy etc) are written in straightforward language but are usually not excessively descriptive. However, some topics get quite a thorough treatment - such as the many aspects of harmony and sound - so the OCM is certainly not any "lightweight" reference. Of course, it all reads in the tone of an encyclopedia and thus does not really make captivating reading for the non-music major. Other guides to classical music are better at introducing musicology to the newby, such as the NPR Encyclopedia or David Dubal's compelling "Essential Cannon of Classical Music."

But, if you are a more serious music student or listener with a greater interest for in-depth musicology (and already have enough references on the lives of the composers), then the Harvard Music Dictionary is probably the top choice. It is pure musicology (with the composer biographies in a separate, companion volume). As a result of such focus, the Harvard Dictionary has more space for more detailed treatment of each music topic. It is slightly more technical in nature (superb graphs, charts) and academic in its writing compared to the Oxford Companion. But, either one is excellent and can be had on Amazon marketplace used for about 1/3 the list price.

Better or Worse than its Predecessor? .......2005-01-17

I've been comparing The Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Alison Latham (2002; 1,434 pages) with its immediate predecessor: The New Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Denis Arnold (1983; 2 volumes, 2,017 pages). In the estimable series of Oxford Companions you can usually expect the new edition to supersede and replace the old one. In this case, however, it's not that simple. A glance at the above reveals that the new edition, in one volume, is some 583 pages shorter than the preceding edition, in two volumes. Losing almost 600 pages of 2,000 represents a very substantial loss of material.

Moreover, when we examine the two editions, we discover that the 1983 edition is lavishly, indeed beautifully, illustrated ("1,100 halftone illustrations and line drawings, 405 music examples"). None of the illustrations are in color, but there is an abundance of well-chosen, functional, illuminating photos, portraits, paintings, manuscripts, figures, line drawings, plates, tables, musical examples. The new edition of 2002, alas, has virtually eschewed illustration: almost all of the illustrations of the 1983 edition have been scrapped. We get a comparative handful of musical examples and figures, but just about everything else has been eliminated; even the greatest composers aren't represented by a single likeness, whereas in the 1983 edition even lesser composers get a photo or portrait. If for example you want to understand what an accordion is, there is no substitute for a picture of one. The 1983 edition has a 4-page entry on "accordion," with photos of four different types (including a musician playing one), plus 2 explanatory diagrams. The 2002 edition has a page-length entry with no illustrative material at all. I find this a significant loss, a significant cheapening of the book, and a significant diminution in the pleasure of using it. It's revealing that Alison Latham, the 2002 editor, refers to the "wealth of illustrative material" as one of the assets of Denis Arnold's 1983 edition, but makes no mention of the fact that she has thrown out almost all of it.

But that's not all. If for example we look up "organ" in the 1983 edition, we find a truly comprehensive 20-page entry, with 20 illustrations (plates, figures, tables, drawings, photos). In the 2002 edition we find a 6-page entry with 8 figures; this represents a radical abridgment of the earlier article.

Could "organ" be an unhappy fluke? No, unfortunately it's not. I looked up "trumpet," "violin," and "piano," and found the same result in each case: a truly drastic loss of material, both text and illustration, in the new edition.

If you look up any of the hundred standard repertory operas in the 1983 edition, you find the basic facts about composer, librettist, and premiere, plus a synopsis of the action, and often an apt illustration and "Further Reading" suggestions. If you look up any of the same operas in the 2002 edition, you find a very short entry (Carmen, for example, gets three lines; Tristan und Isolde gets two lines) giving the basic facts about composer, librettist, premiere--no synopsis, no illustration, no reading list.

So you can see why the 2002 edition of this book was received with reservation, indeed with downright disappointment, by those who were familiar with the 1983 edition. Why would Oxford UP have made such Draconian changes? Well, the governing perception seems to have been that the 1983 edition, lavishly illustrated and in two volumes, had outgrown its purpose and over-reached its market. Evidently many found the two-volume format cumbersome and too expensive. The 2002 edition, by eliminating almost all of the illustrations and reducing the size to a single volume, has cheapened and abridged the book, rendered it much less attractive, and in many areas reduced its usefulness, but has made it handier and more affordable.

Does the 2002 edition have no redeeming qualities, then, but cheapness and one-volume convenience? Indeed it does have its virtues. For one, it's up-to-date. A blurb on its dustcover breathlessly claims, "Now, thirty years after the last edition, this invaluable companion is back in a completely new edition"--a barefaced falsehood: the period between the two editions was 19 years, not 30. But the new edition benefits from the scholarship of the last two decades; many new and updated articles ("over 1,000 new entries") reflect the perspective of 2002. Many articles conclude with mini-bibliographies (in both editions), and these are inevitably more current and useful in the 2002 edition.

Perhaps the most valuable feature of the new edition is the inclusion for the first time of entries not just for composers but for distinguished performing musicians. In the 1983 (and earlier) edition, there were no entries for conductors, singers, instrumentalists. In the 2002 edition you'll find entries for Toscanini, Walter, Furtwangler, Caruso, Melba, Ponselle, Melchior, Flagstad, Callas, Heifetz, Casals, Artur Rubinstein, Horowitz, Segovia, Dennis Brain, and many others. This change was overdue and certainly enhances the usefulness of the book. Many of the "over 1,000 new entries" in the 2002 edition are in this category. "Space limitations have restricted these [entries] to artists who are no longer alive and who had significant influence on composition or performance." These entries are also limited to classical musicians.

In some cases the perspective of 2002 has warranted an expanded version of a composer entry in the 1983 edition. For example, Orff, Moussorgsky, and Scriabin all get expanded treatments (but lose their portraits) in the new edition.

So, what to do; which Companion to choose? My solution is obvious but perhaps not very helpful: if you love music and like good reference books, get both. I believe the Alison Latham 2002 edition should be viewed as an updated supplement to the more substantial and lavish 1983 edition, not as a replacement. Denis Arnold's 1983 two-volume edition was the first complete revision since the original 1938 Oxford Companion to Music, edited (and largely written) by Percy Scholes; it is not perfect, but I think it represents the high-water mark of the three editions. If you have only the spartan 2002 edition, be aware that you are missing much of value and beauty in the 1983 edition. (Unfortunately I'm not the only one who has noticed that the 2002 edition is no replacement for the 1983 edition: if you check prices for used copies of the 1983 edition in the USA, you'll find that they are high.) If you own both editions, you can enjoy the best of both worlds. If I could own only one, I'd keep the 1983.

Excellent reference for those who love classical music.......2002-05-15

The Oxford Companion to Music is an excellent reference work for those who love classical music. It's probably not detailed or technical enough for most professional musicians; but those enjoy listening to the endless variety and vast range of emotions of classical music (that's a plug!) will find the OCM can considerably enhance their enjoyment.

This is a big work of 1,434 pages; but the typeface, while small, is well-chosen. It's clean and clear; even these old eyes read it with no difficulty. There are extended articles on famous conductors and all the major composers plus numerous others that you never heard of. The biographies are helpful in placing a composer's works in the context of his life. Especially helpful is a well-chosen but unannotated bibliography after most of the biographies.

There are also major articles on different forms of music, types of instruments, etc. I thought I knew a lot about the sonata form, but I know more now after reading that article. There is almost no analysis of individual works; to include them would probably have doubled the size of this work. I've used a number of classical reference works over the years, but the OCM is easily the best. It's complete enough so as not to oversimplify too drastically but not so long that "you learn more about penguins that you really want to know."

The New Oxford History of Music: Volume V: Opera and Church Music 1630-1750 (The New Oxford History of Music, Vol 5)

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The New Oxford History of Music: Volume V: Opera and Church Music 1630-1750 (The New Oxford History of Music, Vol 5)

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The New Oxford History of Music: Volume IV: The Age of Humanism 1540-1630 (The New Oxford History of Music, Vol.4)
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ASIN: 0193163055

Oxford Composer Companions: J.S. Bach (Oxford Composer Companion)

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The best reference book on Bach

Oxford Composer Companions: J.S. Bach (Oxford Composer Companion)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician
The New Bach Reader
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ASIN: 0198606206

Book Description

This Composer Companion is a unique and definitive guide to the life, music, and legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach. Now available in paperback, it will be an invaluable resource for scholars, students, performers, and all Bach and Baroque-music enthusiasts. With more than 900 entries, arranged in A-Z order for ease of reference, supplemented by illustrations and music examples, and written by more than 40 distinguished contributors, it brings together an unparalleled range of information on one of the greatest composers who has ever lived. It offers detailed information about Bach's life - his family, friends, colleagues, and pupils, his career as a performer, teacher, and composer - and about the historical, cultural, religious, and musical context in which he worked. Individual works are treated at length, as are the genres and conventions from which they grew, and scoring, instrumentation, and performance practice from Bach's day to the present. It also covers the impact Bach's music has had since his death - his growing reputation, famous interpreters of his music, the composers who have been influenced by him, and the festivals devoted to him. The main alphabetical text is supplemented by a map, a family tree, a chronology, a list of works, opening lines of vocal works, and a glossary of specialist terms.

Customer Reviews:

The best reference book on Bach.......2005-12-05

For those curious about the life and context behind the music, there are two ways to approach a composer with such a rich life and a diverse musical output such as Bach: the first is through a biography, which tells a linear story of the man, his music, his family and his times. We can follow his life through the different cities in which he lived, and look at his music chronologically, seeing how he built on each stage of his life to create increasingly complex and beautiful music.

The other way, which is apparent in a book like the Oxford Composer Companion to Bach, is the artificial, yet none the less useful method of providing information in encyclopedic form. Here, there is no chronology, but each name, each work, each city and episode in his life is listed in alphabetical order. Granted, for readers approaching Bach's life for the first time, a biography would likely be more useful and efficient. Yet browsing a book like this, allowing chance to take over as you flip from page to page, yields a unique glimpse of Bach's life and music.

I must confess to being a book-lover, and, especially, a dictionary lover. I enjoy browsing encyclopedias and dictionaries, and have bookcases full of them. (I can trace this back to when I was about 8 years old, and my mother won an encyclopedia on the television game show, Jeopardy. I recall with great pleasure the afternoons spend leafing through the 20 volumes of that storehouse of knowledge.) While not all people may share this passion, those who do, and who are interested in Bach, will find this book to be ideal.

With entries on people, places, instruments, and, of course, all of Bach's works, this book contains everything you could want to know about Bach's life and music, and then some. Leaping from entry to entry, one can wander through an explanation of Suites to read about Minuets, how they are played Alternativement, questions of rhythm, and how Bach treats these questions. Each place Bach lived incites the reader to explore the entries for the works he composed there and the musicians he met and worked with. With more than 600 pages, this encyclopedia of all things Bach, with entries by more than thirty of the world's most esteemed Bach scholars, will delight all true lovers of his music.

Bach's key works are treated in longer articles, but there are many entries that deal with general musical questions and instruments. The book also has entries for each of Bach's cantatas (something no other currently available book has) as well as a full listing of Bach's works in an appendix.

I cannot praise this book too highly - it is the book I refer to the most when curious about any aspect of Bach's life and works, and it belongs on the shelves of all Bach-lovers.

Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn (Oxford Composer Companions)

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A Comprehensive Guide to Haydn

Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn (Oxford Composer Companions)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0198662165

Book Description

Joseph Haydn is one of the founding fathers of classical music, yet his works have only become available in reliable editions in the last 40 years, and much biographical detail has come to the light at the same time. There is now a much clearer understanding of the man and his works. Meanwhile, his music is more popular today than it has ever been since his death, especially in the UK and USA. This detailed, scholarly, and lively Companion draws together a wealth of biographical detail and scholarly analysis for the the first time in an accessible, engaging format, presenting up-to-date information to a wide readership. It covers Haydn's life and times, and his music, including its performance and reception. The Companion focuses on the period of Haydn's life (1732-1809), but extends forward to the end of the 20th century, to cover Haydn's reputation in the 19th century, attempts at complete editions, and modern scholarship. Selected major works are covered in feature entries.

Customer Reviews:

A Comprehensive Guide to Haydn.......2006-08-10

David Wyn Jones, the editor of this outstanding 2002 reference work on Haydn, (1732 -- 1809), notes in his Preface that "Joseph Haydn was the last 'great' composer to be adequately served by scholarship." This book, part of the Oxford Composer Companion series, fulfills its promise of offering a comprensive guide to Haydn's life, music, and legacy based upon the most up-to-date modern scholarship. David Wyn Jones is senior lecturer in music at the University of Wales and the author of numerous books about Haydn and the Classical Era. The 900 plus entries in this volume were prepared by 41 contributors, each a Haydn scholar in their own right. This book is a treasure-trove of information about Haydn for the lover of his music.

I was drawn to this book to help me in my project, completed recently, of listening to CDs of each of Haydn's 104 numbered symphonies and preparing a survey of them in reviews on this site. Thus, the Oxford Companion includes a 34-page essay on Haydn's symphonies by Professor Simon McVeigh, Goldsmithe College, University of London. Professor McVeigh's article includes an introduction to symphonic form and traces its development from Haydn's earlist to his final works in nine carefully organized sections. Virtually every symphony is given some individual attention, as McVeigh examines the course of Haydn's symphonic writing throught the 36 years he employed it. I found this guide indespensable to my project of getting to understand Haydn's symphonies myself in some detail and preparing a survey of them to encourage others to hear them.

I supplemented the basic article on the symphony with many others from this volume, including, most basically, a long biography of the composer written by Wyn Jones. I found valuable the many articles about the intellectual climate of Haydn's day, particularly the articles on Enlightenment, Freemasonry, Sturm und Drang, and Josephism. There are articles on sonata form, the minuet, and variation which are critical to better enjoying the symphonies. The article on performance practices discusses issues in the performance of Haydn from his lifetime up to current debates. There is an excellent article treating "recordings" of Haydn's music and an essay titled "reception" by the dean of Haydn scholars, H.C. Robbins Landon on how Haydn's music has been received and assessed over the years. These are only some of the articles that were of interest to me as a heard and wrote about Haydn's symphonies.

This book gives a compelling picture of the breadth and depth of Haydn's output. It includes lengthy essays on every form in which Haydn worked including the string quartet, oratorio, piano sonata, trio, concerto opera, mass, song, baryton music and much more. Many works are discussed in individual entries. Haydn is a composer that one can stay with and love over a long period of time.

The book is over 500 pages in length and the entries are organized alphabetically. The book opens with a "thematic overview" which is an index to the entries arranged by subject matter. I found it easy to use, but those coming to the book will want to examine it to find the entries that interest them. Following the detailed entries, an appendix lists Haydn's works organized by type. This appendix impressed me as little else could with the vastness of Haydn's output. A second appendix covers individual numbers in Haydn's vocal works.

This book is essential for those wanting to do scholarly work on Haydn. But, perhaps more importantly, it will appeal to lovers of music who want to explore and enjoy the work of this great composer in depth.

Robin Friedman

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