# Sticky  Music Books - A Quick Reference



## Chi_townPhilly

*Recommended books- Listed by Category!*

With gratitude to *vertciel*, thanks for a key concept to *Kurkikohtaus*, and special appreciation to all who have recommended music books, a listing of such books will be preserved on the opening page of the thread. Almost without exception, listed books also have a link-back to the post where they were recommended. We will update this list periodically. Furthermore, if anyone is aware of book recommendations in other threads that ought to merit mention in this collation, you may contact us (preferably via Private Message) so that we may perform the necessary edits, if desired.

1. *Music Appreciation & Survey Texts*:

History of Western Music/Grout david johnson
Listen/Kermin-Tomlinson
The Enjoyment of Music/Machlis & Forney
Classical Music A New Way of Listening/Waugh
Music/Grunfeld
The Continuity of Music/Kolodin Hexameron
The Joy of Music/Bernstein Hexameron/groovesandwich
What to Listen for in Music/Copland Hexameron/kxgfxg/Hazel
101 Masterpieces of Music & Their Composers/Bookspan BuddhaBandit
Concise History of Western Music/Griffiths bartleby
Classical Music (Eyewitness Companions)/Burrows Rachovsky
The Encyclopedia of Music/Wade-Matthews opus67
Classical Music 50 Greatest composers-1000 Greatest Works/Goulding StlukesguildOhio/lou/Vesteralen
Essays in Musical Analysis (6 vols.)/Tovey Private recommendation- anonymous contributor
Oxford History of Western Music/Taruskin emiellucifuge
The Language of Music/Cooke jalex

2. *Composer-specific Tomes*:

Sibelius/Barnett
Sibelius (in four volumes)/Tawaststjerna
Symphonic Unity The development of formal thinking in the symphonies of Sibelius/Murtomaki Kurkikohtaus
The Essence of Bruckner/Simpson Gustav
Beethoven- Impressions by his Contemporaries/Sonneck
Evening in the Palace of Reason Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment/Gaines
Schumann on Music: A selection from his writings Hexameron
Johannes Brahms: A Biography/Swafford World Violist/kg4fxg/Hausmusik
Beethoven/Sullivan bartleby
Aspects of Wagner/Macgee
The New Grove Wagner/Millington
Wagner's Ring A listener's companion & concordance/Holman
I Saw the World End A study of Wagner's _Ring_/Cooke
The Wagner Operas/E. Newman Chi_townPhilly
Edward Elgar: Memories of a Variation/Powell
Edward Elgar: Record of a Friendship/Burley
Elgar in Love/Hockman & Allen Elgarian
Mahler: His Life, Work, and World/Blaukopf
Chopin's Funeral/Eisler Isola
Robert Schumann Herald of a new poetic age/Daverio Artemis
A Companion to Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas/Tovey Private recommendation- anonymous contributor
Mozart in Vienna 1781-1791/Braunbehrens Elgarian
Mozart & His Operas/Cairns Kieran
Beethoven/Solomon quartetfore
BBC Music Guide- Schumann's Piano Music Vesteralen
Charles Ives Remembered- An Oral History/Perlis, ed. 
Testimony (Shostakovich)/Volkov RandallPeterListens
Dvořák Romantic Music's Most Versatile Genius/Hurwitz Truckload
Beethoven The Music & the Life/Lockwood GGlueck
Berlioz- Memoirs jalex
Cambridge Companion to Schubert/Gibbs, ed.
The Beethoven Quartet Companion/Winter & Martin Hausmusik

3. *Historical & Stylistic Periods*:

Medieval Music/Hoppin
Music in the Renaissance/Reese
Baroque Music/Palisca
Music in the Baroque Era/Bukofzer
Music in the Classical Era/Pauly
Nineteenth-Century Romanticism in Music/Longyear
Romantic Music/Plantinga
Twentieth-Century Music An Introduction/Salzman
Music in the 20th Century/Austin
The Sonata in the Baroque Era/W. Newman
The Sonata in the Classical Era/W. Newman
The Sonata Since Beethoven/W. Newman Hexameron
The Rest is Noise Listening to the 20th Century bartleby/al2henry
The Classical Style/Rosen Artemis/Edward Elgar
Composers Voices from Ives to Ellington/Perlis-Van Cleve Barger
Modern Music/Griffiths Edward Elgar
Music Here and Now/Krenek hemidemisemiquaver
Quasi una Fantasia Essays on Modern Music/Adorno 
Nineteenth-Century Music/Dalhaus Hausmusik

4. *Instrument-specific Books*:

The Composer-Pianists- Hamelin and the Eight/Rimm
The Art of the Piano/Dubal
Five Centuries of Keyboard Music/Gillespie
The Great Piano Virtuosos of our Time- ...Account of Studies w/Liszt, Chopin, Tausig and Henselt/von Lenz Hexameron
The Great Pianists: From Mozart to the Present/Schonberg Hexameron/Air/andruini
Piano Playing with Piano Questions Answered/Hofmann
Piano Technique/Gieseking & Leimer CML
After the Golden Age Romantic Pianism & Modern Performance/Hamilton Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet/Stowell, ed. Hausmusik
The String Quartet/Griffiths carlmichaels

5. *Theory & Composition*:

Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory/Miller verticiel
Principles of Orchestration/Rimsky-Korsakov anmarwis/Barger
A Guide to Orchestration/Adler Edward Elgar
Counterpoint in Composition/Salzer & Schlachter
Counterpoint/Kennan
A Practical Approach to Sixteenth-Century Counterpoint/Galdin
A Practical Approach to Eighteenth-Century Counterpoint/Galdin
Forms in Tonal Music: An Introduction to Analysis/Green
Classical Form: theory of formal function for instrumental music/Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven/Capin Herzeleide
Harmony and Voice Leading/Aldwell & Schlacter Herzeleide/bigham45
Tonal Harmony/Kostka & Payne bigham45
Counterpoint/Piston Jeremy Marchant
Foundation Studies in Fugue/Hugo
Technique of Canon/Hugo chee_zee
Treatise on Orchestration/Berlioz jalex

6. *Other Music Interest*

The Symphony/Steinberg Chi_townPhilly/kg4fxg
From Paris to Peoria How European Virtuosos Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland/Lott
The Virtuosi/Schonberg
The Book of Musical Anecdotes/Lebrecht
Lexicon of Musical Invective/Slominsky
Letters of Composers/Norman & Shrifte Hexameron
Conversations with Karajan/Osborne
Karl Böhm- A Life Remembered (Memoirs) Gustav
Collins Dictionary of Music/Kennedy Cyclops
1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die/M. Rye, ed.  Sanctus493
The Lives of the Great Composers/Schonberg World Violist/Species Motrix/kx4fxg
Elementary Training for Musicians/Hindemith CML
Wondrous Strange- the Life and Art of Glenn Gould/Bazzana
Glenn Gould Reader/Page Isola
NPR Listener's Encyclopedia of Classical Music/Libbey kg4fxg/Mirror Image
Musicophilia: Tales of Music & the Brain/Sacks Barger
NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection/Libbey Sam Guss
The Music Instinct how music works & why we can't live without it/Ball 52paul/Lunasong
The Great Conductors/Schonberg 
The Compleat Conductor/Schuller superhorn
Music & Society Since 1815/Raynor quartetfore
The Composer's Advocate/Leinsdorf GGlueck
Evenings with the Orchestra/Berlioz jalex
Three Classics in the Aesthetics of Music/Debussy-Ives-Busoni jalex
Conversations with Menuhin/Dubal 
Wordsworth Dictionary of Musical Quotations/Watson, ed.
Dictionary of Musical Quotations/Crofton & Fraser, ed. goldie08 
The Great Transformation of Musical Taste Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms/Weber Hausmusik


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## Kurkikohtaus

*Sibelius Books!*


A "must have" for Sibelius lovers is *Andrew Barnett's* new book simply titled *Sibelius*.

It sets itself apart from other Sibelius biographies in that it discusses _every single_ piece or "performable fragment" _ever written_ by Jean Sibelius.

Check it out here: CLICK!

Otherwise, the "standard" Sibelius biography is the 4 volume colossus by *Erik Tawaststjerna*, English Translation by Robert Layton.

For technical books about Sibelius, it doesn't get any better than _Symphonic Unity: The Development of Formal Thinking in the Symphonies of Sibelius _ by *Veijo Murtomaki *.


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## Krummhorn

Ok ... We'll try it as a "sticky" - as long as the contents remain in reference format. 

If the thread becomes a conversational debate over which composer is better than the other, we may revert to a normal thread. 

I rather like the idea of this being a great reference for the community here. 

Kh


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## david johnson

History of Western Music, Donald Grout - it's an old standard.

dj


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## Oneiros

http://www.musictheory.net - a good introduction to theory


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## Chi_townPhilly

Posting on a "sticky"... I'd better give a broadly useful recommendation-

I can't imagine that any active listener would regret reading Michael Steinberg's The Symphony. The book contains wide coverage of much of the symphony repertoire. The section on Mahler is more useful than certain entire books on the subject. The cycles of Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Sibelius get fully treated. Furthermore, Haydn from Symphony 92 on, Mozart from Symphony 35 on, and Bruckner from Symphony 4 on are also well-covered.


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## Gustav

Robert Simpson's Analysis of Bruckner's symphonies. A must read.


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## ChamberNut

Gustav said:


> Robert Simpson's Analysis of Bruckner's symphonies. A must read.


Hmm, thank you Gustav. I'll have to put that on my list.


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## Hexameron

As a college music student, I've been stockpiling and using various books for research and papers. Without making a huge bibliography, I'd like to contribute the following, which are by no means the only essentials, but are still excellent sources:

*Beginner's Reference*

-Kerman's and Tomlinson's _Listen_ (my old music appreciation textbook; it's easy to read).

-Machlis's and Forney's _The Enjoyment of Music_ (like a junior version of Grout's textbook).

-Alexander Waugh's _Classical Music: A New Way of Listening_.

-Frederic Grunfeld's _Music_ (a simple and watered down music text, but a fine introduction)

*General Reference*

-Richard Hoppin's _Medieval Music_. (for the advanced).

-Gustav Reese's _Music in the Renaissance_. (the major Renaissance source, but also for the advanced).

-Claude Palisca's _Baroque Music_ (accessible and short).

-Manfred Bukofzer's _Music in the Baroque Era_.

-Reinhard Pauly's _Music in the Classic Period_.

-Rey Longyear's _Nineteenth-Century Romanticism in Music_ (excellent background information on 19th century European culture).

-Leon Plantinga's _Romantic Music_.

-Eric Salzman's _Twentieth-Century Music: An Introduction_.

-William Austin's _Music in the 20th Century_.

*History of Genres*

-William Newman's trilogy: _The Sonata in the Baroque Era_, _The Sonata in the Classical Era_, and _The Sonata Since Beethoven_.

-Michael Roeder's _A History of the Concerto_.

-Homer Ulrich's _Chamber Music: The Growth and Practice of an Intimate Art_. (very old and a little difficult to read, but still edifying).

*Piano*

-Robert Rimm's _The Composer-Pianists: Hamelin and the Eight _(nice information about Medtner, Feinberg and Sorabji not usually mentioned in other books).

-David Dubal's _The Art of the Piano _(almost like a New Grove's Dictionary of Pianists and Pianist-Composers).

-Harold Schonberg's _The Great Pianists: From Mozart to the Present _(although some facts Schonberg alleges are sketchy and suspicious, it is a good comprehensive survey).

-John Gillespie's _Five Centuries of Keyboard Music_.

*Fun Reading*

-R. Allen Lott's _From Paris to Peoria: How European Virtuosos Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland_. (for the pianophile)

-Harold Schonberg's _The Virtuosi_.

-Wilhelm von Lenz's _The Great Piano Virtuosos of Our Time: A Classic Account of Studies with Liszt, Chopin, Tausig and Henselt_. (as fishy as Lenz's recollections are, most of them are close to the truth and provide wonderful anecdotes).

-_Beethoven: Impressions by his Contemporaries_. (everyone from Ries to Rossini and Weber to Wieck discuss the master).

-James Gaines' _Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment_.

-Norman Lebrecht's _The Book of Musical Anecdotes_. (a must have)

-Irving Kolodin's _The Continuity of Music_.

-Aaron Copland's _What to Listen for in Music_.

-Leonard Bernstein's _The Joy of Music_.

-Nicolas Slonimsky's _Lexicon of Musical Invective_. (read about your favorite symphony being trashed).

-Norman's and Shrifte's _Letters of Composers_.

-_Schumann on Music: A Selection from the Writings_. (outstanding insight and critiques of music by Chopin and Liszt, and also works from composers you've might not heard of).


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## ChamberNut

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It's always great to reference books and biographies to keep in mind.

I'm looking for a great biography on Schubert, so if anyone has any suggestions, that would be great!

And last, but not least, welcome back to the board, Hexameron!  We've missed your contributions.


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## Hexameron

Thanks for the welcome back, ChamberNut (love the young Brahms avatar, btw).

There are a couple "big" Schubert biographies, but the only one I can think of off the top of my head is by Brian Newbould. He seems to be _the_ Schubert scholar today and has written many books on him, including an exhaustive biography.


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## Kurkikohtaus

Gettin some good lists going... but I wonder, a technical thing about editing posts in this forum...

It seems you can't edit your own posts once someone has posted after you. Which means that "*greensky*" can't go back and edit all of our contributions into his own post, to keep the list nice and organized at the top.

Is there anything admin can do about this to enable that feature?

It would be a great reference if all of our contributions were organized by *vertciel* at the top, rather than as a running commentary...


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## ChamberNut

david johnson said:


> History of Western Music, Donald Grout - it's an old standard.
> 
> dj


I believe I have this one David. Just haven't gotten around to reading it yet.


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## opus67

Welcome back, Hex.


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## vertciel

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the list! There are many works here which will benefit anyone interested in music.

@ Kurkikohtaus: I agree with you. I am currently trying to work something out so I can get an organised list of recommended music resources. Scrolling through pages of posts to get others' recommendations is certainly tedious and inconvenient.

I look forward to further posts!


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## Kurkikohtaus

I believe one way to circumvent the inability to edit old posts would be to make *vertciel* a Moderator.

Perhaps this thread could be moved over into the *Publications* category, with moderation privilidges enabled for him, for this very purpose.

Just a suggestion...


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## BuddhaBandit

Just read this thread. A couple interesting items:



> -Robert Rimm's The Composer-Pianists: Hamelin and the Eight (nice information about Medtner, Feinberg and Sorabji not usually mentioned in other books).


I used to play piano and compose with Rimm. Really interesting guy with some very insightful ideas.

Also, check out 101 Masterpieces of Music & Their Composers by Martin Bookspan- it has some great in-depth analyses, especially of the Beethoven and Haydn symphonies.


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## World Violist

Grout is the college classic that college students have to read (music-majors, I mean). There is a wonderful Brahms biography by Jan Swafford that examines certain of his more famous music as they are written in Johannes' life.

I have a lot of old college books that I could probably post on this thread, I just don't know just how "interesting" they are.


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## EricIsAPolarBear

I'd just like to thank Chi-Town / Philly for recommendation of Steinberrg's The Symphony. It has been a great reference since i picked it up about a week ago. I know little theory, but the writing is concise and not too technical.


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## vertciel

@World Violinist: I'd be interested in seeing what material you used in your college class. Feel free to post!


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## bartleby

*Additional Suggestions for the List*

Pardon me if I missed any previous mention of these books while scrolling through the thread:

I can highly recommend Alex Ross's book The Rest Is Noise, published last year. It's a survey of 20th Century music written with such insight and enthusiasm that I felt compelled to get a recording and listen to each composition that he discusses. This book has actually influenced my listening and appreciation of music,

J.W.N. Sullivan's Beethoven is an old classic that contains one of the most profound discussions of meaning in music that I have ever encountered.

Paul Griffiths' Concise History of Western Music gives the big picture in less than 350 pages. Published by Cambridge U Press, it got some nice reviews last year, which is why I bought it. Might be a good place to start before delving in more detailed histories.


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## Gustav

gee, there are so many good ones out there, I'll recommend a couple that i have recently read:

1. Conversations with Karajan - Interview with Herbert von Karajan with Osborne

2. Karl Böhm - A Life Remembered


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## Cyclops

I used to have quite a few music books but when I moved up north I had to leave most of my books behind. I had a Schubert bio by Richard Baker,also a Schunann bio,never got round to reading them tho. Would love a Mozart bio,also Haydn and Rachmaninov.

Now the only music book I have is the Collins Dictionary of Music by Michael Kenndey,1994. Has a photo of Sir Simon Rattle on the cover- an essential source of info!


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## Sanctus493

Well I'm not very well read in this area, but one book I would recommend is "1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die", does what it says on the tin, good for classical newbies (like me!) and aficionados alike. It's a great reference and buyer's guide, it goes right from the 12th century to the 21st, everyone from Hildegaard Von Bingen to Karlheinz Stockhausen. Guaranteed to create a few arguments among classical buffs!


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## Guest

Principles of Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Go online to the amazing Garritan Interactive Principles of Orchestration course. This uses the Rimsky-Korsakov text with audio files created of all the score extracts. It also includes video clips of sections of the orchestra and individual instruments and at the end of each chapter there is a series of exercies to do, with MIDI files and other resources available. And - it is free!

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=77


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## Rachovsky

Sanctus493 said:


> Well I'm not very well read in this area, but one book I would recommend is "1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die", does what it says on the tin, good for classical newbies (like me!) and aficionados alike. It's a great reference and buyer's guide, it goes right from the 12th century to the 21st, everyone from Hildegaard Von Bingen to Karlheinz Stockhausen. Guaranteed to create a few arguments among classical buffs!


Ugh, I purchased that a few months ago and every recording I've looked up to check out, they give the most obscure, unknown, quite-terrible suggestions. I've only saw a few that I agree with like Furtwangler's version of Beethoven's 9th and Soltis version of Mahler's 8th.

Anyhow, my most recent purchase was one of Harold Steinberg a few months ago. I believe it's called "The Lives of Great Composers." Gives both a musical and personal approach to all of the important composers.


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## CML

I've been teaching myself how to read and play classical keyboard and I've found some pretty good info in :
Elementary Training for Musicians by Paul Hindemith
Piano Playing With Piano Questions Answered by Josef Hofman
Piano Technique by Walter Gieseking and Karl Leimer


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## Elaryad

anmarwis said:


> Principles of Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov.
> 
> Go online to the amazing Garritan Interactive Principles of Orchestration course. This uses the Rimsky-Korsakov text with audio files created of all the score extracts. It also includes video clips of sections of the orchestra and individual instruments and at the end of each chapter there is a series of exercies to do, with MIDI files and other resources available. And - it is free!
> 
> http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=77


Great site! Thank you!


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## Elgarian

The are so many books about Elgar, but three that made a particular impact on me are the following. They're all about Elgar's friendships with women, but reading them changed certain aspects of how I listen to his music.

1. _Edward Elgar. Memories of a Variation_ by Dora Powell

Dora is the 'Dorabella' of the _Enigma Variations_. I felt as if I knew her already, in a way, through the music of her variation, and that's true of course. But that knowledge of the music affected the way I read her utterly delightful book. And after I'd read the book, the music acquired an extra delicacy and specialness.

2. _Edward Elgar: Record of a Friendship_ by Rosa Burley

Rosa Burley was an important friend who was the headmistress of the school where Elgar taught violin lessons (badly) before he was famous. She often went cycling with him. She provided him with a certain kind of support that was clearly important to him, but nothing at all like the semi-flirty but innocent relationship he had with Dorabella. She doesn't appear as an Enigma Variation, surprisingly. She herself claimed, jokingly, that she was 'the Theme'! Again lots of insight into Elgar the man, and through that knowledge, insight into the music.

3. _Elgar in Love: Vera Hockman and the Third Symphony_ by Kevin Walter Allen

This was a revelation to me when I read it - I'd had no notion of this late-flowering love affair in Elgar's life. But after I'd read this book, I never listened to the Third Symphony (or rather, Anthony Payne's wonderful reconstruction) again in the same way. I always find myself listening for 'Vera's theme' when it appears as the lovely second motif in the first movement.


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## pasoleati

Folks, what do you recommend as a good general reference that covers instruments, terminology, composers etc? It does not need to be the latest so I have been thinking of an older edition of the Grove, namely that by Eric Blom which is available for a reasonable cost second hand. Single volume refs like the Oxford Companion tend to be a bit too undetailed.


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## Rachovsky

pasoleati said:


> Folks, what do you recommend as a good general reference that covers instruments, terminology, composers etc? It does not need to be the latest so I have been thinking of an older edition of the Grove, namely that by Eric Blom which is available for a reasonable cost second hand. Single volume refs like the Oxford Companion tend to be a bit too undetailed.


http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Music-Eyewitness-Companions-Burrows/dp/0756609585

Have a look at that. That covers musical instruments, composers and descriptions of all of their famous works, and tons more If I'm not mistaken. I've wore my copy out.


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## opus67

pasoleati said:


> Folks, what do you recommend as a good general reference that covers instruments, terminology, composers etc? It does not need to be the latest so I have been thinking of an older edition of the Grove, namely that by Eric Blom which is available for a reasonable cost second hand. Single volume refs like the Oxford Companion tend to be a bit too undetailed.


This one, I have had the chance to flip through: http://www.amazon.com/The-Encyclope...=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220020020&sr=1-6

It has a sizeable section on instruments, even those you may not have heard of or those that have gone out of favour with musicians. (And in some cases it also includes instruments from outside Europe and the U.S.) It also has sections on the various periods of classical music, and then the last part is all about the prominent composers. I'm afraid it won't serve you well as a music dictionary.


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## pasoleati

Thanks for the recommendations, but I am looking for something a bit more substantial (i.e. at least 4 figured number of pages)? Anyone having Eric Blom´s Grove?


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## themusicman

*Appreciated Thread - Great Idea for Music Resource*

 Having been a choral director for over 10 years, I found a website that seems to have the best offerings of choral music, mostly sacred, at www.themusiclibrary.com.
Might help some of you struggling now with the economy's impact.

Feel free to copy and post other places.
These are really nice folks, who'll help you any way they can with choral music. [They are a reseller for choral programs, so there are minimum quantities required per order, but really inexpensive per copy].

Finish strong this year!


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## Herzeleide

_Harmony and Voice Leading_ - Aldwell and Schachter.

_Counterpoint in Composition_ - Salzer and Schachter.

_Counterpoint_ - Kennan.

_A Practical Approach to Sixteenth-Century Counterpoint_ - Gauldin.

_A Practical Approach to Eighteenth-Century Counterpoint_ - Gauldin.

_Forms in Tonal Music: An Introduction to Analysis_ - Green.

_Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven _ - Caplin.

... for starters...


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## Isola

The best music books I've read:

_Wondrous Strange - The Life and Art of Glenn Gould _by Kevin Bazzana

_Glenn Gould Reader _by Tim Page

_Mahler: His Life, Work and World _by Kurt Blaukopf

_Chopin's Funeral _by Benita Eisler

Heard much hype about _The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century _by Alex Ross (http://www.amazon.com/Rest-Noise-Li...sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227434439&sr=1-1). Have anyone read it and what do you think?


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## Isola

Well, not exactly about books, an article on _Gramophone_ magazine December issue I found worth mentioning - it reminded me some interesting and in depth discussions here and there on this board about the same subject: music and the mind. The summary of the article:



> *Music and the Mind*
> 
> Nigel Hawkes investigates the profound effect music has on our brains - how it works, what we know and why music is 'like a mind-altering drug'.
> 
> Music, neurologists have found, has a lot in common with food, sex and drugs of abuse. And not simply rock music: any melody, harmony, or thrilling top C that sends a shiver down the spine is eliciting a response in the same brain regions that are involved in emotion, arousal and reward.
> 
> The latest brain-imaging technology, positron emission tomography (PET scanning), was used by scientists at McGill University in Montreal to explore the euphoric moment when a piece of music breaks through mere appreciation and stirs the very soul. Given the intensity of the experience, it is no surprise that they found that quite primitive parts of the brain, such as the amygdala, were activated. They played Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor and Barber's Adagio for Strings, among other pieces, to music students, choosing 90-second extracts selected by the students as reliable triggers of the 'shiver down the spine' or 'hair standing up on the neck' experience familiar to all of us. Some people call this experience 'chills'.
> 
> Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre, the two neurologists responsible, had earlier investigated the brain regions activated by musical dissonance. While dissonance triggered responses in the parahippocampus - the seat of negative emotions - music that generated chills activated regions linked to reward and motivation, such as the ventral striatum, the dorsomedial midbrain, the amygdala and the hippocampus, the same systems triggered by food, sex, and drugs.
> 
> 'This is quite remarkable, because music is neither strictly necessary for biological survival or reproduction, nor is it a pharmacological substance,' they concluded. 'The ability of music to induce such intense pleasure suggests that, although it may not be imperative to the survival of the human species, it may indeed be of significant benefit to our mental and physical well-being.'
> 
> The mysteries of the brain, music and the senses
> The function of music has long puzzled scientists, especially those interested in human evolution. It appears to be ancient, and universal: bone flutes dating to at least 30,000 years ago have been found, though nobody has the least idea what tunes they played, and music is enjoyed in every culture. Some scientists believe that an appreciation of music is imprinted into the brain, rather like the ability to master language. Yet music, unlike speech, sex or food, seems to offer no survival advantage. So why is it so powerful and so ubiquitous?
> 
> There is no final answer, but many other mysteries of musical perception are beginning to yield to the power of modern brain scans. Before magnetic resonance imaging and PET scans, tantalising scraps of knowledge had been gathered from people unlucky enough to suffer brain damage or a stroke, which affected some aspect of their musical appreciation. The Russian composer Vissarion Shebalin suffered a stroke in 1953 which robbed him of the power of language. He could neither talk nor understand speech, yet he went on composing music until his death 10 years later.
> 
> This makes it clear that while music occupies areas of the brain that overlap those of speech, they are not identical. Brain scans have confirmed this and have shown that there is no single area of the brain labelled 'music'. Rather, in musical appreciation diverse areas of the brain are called upon: the auditory cortex for tones, the right temporal lobe for timbre, the parietal lobe for rhythm, the planum temporale for pitch and melody, the limbic system for emotion. Few of us know where any of these brain regions actually are, but that doesn't matter: where music is concerned, the brain is like one of those old phrenologist's skulls, each area labelled with a different aspect of musical appreciation.
> 
> All this becomes plainer when the brains of musicians are examined. Like the muscles of an athlete, specific brain regions are larger or better-developed in people who have spent years in music training. The auditory cortex is 130 per cent larger in musicians, for example, demonstrating that learning music increases the number of brain cells used to process it. In violinists, the brain regions that receive inputs from the fingers of the left hand are significantly larger, because those fingers determine the sound the instrument makes. There is no corresponding increase in the areas devoted to the right hand, which merely holds the bow. Keyboard players, who need to learn perfect coordination of the hands, show exaggerated growth in the anterior corpus callosum, the band of fibres that connects the motor areas responsible for each hand. The earlier children start to learn music, the more pronounced the changes. Children's brains are more plastic than adults' and respond more readily to the effects of musical training.
> 
> The diversity of brain regions involved in music means that there are many things that can go wrong in those unlucky enough to lack one or another of them. Che Guevara, the Cuban revoutionary, could not distinguish one tune from another, a serious handicap in an island so steeped in music. He probably suffered from congenital amusia, a condition that robs people of any shred of musical appreciation.


- http://www.gramophone.co.uk/publications_detail.asp?pub=1#2

Oh another interesting read on this issue is about Mahler's 8th.


----------



## Isola

I wonder if anyone has read *Music and the Mind *by Anthony Storr. Reviews on Amazon seems quite interesting:



> From Publishers Weekly
> Rejecting the Freudian notion that music is a form of infantile escapism, British psychologist Storr ( Solitude ) argues that music originates from the human brain, promotes order within the mind, exalts life and gives it meaning. In an engaging inquiry, Storr speculates on music's origins in preliterate societies and examines its therapeutic powers, even in people with neurological diseases that cause movement disorders. Focusing on Western classical music from Bach to Stravinsky, he rejects the view, expounded by Leonard Bernstein and others, that the Western tonal system is a universal scheme rooted in the natural order. Citing studies of physiological arousal, Storr updates Arthur Schopenhauer's thesis that music portrays the inner flow of life more directly than the other arts. He turns to Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher, pianist and composer, for an understanding of music as an affirmative medium that helps us transcend life's essential tragedy.
> 
> Product Description
> "Writing with grace and clarity...he touches on everything from the evolution of the Western tonal system, to the Freudian theory of music as infantile escapism, to the differing roles o the right and left brain in perceiving music."
> 
> WALL STREET JOURNAL
> Drawing on his own life long passion for music and synthesizing the theories of Plato, Schopenhauer, Stravinsky, Nietzsche, Bartok, and others, distinguished author and psychologist Anthony Storr illuminates music's deep beauty and timeless truth and why and how music is one of the fundamental activities of mankind.


----------



## Rachovsky

Karajan: A Life in Music

Anyone familiar with this biography? I'm hoping to receive it for Christmas, but I'm not sure why it is priced at $50.00 (even if it's hardcover).


----------



## Isola

I'm not familiar with the book but that price on amazon is a total rip off. I checked on my current favourite bookstore The Book Depository, it costs GBP16.85, about $25 (the non-stop falling of GBP is scary!), and free delivery worldwide: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/showbook.php?id=0712664653

Well, guess too late...

Oops, never mind, that's the paperback price. The HC is £35.50 - http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/showbook.php?id=9781555534257 more than $50! Can't believe Karajan is so expensive...


----------



## Rachovsky

Thanks for looking Isola. Karajan takes a lot of punches, but he was my first love and I figure I owe it to him to at least read about him.


----------



## ironchen

I have a question about Miniature Scores. I need to analyse the Eroica Symphony by Beethoven for my theory exam but I don't know which edition of mini score to get. Does it really matter which edition I get? Do some editions have extra study material or whatnot that other editions don't have? Thanks


----------



## species motrix

Harold Schonberg's _Lives of the Great Composers_ is a pleasant read and has a lot of good information.


----------



## jhar26

Rachovsky said:


> Karajan: A Life in Music
> 
> Anyone familiar with this biography? I'm hoping to receive it for Christmas, but I'm not sure why it is priced at $50.00 (even if it's hardcover).


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Herbert-Von...=UTF8&coliid=IFTB65XSLZU25&colid=F6NRYHRM08S2


----------



## al2henry

For the listener who seeks an explanation (not an apologist nor a cheer-leader) for 12 tone practices and experimental "musics" of the post-WWII decades, set against a background that begins with Mahler and R.Strauss I can recommend "The Rest is Noise - listening to the music of the 20th century" by Alex Ross. For those with an unlimited broadband connection the author provides a web site with audio examples:

www.therestisnoise.com/audio

I'm not so lucky, so I get to use my limited aural imagination and some of my CD's - nonetheless an interesting & informative read for those who are neither music students nor professionals.


----------



## Air

I've been lent a book called "The Great Pianists" by Harold C. Schonberg, which covers the complete history of European piano from Bach to the 60's. Can't seem to find it online because it is a very old book, but it is full of vivid and humorous anecdotes.


----------



## kg4fxg

*Cheap Books*

Well,

I really am trying to honestly learn this stuff. I do play and read music but always want to improve. I have purchased many of the following books for under a dollar at amazon. Some may say I got what I paid for??? I will print this threat and use it for future purchases. Back to my reading, if you have any advice don't hesitate to throw it my way. I don't know what I am doing - just trying to learn. I can't get away from this music - it has captured me!

Thanks

Music: An Appreciation [Hardcover] 
By: Roger Kamien

The Complete Book of Classical Music [Hardcover] 
By: David Ewen

The Symphony: A Listener's Guide [Paperback] by Steinberg, Michael [Paperback] 
By: Michael Steinberg

What to Listen For in Music [Paperback] 
By: Aaron Copland, Leonard Slatkin

The Concerto: A Listener's Guide (Listener's Guide Series) [Paperback] 
By: Michael Steinberg

Listen to the Music: A Self-Guided Tour Through the Orchestral Repertoire by... [Hardcover] 
By: Jonathan D. Kramer

The Rough Guide to Classical Music: 100 Essential CDs, 1st Edition (Rough... [Paperback] 
By: Joe Staines

The Oxford Companion to Music (Oxford Companions) [Hardcover] by Latham, Alison [Hardcover] 
By: Alison Latham

Classical Music Top 40: Learn How To Listen To And Appreciate The 40 Most Popular And Important Pieces I [Paperback] 
By: Anthony Rudel

The New York Times Essential Library: Classical Music: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings [Paperback] 
By: Allan Kozinn

Conducting Technique: For Beginners and Professionals Book [Spiral-bound] 
By: Brock McElheran

The Art of the Conductor: The Definitive Guide to Music Conducting Skills, Terms, and Techniques [Paperback] 
By: John J Watkins

The Classical Music Experience With Web Site, Second Edition: Discover the... [Hardcover] 
By: Julius Jacobson II

Classical Music Without Fear: A Guide for General Audiences [Paperback] by... [Paperback] 
By: Marianne Williams Tobias

The Classic Fm Guide to Classical Music: The Essential Companion to Composers... [Paperback] 
By: Jeremy Nicholas

Classical Music Top 40: Learn How To Listen To And Appreciate The 40 Most Popular And Important Pieces I [Paperback]

Why Classical Music Still Matters [Paperback] 
By: Lawrence Kramer

Classical music [Hardcover] 
By: John Stanley

Random House Encyclopedic Dictionary of Classical Music [Hardcover] 
By: Helicon Publishing Ltd.

The Chronicle of Classical Music: An Intimate Diary of the Lives and Music of the Great Composers [Paperback] 
By: Alan Kendall

Mendelssohn (Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers) by Moshansky, Mozelle [Paperback] 
By: Mozelle Moshansky

Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque [Paperback] by Landon, H. C. Robbins [Paperback] 
By: H. C. Robbins Landon

Antonio Vivaldi: The Red Priest of Venice [Hardcover] 
By: Karl Heller

Vivaldi (Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers) [Paperback] 
By: J. Booth

Johannes Brahms: A Biography [Paperback] by Swafford, Jan [Paperback] 
By: Jan Swafford

Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius [Paperback] by Peter Ostwald [Paperback] 
By: Peter Ostwald

A Brahms Reader [Paperback] by Musgrave, Michael [Paperback] 
By: Michael Musgrave

Classical Music (Eyewitness Companions) [Turtleback] by Burrows, John [Turtleback] 
By: John Burrows

Who's Afraid of Classical Music [Hardcover] by Walsh, Michael [Hardcover] 
By: Michael Walsh

The Classic FM Friendly Guide to Music (Classic FM Friendly Guides) [Paperback] 
By: Darren Henley

The Essential Canon of Classical Music [Paperback] 
By: David Dubal

Classical Destinations: An Armchair Guide to Classical Music [Hardcover] 
By: Simon Callow, Wendy McDougall

Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value [Hardcover] 
By: Julian Johnson

The Life and Death of Classical Music: Featuring the 100 Best and 20 Worst Recordings Ever Made [Paperback] 
By: Norman Lebrecht

Ballet 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving the Ballet [Paperback] by [Paperback] 
By: Robert Greskovic

The Lives of the Great Composers [Hardcover] 
By: Harold C. Schonberg

Story of the Orchestra : Listen While You Learn About the Instruments, the Music and the Composers Who Wrote the Music! [Hardcover]

The Vintage Guide to Classical Music [Paperback] by Swafford, Jan [Paperback] 
By: Jan Swafford

Classical Music 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Classical Music... [Paperback] 
By: Fred Plotkin

The NPR Classical Music Companion: An Essential Guide for Enlightened Listening [Paperback] 
By: Miles Hoffman

Inside Music [Paperback] by Haas, Karl [Paperback] 
By: Karl Haas

Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera [Paperback] by Fred... [Paperback] 
By: Fred Plotkin, Placido Domingo

Classical Music [Paperback] 
By: Phil G. Goulding (Author)

The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection : The 350 Essential Works [Paperback] 
By: Ted Libbey (Author)

The NPR Listener's Encyclopedia of Classical Music [Paperback] 
By: Ted Libbey (Author)


----------



## Cyclops

Has there been a good Shostakovich biography? And how about Prokofiev? They have a slim biography in the library but I forget the author. I find the lives of composers interesting and would love bios of them all!


----------



## vivies

Hello,

harmony, theory, composition and music techniques are widely developped for advanced musicians and beginners. here.
A free webtv in music theory for beginners : here.

Enjoy


----------



## Mirror Image

Great book for reference. 900+ pages


----------



## andruini

airad2 said:


> I've been lent a book called "The Great Pianists" by Harold C. Schonberg, which covers the complete history of European piano from Bach to the 60's. Can't seem to find it online because it is a very old book, but it is full of vivid and humorous anecdotes.


Oh! I have that same book! It's quite a good read! It's my dad's actually, but yeah, it's really old.. There's another one of the series called The Great Conductors, which is great too..


----------



## Air

andruini said:


> Oh! I have that same book! It's quite a good read! It's my dad's actually, but yeah, it's really old.. There's another one of the series called The Great Conductors, which is great too..


It's such a pity we don't have recordings from the epitome of the golden age... it makes me sad to think about all the names lost, Thalberg (rivalled Liszt, but why doesn't anybody know about him?), D'Albert, Gottshalk, Tausig, Dreyshock, Moscheles, Godowsky, C.Schumann (Robert's wife, that's what she's known as today!), Pleyel, etc. because for the romantic era, all we have now are the recordings of Horowitz and Cortot. I've been actively searching for very old recordings: there are some good ones of Von Sauer, Busoni, Paderewski, Rosenthal, Landowska, Saint-Saens and others.

There is also a good deal of music out there from the pianist-composers other than the ones we know today, It would be such a treat to see the works of Thalberg, Gottshalk, Moscheles, etc. be played more often.

I'll look for that Great Conductors book too. Is it just as old?


----------



## danae

Over the years I have done a lot of bibliographical research and I have a large collection of complete bibliographical referrences (without commentary though), but I can't post them, because of their volume. Is there any way that I can upload files (as microsoft word documents) here?


----------



## emiellucifuge

Anybody know a good Biography of Antonin Dvorak, coverin the whole of his life musically and personally?


----------



## nimmysnv

Thanks for the recommends, i'll check those out. I've heard of the musicians book through others. 
Thanks


----------



## nimmysnv

Hi,

I think we should not debating on topic which is better and which is not!!!!!!!
Well your efforts are appreciable and really great stuff for upcoming generation.
These music books can be so helpful for beginners.I like the idea of dividing the categories.
Fantastic!!!!!!!
Like to have one of your music book.


Thanks for information.


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

*Music Books List Now Complete!*

A while back, we mentioned in this post that we were working on the project of organizing many of the recommended music books into a unified location. At the top of this thread, the opening phase of the project has now been completed!!

The work will continue though. We're sure that there are some other worthy book-recommendations in unrelated threads. If you know of some that you feel merit special mention, please contact us (preferably via Private Message) and we will consider adding to the list. 
Also (if we may indulge in a little unsolicited advice) future recommendations are a little more interesting if we can say a little about _why_ a particular tome merits special attention.

Thanks to all past and future contributors...


----------



## Barger

Composers Voices from Ives to Ellington (with more volumes to follow!)

Principles of Orchestration (by Rimky-Korsakov)

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brai (by Oliver Sacks)


----------



## SamGuss

May have been listed already - if so, another vote for it:










It has proven invaluable to quick research and a starting point in finding good works/recordings.


----------



## emiellucifuge

May I recommend an excellent series:

The Oxford History of Western Music.

A 6 volume set including from early music to the 21st century. 
After reading volume 4 (early twentieth century) I must say this is indeed a masterpiece of research, literature and theory. Not only does Taruskin (professor of Musicology at Uni Cali, Berkely) beautifully describe all the historical events that occured to influence the art, not only does he cover the entire philosophy and paradigm shifts that have shaped the art (remarkably prominent in the later volumes), but he also includes detailed analyses of pieces (scores are printed in the book) showing exactly the developments that occur within the actual music and linking them through a chain of influence or innovation.

Fantastic!
http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Histor...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0195386302


----------



## Elgarian

I've been digging into various Mozart biographies in recent months, with varying success, and by far the most enlightening and readable is *Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791, by Volkmar Braunbehrens* (pub. Deutsch 1990).

It sets Mozart very firmly into the Vienna of his day, and does so entertainingly and vividly. It has no truck with uncritical acceptance of Mozart myth, and makes a serious attempt to distinguish fact from fiction. It's the sort of book that makes you wish, when you're halfway through, it were twice as long as it is. And even better, it makes you want to go and listen to more Mozart.

Strongly recommended.


----------



## Isola

A friend of mine recommended me *The Piano Shop on the Left Bank *- http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Shop-Le...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266779459&sr=8-1 . It seems a pleasant read. I wonder if anyone here have read it.


----------



## 52paul

*The Music Instinct - how music works and why we can't do without it - by Philip Ball*
My friend Philip Ball has come out with yet another superb book. This one about music.
On Tuesday I went to the Royal Institution where he was lecturing on the subject of his book and very fascinating it was too.
The lecture hall and gallery were sold out and we ended up sitting on the steps as we were a bit late. Anyway I managed to catch up with what we had missed by listening to the audio recording which is conveniently included on the Royal Institution website

There are more great reviews in today's papers. Here are a couple:

The Independent on Sunday

The Observer

Philip is repeating the lecture at the Royal Institution on 27 February and then more lectures around the country in March.

Here's a link to Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-without/dp/1847920888/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1


----------



## bigham45

Hello all!

Obviously I am new here, but I am not new to music and all it's wonders. I know this thread has been dormant for a while, but I'm hoping to get a reply or two about some books I'm looking into. I read through the thread but never saw anything about either. One was mentioned at the beginning but not connected anywhere:

1. _Tonal Harmony by Kostka/Payne
2. Harmony and Voice Leading by Aldwell/Schacter

I've been through collegiate theory but I am wanting to keep my "skills" up to par and continue to learn and further those so-called "skills". Lol.

Any comments about these books or perhaps other books I should look into would be great!

Hope to meet you all in the forums!

Ty_


----------



## Roberto

Can anyone recommend any really detailed analyses of Mozart's piano concerti or string quartets - I have come across those by Hutchings, Girdlestone and a little BBC guide, all of which are useful. The Mozart companions are not very detailed.

I don't know whether Tovey covers these.

Does Tovey have a successor? 

Also interested in similar on Bach, eg his concerti.


----------



## Ravellian

For anyone who doesn't know, _The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians_ is the largest single reference work for classical music - some 22 enormous volumes. It also exists in an online version as part of Oxford Music Online, though I'm not sure if a university student ID is required to access it.


----------



## superhorn

Harold C. Schonberg's "The Great Conductors" is the companion to his book on the great pianists, and a goldmine of information about such giants of the podium as Toscanini,Stokowski,Karajan, Klemperer, Beecham, Walter, Szell, Bernstein, and others.
It also offers a fascinating discussion of how the art and profession of conducting evolved.
As it was written in the 60s, it lacks information about many important conductors who have since emerged, but that is no reason not to get it.

"The Compleat Conductor" (author's spelling) by composer/conductor and polymath 
Gunther Schuller is a fascinating if at times exasperating critical evaluation of an enormous number of recordings by many,many different conductors past and present of symphonies by Beethoven,Brahms, SchumannTchaikovsky and other orchestral works such as Till Eulenspiegel,the second suite from Daphnis and Chloe, etc.
Schuller painstakingly notes deviations from the composer's written instructions,or careful observance of them, and trashes many great conductors their supposed failure to be faithful to the score. He often gets bogged down in splitting hairs, and is often too rigidly literal in judging the performances, but it's an absorbing,if often disturbing read.


----------



## vacious

*about classical period*

i need info for Mozart-piano concerto in G major & piano sonata in A major


----------



## Kieran

Elgarian said:


> I've been digging into various Mozart biographies in recent months, with varying success, and by far the most enlightening and readable is *Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791, by Volkmar Braunbehrens* (pub. Deutsch 1990).
> 
> It sets Mozart very firmly into the Vienna of his day, and does so entertainingly and vividly. It has no truck with uncritical acceptance of Mozart myth, and makes a serious attempt to distinguish fact from fiction. It's the sort of book that makes you wish, when you're halfway through, it were twice as long as it is. And even better, it makes you want to go and listen to more Mozart.
> 
> Strongly recommended.


Hi Elgarian,

Just saw this, but I highly recommend David Cairns Mozart & His Operas, which is great for both connoisseurs or lay people - of which I'm the latter.

He has a scintillating chapter on Idomeneo, but the whole book is excellent.

I don't know the book you recommend, but I will!


----------



## charismajc

Elgarian,

It sounds like you know a lot about mozart biographies. What do you think about solomon's biography? It's the only one I've ever read, but I found it very poignant and touching. A lot of the book seems to focus on mozart's/father as the emotional driving force behind who he was. I've heard its well researched as well.

I understand that solomon also wrote a strong beethoven bio? Any thoughts on that?


----------



## emiellucifuge

Just wondering if anyone has an opinion on Schoenberg's Harmonielehre? Ive ordered it recently.


----------



## Quartetfore

I think that best one volume book about Beethoven is "Beethoven" by Maynard Solomon. Of course, there is bit of "Psyco Babble" but not enough to detract from the very high quality of the book. A must have is "Music and Society Since 1815" by Henry Raynnor. If you are interested in the Musical world of the 19th century this a most interesting read. the correct spelling is of course Raynor.


----------



## janealex

*Great Collection*

In fact i was looking for any online school for classical music but your given book i hope that are also useful for me in my learning.


----------



## blomster

Thank you so much for the list!

I strongly recommend Harold Schonberg's books for starters. Despite the thickness of his books his storytelling style is easy to follow and simply keeps you turning one page after the other.


----------



## Edward Elgar

Has anyone mentioned the following?:

Charles Rosen - The Classical Style
Samuel Adler - A Guide to Orchestration
Paul Griffiths - Modern Music

These are books I can't recommend strongly enough.


----------



## Lunasong

52paul said:


> *The Music Instinct - how music works and why we can't do without it - by Philip Ball*


I have just finished reading this book and found it extremely informative. Ball uses examples from all genres of music to explore how music works in the brain and perhaps, why the brain requires music. It was a bit scholarly but that will be my excuse to read it more in depth in the future. I can see this being an excellent reference book from which a student could pick a research topic to explore more thoroughly.

I highly recommend this book.


----------



## hemidemisemiquaver

I think Ernst Krenek's _Music Here and Now_ can be added to Music Appreciation & Survey Texts.

:tiphat:


----------



## groovesandwich

The Joy of Music/Bernstein Hexameron

Always has been and always will be one of my favorites!


----------



## lou

Bought a copy of this last night, at our local Borders Books going out of business sale.

Not bad for $5


----------



## samurai

Way to go, lou!


----------



## starthrower

lou said:


> Bought a copy of this last night, at our local Borders Books going out of business sale.
> 
> Not bad for $5


I received that book as a gift several years ago. It's OK, but the author was a complete beginner himself when he undertook the project.

In addition to recommended books, I'd like to see a list of books to avoid. I bought a used copy of the Third Ear Guide To Classical Music, and I don't like the way it's laid out. No bold type for the titles of recordings, so all of the text blends together to make things more difficult to pick out.


----------



## Vesteralen

lou said:


> Bought a copy of this last night, at our local Borders Books going out of business sale.
> 
> Not bad for $5


My daughter got this book for a college course several years ago and left it with me when she moved. I'm just finishing the last couple of chapters this week.

Being OCD, this is the kind of thing I love, even when I don't agree with it. After all, the guy leaves my two favorites, Nielsen and Elgar, out of the Top 50, and doesn't even give Barber an honorable mention.

But, I did learn a lot of stuff I didn't know. I found the late chapters on Couperin and Borodin fascinating and I've determined to get to know their music better.


----------



## Vesteralen

I don't know if anyone has said much about the BBC Music Guides, but I am finding the one on Schumann's Piano Music to be fascinating. I've read books on Schumann before, but this small guide contains more new information per page than anything I can remember reading.


----------



## lou

I just finished "Music In The Western World: A History in Documents"










If anyone would care to have my used copy, just PM me your mailing address and I'll send it along. My girlfriend says no more books on the shelf, so I'd like to see it go to a good home.

Here is the Amazon page for the book http://www.amazon.com/Music-Western-World-History-Documents/dp/0028729005/ref=tmm_pap_title_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317853164&sr=1-1


----------



## lou

Woops! U.S. only for the above offer, please. :tiphat:


----------



## chee_zee

under theory and composition put two books from norden hugo: foundation studies in fugue, and technique of canon. some of the best theory books ever. don't forget alexander publishing's professional orchestration series, 140 bucks will get you a year's worth of orch studies (pdfs, spectratone, and the sound files)


----------



## Hazel

Too many posts have gone by for me to see if anyone has mentioned this book but it is a must for absolute beginners in understanding what we are listening to and for. Note I said "we". That means me. Probably most of you are far beyond this stage but I got a lot out of it.

"What to Listen for in Music" by Aaron Copland with Foreward and Epilogue by Alan Rich (icing on the cake).


----------



## brydon

Classical Music for Dummies is very good for beginners, good CD examples included (EMI). Many positive reviews.










Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mus...0098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326756722&sr=8-1


----------



## RandallPeterListens

In a quick review of previous posts, I did not see two of my favorite books about individual composers:

1. "Charles Ives Remembered: an Oral History", edited by Vivan Perlis. In which Ives is revealed to be as quirky and cranky in his personal life as he was in his music.

2. "Testimony" by Dmitri Shostakovich. Not really a pleasant book to read, but like the Ives book the music really reflects the personality of the composer. By turns, angry, quarrelsome, obsessive, paranoid, petty with a few brief moments of joy or triumph, the book is like reading a verbal equivalent of one of his quartets.


----------



## sahibagupta

Hi

This easy-to-read blueprint for pedal harpists by Sylvia Woods includes the pedal diagrams for the a lot of frequently acclimated glissandos: 6th, accessory 7th, abeyant 4, beneath 7th, augmented, and accomplished tone. Several accessible pedal configurations are listed for abounding of the glisses, so you may accept the one you like the complete of best, and the one that is easiest to get in and out of with the atomic pedal changes.

thanks


----------



## Truckload

lou said:


> Bought a copy of this last night, at our local Borders Books going out of business sale.
> 
> Not bad for $5


I really love this book. I read it years ago, but still go back to it from time to time. I think what I like the most is the humility and humanity of the author. By the end of the book, you feel like the author is a personal friend.


----------



## Truckload

*Dvorak by David Hurwitz*

I have been on a bit of a Dvorak binge lately. I just finishede this book and I liked it alot. Of course, I like all of David Hurwitz books.









*Dvorak: Romantic Music's Most Versatile Genius* by David Hurwitz


----------



## GGluek

Bios:

Lewis Lockwood's "Beethoven: The Music and the Life" is the Beethoven biography to have if you're only going to have one.

Performance Practice: 

Erich Leinsdorf's "The Composer's Advocate" is a fascinating but characteristically curmudgeonly compendium of the sort of arcana that he thinks conductors should think about.

General writing about specific pieces:

Along with Tovey's and Michael Steinberg's program notes, any of Andrew Porter's six volumes of collected music essays from The New Yorker are fascinating (and scholarly) reading.


----------



## Thunders

If you can read in French, I recommend Francis Pagnon's book about Wagner's music. It's really good.

You'll never listen to Wagner the same again.


----------



## Rondo

Has anyone purchased a "Study score," particularly one published under the name Sikorski? I am looking at a study score right now for an orchestral work. Before I dish out the money for it, I want to be confident that it will be the entire orchestral score, with all parts/instruments/voices, and not a piano-type double-clef score or sketches. Anyone familiar with this publisher?


----------



## chee_zee

'bout to rip this thread a new ********, all the following are under 'theory and comp':

time and rhythm in north indian rag music - martin claytin
solkattu manual - david nelson
composing the music of africa - malcom floyd
mande music - eric charry
gamelan gong kebyar, the art of 20th century balinese gamelan - michael tenzer
composing for japanese instruments - minoru miki (well, this one may go in the instrument specific section, it's an instrumentation manual)

also, there are a crapload of them and he's not even halfway done, but peter lawrence alexander has the professional orchestration series


----------



## emiellucifuge

Rondo said:


> Has anyone purchased a "Study score," particularly one published under the name Sikorski? I am looking at a study score right now for an orchestral work. Before I dish out the money for it, I want to be confident that it will be the entire orchestral score, with all parts/instruments/voices, and not a piano-type double-clef score or sketches. Anyone familiar with this publisher?


I buy scores from Sikorski regularly, but they have full scores as well as reductions. I think a study score should be the full thing.


----------



## jalex

Music appreciation
Deryck Cooke: The Language of Music

Composer specific
Hector Berlioz: Memoirs

Theory and Composition
Hector Berlioz: Treatise on Orchestration

Other
Ferruccio Busoni/Claude Debussy/Charles Ives: Three Classics in the Aesthetics of Music
Hector Berlioz: Evenings with the Orchestra


----------



## goldie08

I have three small books that might be of interest. Hope I'm not repeating what has already been posted. They are:

a] Conversations with Menuhin - by David Dubal. Publ.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ)

b] The Wordsworth Dictionary of Musical Quotations - by Derek Watson. Publ.: Wordsworth Reference

c] A Dictionary of Musical Quotations - by Ian Crofton & Donald Fraser. Publ.: Schirmer Books


----------



## Hausmusik

A few of the most rewarding books on music I have read:

Theodor Adorno, _Quasi una fantasia_

Carl Dahlhaus, _Nineteenth-Century Music_

Christopher H. Gibbs, ed. _The Cambridge Companion to Schubert_

Kenneth Hamilton, _After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance_

Robin Stowell, ed. _The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet_

Jan Swafford, _Johannes Brahms: A Biography_

William Weber, _The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms_ (NOTE: This one is a pretty dry read, but its thesis is fascinating and well-supported)

Robert Winter & Robert Martin, _The Beethoven Quartet Companion_


----------



## carlmichaels

In addition to Stowell's book on the string quartet, my I suggest Paul Griffiths' _The String Quartet_.


----------



## StevenOBrien

lou said:


> Bought a copy of this last night, at our local Borders Books going out of business sale.
> 
> Not bad for $5


It doesn't really inspire confidence that they seem to have put the wrong Bach on the cover...


----------



## lou

StevenOBrien said:


> It doesn't really inspire confidence that they seem to have put the wrong Bach on the cover...


I'm afraid I don't know what you mean? 

Please enlighten me!


----------



## Hesoos

lou said:


> I'm afraid I don't know what you mean?
> 
> Please enlighten me!


In the cover is Johann Christian Bach and not Johann Sebastian Bach.


----------



## Hesoos

I read all that thread seraching a book of symphonies' description.
I'd like to buy "The Symphony: A Listener's Guide [Paperback] 
Michael Steinberg" (in this thread is recommended several times)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Symphony-A-Listeners-Guide/dp/0195126653

Is it really a book where I can read what the Mahler's and Beethoven's symphonies (for exemple) descrives movement per movement? 
Is there some book better? Or a book where the greatest symphonies and concertos are together in the same book?
thanks


----------



## lou

Hesoos said:


> In the cover is Johann Christian Bach and not Johann Sebastian Bach.


From the images I've searched online, I'd have to say I disagree.


----------



## Hesoos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christian_Bach

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_family

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach


----------



## Hesoos

The trick is in the hair. 
Johann Christian Bach with the Johann Sebastian Bach's hair.


----------



## lou

Hesoos said:


> The trick is in the hair.
> Johann Christian Bach with the Johann Sebastian Bach's hair.


Very Interesting.

Perhaps Johann Christian had a better publicist.


----------



## Hesoos

lou said:


> Very Interesting.
> 
> Perhaps Johann Christian had a better publicist.


Heh heh Johann Sebastian Bach was too much ugly for a book cover heh heh ...:lol:


----------



## Creibold

If if hasn't been mentioned here before, Alan Walker's 3 part biography on Liszt is a Monumental work in this genre, and highly recommend.

Above all, it's actually fun to read.

I do remember an anecdote jotted down by one of his companions that he was traveling with on his first tour of England. It went that one night Liszt was so drunk he couldn't even stand straight yet was able to wake up the next morning bright and early (this was toward the end of his tour) and give "one of the best performances of the tour", the author stated.

We all know that some Liszt stories are embellished, so take it with a grain of salt, but Walker's accounting of Liszt's life is _full_ of these sorts of little jems.


----------



## myaskovsky2002

For operas: plots, etc







Viking.

About Rimsky-Korsakov

My musical life









Novels about Mozart:








Mozart's sister

Mozart's wife








Martin


----------



## millionrainbows

"Tuning In" by Scott R. Wilkinson
"Harmonograph" by Anthony Ashton
"The Just Intonation Primer" by David B. Doty


----------



## GGluek

Hesoos said:


> I read all that thread seraching a book of symphonies' description.
> I'd like to buy "The Symphony: A Listener's Guide [Paperback]
> Michael Steinberg" (in this thread is recommended several times)
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/The-Symphony-A-Listeners-Guide/dp/0195126653
> 
> Is it really a book where I can read what the Mahler's and Beethoven's symphonies (for exemple) descrives movement per movement?
> Is there some book better? Or a book where the greatest symphonies and concertos are together in the same book?
> thanks


Steinberg's books -- all three of them -- are wonderful reads. They are compilations of many of the concert program notes he wrote for the various orchestras he was associated with (Boston, Minneapolis, San Francisco). They contain a wealth of information, lovingly put together and entertainingly written. Get them.


----------



## millionrainbows

I just spotted a used copy of "An Introduction to Schenker Analysis" which I plan to go back & get.


----------



## Jem

What do you think is the best Mahler book? I've read Lebrecht's "Why Mahler?" and I've got the letters to Alma, though yet to read..


----------



## millionrainbows

Here it is, by Alan Forte, America's top music theorist (at Yale).


----------



## Avengeil

Upon trying to find space in the living room library to finally organize by era my music books I actually stumbled on a copy of Schonberg's the lives of great composers....

Planning on giving it a read quite soon.


----------



## millionrainbows

Good book; I never had it in hardcover until now. Well worth the 3 or 4 dollars.


----------



## Clump

Schoenberg's Fundamentals of Musical Composition isn't there?

I found it much more interesting than Classical Form, mainly because of the emphasis on development.


----------



## Lunasong

I would like to bring to the attention of all a delightful book I just finished reading that I borrowed from the library. Maybe yours has a copy? It was an easy read of less than 300 pages and kept me thoroughly entertained. I also learned a lot about Denmark during WWII. Published in 2000, so probably nothing new to learn about Beethoven.








As Ludwig van Beethoven lay dying in 1827, a young musician named Ferdinand Hiller came to pay his respects to the great composer. In those days, it was customary to snip a lock of hair as a keepsake, and this Hiller did a day after Beethoven's death. By the time he was buried, Beethoven's head had been nearly shorn by the many people who similarly had wanted a lasting memento of the great man. Such was his powerful effect on all those who had heard his music.

For a century, the lock of hair was a treasured Hiller family relic, and perhaps was destined to end up sequestered in a bank vault, until it somehow found its way to the town of Gilleleje, in Nazi-occupied Denmark, during the darkest days of the Second World War. There, it was given to a local doctor, Kay Fremming, who was deeply involved in the effort to help save hundreds of hunted and frightened Jews. Who gave him the hair, and why? And what was the fate of those refugees, holed up in the attic of Gilleleje's church?

After Fremming's death, his daughter assumed ownership of the lock, and eventually consigned it for sale at Sotheby's, where two American Beethoven enthusiasts, Ira Brilliant and Che Guevara, purchased it in 1994. Subsequently, they and others instituted a series of complex forensic tests in the hope of finding the probable causes of the composer's chronically bad health, his deafness, and the final demise that Ferdinand Hiller had witnessed all those years ago. The results, revealed for the first time here, are startling, and are the most compelling explanation yet offered for why one of the foremost musicians the world has ever known was forced to spend much of his life in silence.

In Beethoven's Hair, Russell Martin has created a rich historical treasure hunt, an Indiana Jones-like tale of false leads, amazing breakthroughs, and incredible revelations. This unique and fascinating book is a moving testament to the power of music, the lure of relics, the heroism of the Resistance movement, and the brilliance of molecular science.

An astonishing tale of one lock of hair and its amazing travels--from nineteenth-century Vienna to twenty-first-century America.


----------



## DavidA

Lunasong said:


> I would like to bring to the attention of all a delightful book I just finished reading that I borrowed from the library. Maybe yours has a copy? It was an easy read of less than 300 pages and kept me thoroughly entertained. I also learned a lot about Denmark during WWII. Published in 2000, so probably nothing new to learn about Beethoven.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As Ludwig van Beethoven lay dying in 1827, a young musician named Ferdinand Hiller came to pay his respects to the great composer. In those days, it was customary to snip a lock of hair as a keepsake, and this Hiller did a day after Beethoven's death. By the time he was buried, Beethoven's head had been nearly shorn by the many people who similarly had wanted a lasting memento of the great man. Such was his powerful effect on all those who had heard his music.
> 
> For a century, the lock of hair was a treasured Hiller family relic, and perhaps was destined to end up sequestered in a bank vault, until it somehow found its way to the town of Gilleleje, in Nazi-occupied Denmark, during the darkest days of the Second World War. There, it was given to a local doctor, Kay Fremming, who was deeply involved in the effort to help save hundreds of hunted and frightened Jews. Who gave him the hair, and why? And what was the fate of those refugees, holed up in the attic of Gilleleje's church?
> 
> After Fremming's death, his daughter assumed ownership of the lock, and eventually consigned it for sale at Sotheby's, where two American Beethoven enthusiasts, Ira Brilliant and Che Guevara, purchased it in 1994. Subsequently, they and others instituted a series of complex forensic tests in the hope of finding the probable causes of the composer's chronically bad health, his deafness, and the final demise that Ferdinand Hiller had witnessed all those years ago. The results, revealed for the first time here, are startling, and are the most compelling explanation yet offered for why one of the foremost musicians the world has ever known was forced to spend much of his life in silence.
> 
> In Beethoven's Hair, Russell Martin has created a rich historical treasure hunt, an Indiana Jones-like tale of false leads, amazing breakthroughs, and incredible revelations. This unique and fascinating book is a moving testament to the power of music, the lure of relics, the heroism of the Resistance movement, and the brilliance of molecular science.
> 
> An astonishing tale of one lock of hair and its amazing travels--from nineteenth-century Vienna to twenty-first-century America.


Certainly a fascinating book not just for the Beethoven but also for the history of the family concerned. It does throw light on Beethoven's condition but whether it provides the answer to his deafness is in dispute. But a thoroughly good read. I got a second hand coopy from Amazon very reasonably.


----------



## millionrainbows

Here's my latest Theory infatuation.


----------



## cmudave

Recommended for Pianists - "Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist" by Charles Rosen.


----------



## millionrainbows

I've GOT to get this one! This is the description:

Arnold Schoenberg: Notes, Sets, Forms (Music in the Twentieth Century) by Silvina Milstein

In this thought provoking study, Silvina Milstein proposes a reconstruction of Schoenberg's conception of compositional process in his twelve-tone works, *which challenges the prevalent view that this music is to be appropriately understood exclusively in terms of the new method.* Her claim that in Schoenberg we encounter hierarchical pitch relations operating in a twelve-tone context is supported by in-depth musical analysis and the commentary on the sketch material, *which shows tonal considerations to be a primary concern and even an important criterion in the composition of the set itself. *The core of the book consists of detailed analytical studies; yet its heavy reliance on factors outside the score places this work beyond the boundaries of textual analysis into the field of this history of musical ideas.


----------



## JLTNJUSA1963

Good morning,

I read two books recently that I found fascinating, and I got them at my local library:

*The Natural History of the Piano* by Stuart Isacoff
*Music For Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and the 15 String Quartets* by Wendy Lesser.

Jim


----------



## Op.123

Huneker wrote a fantastic book called Chopin, the man and his music


----------



## Bone

Two excellent books dealing with performance-related issues.


----------



## Altus

Two books to add to Music Theory; The Art of Parimento by Giorgio Sanguinetti and Music in the Galant Style by Robert Gjerdingen. Two of my most prized books on music theory. Gjerdingen's book provides examples and structures for each of the many musical formulas used by Italian Galant composers, many of these also are backwards compatible with baroque music.


----------



## Joris

Has this been mentioned? http://www.amazon.com/Twentieth-Century-Music-History-Musical-Introduction/dp/039395272X


----------



## jamallax89

Hexameron
Thanks for sharing by categories.
Thanks for great helpful post.


----------



## LFTBR

A great book that I having been coming back to for years as a quick reference on early 20th century musical though is Arnold Schoenberg's Style and Idea. A great addition to any serious musicians library.


----------



## Joris

Can anybody perhaps recommend a book that deals with óne particular composition and provides an analysis and illuminating metaphors and such...? 
If possible: not extremely difficult language, Modern or late Romantic work


----------



## Joris

Don't bother clicking that, it's just a bad audio fragment of some 80's like pop song.

A good book on Mahler by the way is: _The Life of Mahler_ by Peter Franklin (Cambridge 1997)

Also a very interesting and relevant book is _Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge_ by Lawrence Kramer


----------



## millionrainbows

Elijah Wald: How The Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music. Avoid this book at all cost, as well as the other quirky dreck Wald has foisted on us, including the infamous "Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues," which is nothing short of an assassination of blues and Alan Lomax. Elijah Wald should have been a newspaper reporter if he thinks this is "history." He calls himself a "historian, not a critic," as if history were a literal rendering of every bit of detritus which co-existed in the same time continuum. This overly-literal approach of his means, among other things, that The Monkees were just as important as Jimi Hendrix (although, even back then, they were not taken seriously enough to be invited to Monterey Pop). Oh, and incidentally, "DE BLUES" was "invented" by Alan Lomax, for the edification of white folks, and Wald reminds us that Robert Johnson was, above all, a "working musician" whose job it was to please audiences with popular ditties during his live gigs. According to Wald, Lomax wanted "only blues" from Johnson, and thus created a horrible distortion of history (even while it was happening, and not yet history). Hogwash!

What's worse is when OTHER people start believing this stuff, as was evidenced on the "All About Jazz" forum in the thread, "The Importance of the Blues in Everything." Witness the wholesale invasion of jazz snobs, rewriting blues & jazz history until it becomes a Starbuck's version, politically and artistically neutralized into a benign, emasculated theme party.


----------



## Reinhold

Some horn and brass method/technique books that should have a mention are:

_The Art of Brass Playing_ by Phillip Farkas
_The Art of French Horn Playing_ by Phillip Farkas
_The Horn Handbook_ by Verne Reynolds
_The Horn_ by Barry Tuckwell
_Essentials of Brass Playing_ by Fred Fox


----------



## Mahlerian

Arnold Schoenberg's Journey by Allen Shawn

This is the best book I have found on Schoenberg. It's concise, readable by the layman (a few musical terms and score examples, but no long paragraphs of technical jargon), and completely non-confrontational. It is both a biography of Schoenberg's life and a look at his major works, showing how and why his style evolved over time.


----------



## millionrainbows

Any other reasons you might like this book? The author, perhaps? Tah hah! 

Yes, I've got this one, and it is an excellent read. It goes quite carefully and methodically through each work. As far as Shawn's speculations about Schoenberg hearing his works "tonally," that is worth pondering, but might ultimately distract us from hearing serial music on its own terms.
The photos of Schoenberg's charts and mechanical "wheels" are quite interesting.


----------



## Alexandre

I like all the Instrument-specific Books


----------



## Centropolis

I am looking into books that will teach me a little more technical aspects of works but without going way over my head with terms. Has anyone read any of the "Unlocking The Masters" series of books? I've linked a couple of examples below.

http://www.amazon.ca/Beethovens-Cha...Masters-ebook/dp/B0098MB0R8/ref=pd_sim_kinc_3

http://www.amazon.ca/Mahler-Symphon...9226248&sr=8-1&keywords=Unlocking+the+Masters

http://www.amazon.ca/Beethovens-Sym...9226248&sr=8-3&keywords=Unlocking+the+Masters


----------



## User in F minor

History:
Allan Atlas - _Renaissance Music_ (in the Norton Introductions series), more colorful and modern than Reese's, though nowhere near as detailed. 
Oliver Strunk - _Source Readings in Music History_ (massive and addictive anthology of primary sources on musical thought from Plato to Pravda)
Paul Griffiths - _Modern Music and After_

Composers in their own words:
Morton Feldman - _Give My Regards to 8th Street_
Arnold Schönberg - _Style and Idea_


----------



## robertocorno

Probably the best contemporary book on Schubert is, as recommended earlier, Brian Newbold's, "Schubert: Life & Music". For those who might wish for a shorter but complete bio, there are books by Peter Clive & Eliz. McKay. Ms. McKay's book contains good information of Schubert's Choral & Opera works. While Rey Longyear's book on Romantic period is an excellent explanation and survey of the period, Charles Rosen's book on Romantic Style is an revealing study of the musical process of the period { the book focuses on three composers}. Schoenberg's Style and idea is full of insights about music of the "second" Vienna period and much more {A really fine article on Brahms}. I've noticed that Irving Kolodin's book "The Continuity of Music" has been suggested. It is a fine book about a subject that is not much covered. If I could make a wish, It would be for a really complete discussion of the life and mmusic of Bela Bartok!! Thank you for the opportunity to "sound off".


----------



## Tieb

Love the list, thanks!!


----------



## Alypius

Chamber music makes up a large chunk of my music collection. There are several important surveys that I didn't see mentioned in the earlier pages. These are a pair of studies that complement one another well since they approach the topic from two different methods.

*Mark Radice, Chamber Music: An Essential History (University of Michigan Press, 2012).*, 384 pp., $40 paperback. This is really a state-of-the-art historical survey. Clear, surveys the key repertoire and essential composers, sets developments in their historical context (e.g. the rise of amateur music-making and the publishing industry in the late 18th century). Essential reading is chapter 2: "The Crystallization of Genres during the Golden Age of Chamber Music." Fine chapters on Beethoven, Schubert, fin-de-siecle French salon culture, Schoenberg, and at the close chapters on Shostakovich and then Ligeti and Husa. The closing chapter examines a miscellany of 20th century masterpieces: Stravinsky's Octet (1923), Varese's Octandre (1923), Bartok's Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion (1937), Messiaen's _Quatuor pour la fin du temps_ (1941), Boulez's _Le marteau san maître_ (1954), Reich's _Violin Phase_ (1967), Crumb's _Black Angels_ (1970), Wen-Chung's _Echoes from the Gorge_ (1989). In its appendix it does list more contemporary works, but it could use a new closing chapter on chamber music in the early 21st century.










*James M. Keller, Chamber Music: A Listener's Guide (Oxford University Press, 2011).* 520 pp., $40 list as a hardcover (but $30 on Amazon); paperback to be released in November, $20. Where Radice's survey is historical in its narrative, tracing broad trends, this focuses on individual composers and specifically individual works. It's arranged alphabetically, with 3-4 pages on each of the major masterpieces of chamber music. Menahem Pressler who played for decades in the acclaimed Beaux Arts Trio has reviewed it in glowing terms: "Even after a career spent immersed in chamber music, I gained new and fascinating insights from James Keller's essays. This is a book that enlightens professionals as well as general music-lovers." That's a pretty good indicator of its value.










I have a special interest in string quartets and will post some further recommendations on them soon.


----------



## Alypius

A major new biography of Beethoven:

Jan Swafford, _Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph_ 
(New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2014), 
1104 pp. ISBN 978-0618054749. Hardcover, $40.










Review by Jeremy Denk in the _New York Times_:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/books/review/beethoven-by-jan-swafford.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140731&nlid=68124185&tntemail0=y&_r=1

For a discussion thread on this, see http://www.talkclassical.com/33520-new-biography-beethoven-anguish.html


----------



## Alypius

Interesting new study of Olivier Messiaen:

Stephen Schloesser, _Visions of Amen: The Early Life and Music of Olivier Messiaen_
Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2014 
Published July 24, 2014
594 pp. ISBN 978-0802807625. Hardcover, $50.










Blurb on it: 


> French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) is probably best known for his Quartet for the End of Time, premiered in a German prisoner-of-war camp in 1941. However, Messiaen was a remarkably complex, intelligent person with a sometimes tragic domestic life who composed a wide range of music. This book explores the enormous web of influences in the early part of Messiaen's long life.
> 
> The first section of the book provides an intellectual biography of Messiaen's early life in order to make his (difficult) music more accessible to the general listener. The second section offers an analysis of and thematic commentaries on Messiaen's pivotal work for two pianos, Visions of Amen, composed in 1943. Schloesser's analysis includes timing indications corresponding to a downloadable performance of the work by accomplished pianists Stèphane Lemelin and Hyesook Kim.


----------



## Alypius

Andrew Shenton, ed.
_Cambridge Companion to Arvo Pärt_
series: Cambridge Companions to Music
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012










The Cambridge Companions to Music series has been one of the most consistent and high quality collection of handbooks on composers, instruments, and genres. This is one of the more recent volumes and one of the best. The best previous book-length scholarly study of Arvo Pärt's music was Paul Hillier's excellent _Arvo Pärt_ in the Oxford Composers series from 1997. Hillier was a uniquely qualified author since he has led performances and fine recordings of many of Pärt's works. But Pärt has been unusually prolific in the years since 1997, and Hillier's work is now getting badly out of date. Shenton, who edited a fine study of Messiaen (_Messiaen the Theologian_, Ashgate, 2011), has brought together a variety of experts for this volume. Especially recommended is the essay by Leopold Brauneiss, "Musical Archtypes: The Basic Elements of the Tintinnabuli Style," pp. 49-75; and Robert Sholl, "Arvo Pärt and Spirituality," pp. 140-158.


----------



## Jaks

This is really ORCHESTRATION and contemporary INSTRUMENTATION, a really great book.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/music/music-performance/cambridge-guide-orchestration


----------



## pianississimo

I like the biographies of Victor Seroff. 
He was born in Georgia (the country) before the Russian Revolution which happened when he was about 17. He left the country and studied piano in Vienna, living in various parts of Europe before moving the the USA where he settled down to a concert career for a while. He eventually took to journalism and became a music critic and writer on musical subjects.
In the 1940's he wrote a biography of Dmitri Shostakovich who was at the time in besieged Leningrad and only 31 years old. Seroff was obviously concerned that a composer he admired greatly was in grave danger and completed his research into Shostakovitch's background and early career quickly, publishing the book in 1943.

After Prokofiev died in 1953, Seroff wrote his biography too. In it he sources the background and early life of Prokofiev from writings by his mother and first wife. 
He went on to write about Liszt, Rachmaninov (who he knew personally) and Ravel amongst others.

He writes very engagingly and with great sympathy for his subjects Also with great understanding of their musical lives - thanks to his background and training.

You can generally pick his books up very cheap from online second hand stores.


----------



## poconoron

Three more books:

The Mozart Companion - a symposium by leading Mozart scholars, edited by H.C. Robbins Landon

Mozart and His Piano Concertos by Cuthbert Girdlestone

Composers On Composers by John Holmes consisting of quoted statements of composers' opinions on _other_ composers.


----------



## Neoclassical Darkwave

Just wanted to say thanks for all the info in this thread!


----------



## BartokPizz

Is anybody reading Sanford Friedman's novel _Conversations with Beethoven_, just out from NYRB Classics? It is an epistolary novel told mainly through Beethoven 's conversation books. An ingenious gimmick.

Beethoven is very effectively characterized--his irascible nature is the basis for a lot of comedy, but the tone is basically serious, dealing with Karl and the composition of the final masterpieces. I recommend it.

(Friedman died in 2010 leaving the manuscript behind; I believe this is its first appearance in print.)

EDIT: Here's a link: http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/conversations-with-beethoven/


----------



## Complicity

I'm currently reading The Great Composers (Jeremy Nicholas), which I have found provides a good snapshot of each of the major composers. Particularly good if you are new to music and want to understand the range and styles of many different composers.


----------



## Thunders

This is a great book about Wagner, but it's only in French.









Francis Pagnon, _En Évoquant Wagner. La musique comme mensonge et comme vérité_. (In English : "By Evoking Wagner: Music as Lie and as Truth").

Francis Pagnon is the author of an important study of Richard
Wagner and the history music titled _En Évoquant Wagner: La musique
comme mensonge et comme vérité_, which was published by Editions
Champ Libre in December 1981. This essay showed the living
movement of history at work in music in general and in the music of
Wagner, more specifically. It undertook a political critique "of mass[-
produced] music as totalitarian ideology." For the author, musical
evolution has been liquidated and enslaved to the necessities of a
retrograde organization of society. Due to its return to a pre-individual
state, modern mass[-produced] music satisfies the need for annihilation
and is only the hallucinatory submission to the violence inflicted by a
society whose maintenance is only possible through coercion extended
to all aspects of life.
Pagnon's book gives an historical perspective on the contradictions
of music in contemporary class society. The subtitle of the book, "music
as lie and as truth," refers to the lie that is mass[-produced] music and to
the revolutionary truth expressed by great music, which the author
considers to be the only real form of music, notably that [composed] by
Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and, of course, Wagner.
For the author, Wagnerian music condemns capitalist society in which
history is rendered impossible by a form of production that is enslaved
to a perpetual cycle of exchange-value. Combat against this market
vacuity develops beyond music, which becomes false when it denies the
necessity of this combat by posing an aesthetic ideal in which the
horrors of the world are offset.

*In its ultimate essence, Wagner's music refuses this false role: it
unreservedly confronts its enemy, that is to say, the musical tradition
that is alienated from a social state of affairs that only exists through the
crushing and irrational suffering of the subject. Wagner's hatred of
bourgeois society and its culture is part of his compositions. His music is
a music of destruction: it reveals the chaos on which civilized barbarity
is founded and calls for the destruction of an abhorred world.*
Wagnerian music breaks the circle of non-life with the violence of
a potential life that it demands to see become real. All of its grandeur
incites the listener to the surpassing of music, to its realization. At the
moment at which market society is crumbling, art reveals its critical
content, which had always been its truth in itself, rendered clear by the
movement of history. The privilege of this crepuscular epoch is that it
divulged the enigma of ancient art. Wagner's music can, finally, show
what it wants and to what it is dedicated.

http://www.notbored.org/pagnon.pdf


----------



## frankdavid

Do you know of any new books about JS Bach?


----------



## Masada

I truly must be the Philistine of the group with only a number of years of Gramophone and Opera News subscriptions here, as well as Third Ear's, "Classical Music," the Rough Guide's "Opera," and "The Gramophone Classical Guide 2011," on my shelf. 

...sure, Mozart's "...Letters...," a number of volumes on Wagner, and even some current philosophical discourse on the genre in general. 

...but, you all are clearly masters in the field (I bow)!


----------



## abbado71

Mahler"s biography by Henry-Louis de La Grange. Very utter work with many deteils itg reviewers of the Mahler's time.


----------



## Eramirez156

For the Opera Lovers library

_*The Grand Tradition*_ by John Steane as matter of fact any of Steane's books.

Alan Blyth's *Opera on Record* there are three of them, published in the 80s, but still essential.

P.G. Hurst's *The Golden Age Recorded* for those interested in pioneers of the Gramophone.


----------



## EDaddy

Mirror Image said:


> Great book for reference. 900+ pages











The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection: Second Edition, also by Ted Libby, is really informative and fun too. Advanced Classical Music collectors will likely have many of the albums it suggests, though not necessarily the same conductor/orchestra combos. Libby really helped me get my library started (and I still occasionally acquire discs suggested here as he really knows his stuff and really has spot-on taste with regard to his recommendations IMO). He also writes very well and has a real talent for illuminating the essence of each composer and his main works. Recommended.


----------



## Simon Moon

I just scored an almost mint used copy of "The New Grove Second Viennese School: Schoenberg, Webern, Berg" by Oliver Neighbor for $4.









Looks like an interesting read.

The reviews on the jacket are positive.


----------



## breakup

A couple of years ago I found an 8 volume set of "The International Library of Music" Pianoforte Compositions, it looked like it had never been opened. I estimated 1150 pieces from prior to 1934, so it covered the period I was most interested in. At $15.00 I think I got a bargain, and I have been able to get several pieces from it that I want to learn to play.


----------



## Taggart

Fascinating. Just had a look and the 16 volume set is $65 on Amazon.

This site is costing me money!  Still it looks excellent - as they say everything from Vivaldi to Copland.


----------



## Taggart

Unfortunately, only one volume came. There seems to be a problem with this as people will advertise it on Amazon but not have the full set. Number of others have had problems.


----------



## BartokPizz

Simon Moon said:


> The reviews on the jacket are positive.


They usually are!


----------



## GreatFugue

http://www.amazon.com/Messiaen-Professor-Peter-Hill/dp/0300109075

The book for that special someone in your life who enjoys 20th century french mystic catholic organists who've transcribed birdsong for various instruments and included them in damn near every composition... or if you just want a good book about Olivier Messiaen and his interesting music.


----------



## Strange Magic

Coming late to this thread, but herewith some books that I have found informative and enjoyable:

_Emotion and Meaning in Music_, and _Music, the Arts, and Ideas_: Leonard Meyer. These are older books, 1956 and 1967 respectively, but in them Meyer, head of the Music Department, U. of Chicago, laid out two ideas which have had quite some effect on our understanding of how music works and where it is going. In the earlier book, he presented the idea of music working as a shifting balance of expectations confirmed or thwarted; in the second he proposed that music and the other arts had entered into a period of relative stasis, typified by innumerable small-scale trends that never reach large dimensions--a sort of Brownian motion.

This second thesis is given weight by two other, later books: the final pages of Harold C. Schonberg's _Lives of the Great Composers_, 1997, and in several places in Alex Ross' _The Rest is Noise_, Meyer's notion of contemporary stasis is given firm support though, curiously, Meyer's work is not referenced.

For those who appreciate strong opinions and good writing, there is Brockway and Weinstock's classic _Men of Music_, 1950. An older book, to be sure, but fun to read even when they are totally off the mark, as witness their curious attitude toward Brahms.

Norman Lebrecht's _Who Killed Classical Music_ pulls no punches either. Fans of von Karajan and Pavarotti, you have been warned!


----------



## Svitlana

Nice list, thanks. I see you have searched comprehensively


----------



## Strange Magic

As an aficionado of Sergei Prokofiev, I can recommend Harlow Robinson's _Prokofiev: A Biography_ as a very complete picture of this prolific composer. But Claude Samuel's much briefer _Prokofiev_ offers much information, including many illustrations, in a small package with some chapter titles I find amusing--"I Abhor Imitation", "A Revolution in Chaldean Terms", "Oranges: 43,000 Dollars Each", etc.--and also one of the funniest and yet grotesque retellings of the storyline of Prokofiev's early ballet, _Chout_. Highly recommended. Prokofiev: utterly self-absorbed, often cruel, quick to give and to take offense--Shostakovich said P "had the soul of a goose"--but what torrents of wonderful music poured out of this very imperfect man.


----------



## Doulton

These have been on my to-be-read list, which has enough material to last until about 900 years after my death: can anyone say whether the time invested in
THE FIRST FOUR NOTES by Guerrieri
and
SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD: Shostakovich, etc

might be worth while? I have heard that the latter is for teenagers. I do like to read about the intersections of history and culture. Does anyone have a good source for book reviews? I read the NYT and the NYROB and NPR reviews but I wonder if there is a source with a more regular focus on music.
Thank you.


----------



## Andolink

Finished this yesterday. Great read for a Bach lover like me!


----------



## ganio

I'm currently reading Daniel Snowman's _The Gilded Stage_. I can only recommend this book for those wanting an very informative presentation of the social context in which opera emerged and evolved. It doesn't require any musico-technical background.

http://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/The Gilded Stage









The Gilded Stage is a comprehensive tour of the world of opera. From its origins in the courts of northern Italy, to its internationally recognised position in modern culture, Snowman explores the social history of opera houses and impresarios, composers and patrons, artists and audiences.
Even the most flamboyant composers could scarcely have imagined the global reach of opera in our own times. More opera is performed, financed, seen, heard, filmed and broadcast than ever before, and the world's leading performers are worshipped and paid like pop stars. Yet the art form is widely derided as 'elitist' and parts of the classical recording business appear close to bankruptcy. Pinpointing the scandals, forgotten history and key revolutions in the form with light erudition and a brilliant anecdotal eye, Daniel Snowman reveals that the world of opera has always known crisis and uncertainty - and the resulting struggles have often proved every bit as dramatic as those portrayed onstage.


----------



## alexdasilva

Just finished a British version of "The Noise of Time" a novel, this is how amazon describes it: A compact masterpiece dedicated to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich--Julian Barnes's first novel since his best-selling, Man Booker Prize-winning The Sense of an Ending. The US version will be out in May but the english one is easily available trough amazon if you don't want to wait.
Highly recommended!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/11...h&qid=1454732101&ref_=sr_1_34&s=books&sr=1-34


----------



## chopinliszt

A must-have for pianists is _The art of piano playing_ by Heinrich Neuhaus.


----------



## Mal

I'm always juggling the Guinness 1000, Third ear, Rough, Penguin 2010, and Gramophone 2010 Guides in my never ending attempt to find canonic perfection. But these, although useful, do not comprise a complete Turkey avoidance unit, or bees-knees revelation machine. Any others I should be looking at?


----------



## affettuoso

Wow, great list of books here. Makes me wish I had a bit more money to my name, right now.


----------



## AnthonyCornicello

(This refers to the Messiaen book above...)

Wonderful text - well researched and well written. Highly recommended.


----------



## Gordontrek

There is an old but excellent biography of Tchaikovsky by Herbert Weinstock. The copy I have was published in the 1940s. I believe the same author also wrote terrific bios of other composers, especially Rossini and Chopin.

Currently reading "Leonard Bernstein" by Humphrey Burton. I was pleasantly surprised by how readable this is. 









Another current read- "Tales from the Locker Room: An Anecdotal Portrait of George Szell and his Cleveland Orchestra." This one is a treasure especially for fans of conductor stories!! Plenty of Szell stories told by the people who played under him.


----------



## JosefinaHW

Is _Grove Music Online_ truly The Authoritative Source of information on music of the common practice period. If an individual would like to see and quote The Agreed and Accepted definition of any term related to CP music is this the primary source to use? Before I make an investment of $30/month I would like to know that I am using the best reference source. TYVM


----------



## JosefinaHW

I've decided it's worth the cost. In case anyone else is interested here is a link to an overview and a video guide to the site.

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/public/page/guided_tour


----------



## Foghunter

Tons of thoughts and additions to my wish-list after reading thru all pages of this thread, Thanks for all recommendations!

Though it can be that I need better reading glasses, in which case I am sorry I did not see it, I failed to see one of the more comprehensive biographies of Tchaikovsky. David Brown's 4 volume biography is partially out of print but here and there you can get new copies of the paperback versions OR, like I did, you can pick up second hand copies of the hard covers.

The writing style is very pleasant and not to much juiced up with difficult language. Brown uses tons of reference marks to letters and other material but they do not overly bother the readers. There is some use of musical examples, only usable for those of us that can read music, but his description of the various works is, in my opinion, fair and comprehensive where it needs to be.

There is lots of attention to all the survived opera's and most is set into the perspective of T's mindset at the time. Brown does not dwell over certain issues as deep as, for instance, Maynard Solomon does in 'Mozart: A Life' (the father - son relation lingers thru many pages), but his description of the individual works is, I think, excellent.

I read Solomon's book and wondered why the title was not 'Mozart: A life with my Father' but that comes all down to personal taste.

If everything fails or the amount of reading seems too much, there is a compressed version available under the title 'Tchaikovsky: The Man and his Music'. I have not read that book so I do not know how much is left out compared to the 4 books.


----------



## Strange Magic

*An Interesting and Useful Treatise on Twentieth Century Music*

(This is being moved here in order to give it a more permanent home)

In a thread, "Russian Composers and Music", TC member JosefinaHW mentioned a recent (2014) doctoral thesis by one Herbert Pauls. It is titled Two Centuries in One: Musical Romanticism and the Twentieth Century and is available here:
http://www.musicweb-international.co...ies_in_one.pdf

It is a long (400 pages plus), thorough, but well-written and easily absorbed treatise that both JosefinaHW and I can recommend as very valuable background information for any discussion of the topics of "modernism", "tonal" v. "atonal", "Romanticism", "Neo-Romanticism" etc. that have so troubled the Forum recently. Pauls' argument in a nutshell, which he supports with some very interesting lists and tables, is that musical Romanticism/Neo-Romanticism overwhelmingly dominates the Twentieth Century, for which thesis he offers many arguments and much data. A corollary of this is that it would be very difficult to realize this if one relied primarily (until recently) on the major music history texts, which offer a significantly different view of the past hundred years. Pauls' Table 2 on pp. 51-52 is particularly enlightening. Of course, the thesis has nothing to do with whether any particular person should or should not like or listen to any particular kind or piece of music. It really is all a matter of taste.

It would be useful to have the comments of those who commit themselves to reading the work, and there is certainly no time pressure to do so.


----------



## GioCar

*An Interesting and Useful Treatise on Twentieth Century Music?*

This one:










The original title is The Twentieth-Century Music (2014) as reported in the book, but it seems that the only issued/printed version is in Italian (?), also according to the wiki page of the author.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Griffiths_(writer)

It's a great book anyway, recalling a bit Ross' The Rest Is Noise but more complete and rigorous imo.


----------



## acitak 7

I am currently reading The Peoples Artist, Prokofievs Soviet Years. I am very interested in his personal story and his wife also,given the difficulties they faced, but it is very heavy going, too much music theory, the book is fine I just don't understand most of it from an academic point of view but I will persevere. as I like some of his music very much.


----------



## Strange Magic

Strange Magic said:


> As an aficionado of Sergei Prokofiev, I can recommend Harlow Robinson's _Prokofiev: A Biography_ as a very complete picture of this prolific composer. But Claude Samuel's much briefer _Prokofiev_ offers much information, including many illustrations, in a small package with some chapter titles I find amusing--"I Abhor Imitation", "A Revolution in Chaldean Terms", "Oranges: 43,000 Dollars Each", etc.--and also one of the funniest and yet grotesque retellings of the storyline of Prokofiev's early ballet, _Chout_. Highly recommended. Prokofiev: utterly self-absorbed, often cruel, quick to give and to take offense--Shostakovich said P "had the soul of a goose"--but what torrents of wonderful music poured out of this very imperfect man.


Acitak 7, I'm bumping this as these two books about Prokofiev may be more useful in your research.


----------



## jenspen

Some I've found useful but haven't seen mentioned in this thread:

Hans Gal: Franz Schubert and the Essence of Melody
https://www.amazon.com/Franz-Schubert-essence-melody-Hans/dp/0875971148

Eric Sams: The Songs of Hugo Wolf; The Songs of Robert Schumann 
https://www.amazon.com/Eric-Sams/e/B001HD3DDA

I would strongly second the recommendations for Jan Swafford's biographies of Brahms and Beethoven


----------



## Judith

Can anyone recommend a good dictionary of musical terminology? I would love one to dip into if there is a term that I don't understand. Thank you


----------



## KenOC

Judith said:


> Can anyone recommend a good dictionary of musical terminology? I would love one to dip into if there is a term that I don't understand. Thank you


There are several on-line musical dictionaries. Here's a quite extensive one.

http://dictionary.onmusic.org/


----------



## Judith

KenOC said:


> There are several on-line musical dictionaries. Here's a quite extensive one.
> 
> http://dictionary.onmusic.org/


Thank you very much. I have checked it out and will be very useful. Thank you again.


----------



## millionrainbows

This is the guy for me, and he lives in the same city as I do!

His book on Bartok was very illuminating. Antokoletz has a good grasp of history, and he applies his understanding go music theory to it as well, which makes for a very interesting and to-the-point history of musical IDEAS. All meat, no asparagus.

*"With this book, Antokoletz (Univ. of Texas, Austin) aims to provide a more in-depth application of musical analysis to 20th-century music than afforded by other current music histories...Advanced students of music history or performance will benefit from the book...Summing Up: Recommended."* - _M. Dineen, University of Ottawa, School of Music, CHOICE, April 2014_


----------



## Mal

Judith said:


> Can anyone recommend a good dictionary of musical terminology? I would love one to dip into if there is a term that I don't understand. Thank you


I find the Oxford Dictionary of Music quite useful.


----------



## Judith

Mal said:


> I find the Oxford Dictionary of Music quite useful.


I decided on this one in the end. Thank you for recommending it to me.


----------



## Gordontrek

Kent Kennan has an excellent book on orchestration. I also own a book on orchestration by Stephen Douglas Burton that is worth checking out.


----------



## Brahmsian Colors

Judith said:


> Can anyone recommend a good dictionary of musical terminology? I would love one to dip into if there is a term that I don't understand. Thank you


Hi Judith...I own a concise and valuable little book that's ideal in terms of what you're looking for: Essential Dictionary of Music. It contains information on definitions, composers, theory and instrument and vocal ranges. The author is Lindsey C. Harnsberger. Vendors on Amazon are selling it used for a penny minus postage. You can't do better than that.


----------



## buysoundcloudlikes

These are really excellent sources for beginners. Thanks Hexameron,


----------



## JeffD

Oh wow. This thread is going to do me in. Best to buy the bookshelf now.


----------



## Pugg

JeffD said:


> Oh wow. This thread is going to do me in. Best to buy the bookshelf now.


Make sure they are strong ones, you need it.


----------



## Baccouri

thank you all for your post. I like it.


----------



## Larkenfield

Superb resources here!


----------



## KevinFromFrance

Thank you for the great content !!


----------



## Tallisman

I'd like to recommend Stuart Isacoff's excellent book _Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization_


----------



## Forss

Wagner's own essays, and especially _Art and Revolution_ and _The Artwork of the Future_, are really something else, and they made me reconsider his musical work (and persona) altogether. (To the better, I might add.) His prose is as infallible as his music, in my opinion.


----------



## chrism

Great stuff, although not sure how to find time to read all of this ☺


----------



## Pugg

chrism said:


> Great stuff, although not sure how to find time to read all of this ☺


Just make a schedule, each day one hour before bed time ( as example) for starters.
Welcome to Talk Classical also.


----------



## Brahmsian Colors

Mozart fans might be both happy and interested to hear that Jan Swafford, author of the highly regarded _Johannes Brahms: A Biography_, is currently in the process of working on a biography of Mozart. I recently communicated with him, asking if he had any plans to produce a work on Haydn. He told me he did not, but that his book on Mozart would be his last biographical effort. Certainly something to look forward to.


----------



## KenOC

Swafford's huge biography of Beethoven is also first class. It does a great job in recreating Beethoven's times, the lives and careers (and sometimes the sad ends) of friends and sponsors, and so forth.

https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-An...474X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507403361&sr=8-1


----------



## Auntie Lynn

Is that you, Ken?? Anyway, I have the Leichtentritt book on Musical Form which - the last I looked - was selling at an astronomical price - it's worth it.

Is anyone else over here from Amazon??


----------



## KenOC

Hi Auntie Lynn, glad to see you over here at TC! Here's a partial list of recent arrivals from Amazon. Talk Classical handle followed by Amazon handle.

Angelo Mandillo, AB Mandillo
distantprommer, Distant Prommer
Jlspinks, J Spinks
Larkenfield, Larkenfield
MusicBear88, Thomas B Dawkins
Pesaro, HB
Phil in Magnolia, Phil (not) in Magnolia
Philoctetes, Vaughan Otter
Ras, Rasmus
Robert Pickett, Cute ‘n Cuddly Bartok
St Omer, Saint Omer


----------



## Auntie Lynn

Thanks, Ken - loved the list - anyway, now if we can just roust out Edgar Self, we could be all set...

This place takes a little getting used to after the ease of navigation at the other site...we need a "what did you do today" thread for us clingy types...


----------



## KenOC

Auntie Lynn said:


> This place takes a little getting used to after the ease of navigation at the other site...we need a "what did you do today" thread for us clingy types...


Auntie Lynn, there is such a thread -- see the Community Forum.

What happens in your life - Come in and share!


----------



## Mowgli

Haydn67 said:


> Mozart fans might be both happy and interested to hear that Jan Swafford, author of the highly regarded _Johannes Brahms: A Biography_, is currently in the process of working on a biography of Mozart. I recently communicated with him, asking if he had any plans to produce a work on Haydn. He told me he did not, but that his book on Mozart would be his last biographical effort. Certainly something to look forward to.





KenOC said:


> Swafford's huge biography of Beethoven is also first class. It does a great job in recreating Beethoven's times, the lives and careers (and sometimes the sad ends) of friends and sponsors, and so forth.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-An...474X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507403361&sr=8-1


Anguish & Triumph is an excellent book. 
I like his writing style so now I'm immersed in his Language Of The Spirit.
LOTS is an intro to classical music book but it's Swafford so it's well written and entertaining.
Did he give you any estimated date of completion on the Mozart book Haydn67?


----------



## Nocture In Blue

I don't know if this book has been mentioned here: _Die Geschichte der Bayreuther Festspiele_ by Oswald Georg Bauer.
It's over 1200 pages long. It covers the Bayreuth Festival and the Festspielhaus' history from 1850-2000. There's a lot of pictures in the book. Many I hadn't seen before. Highly recommended for any Wagner lover. This is really the ultimate book on the Bayreuth Festival (the book is in German).


----------



## KJ von NNJ

I suppose these would fall into the "other listening" category. Michael Steinberg's "The Symphony" has two companion books of equal value. One is "Choral Masterworks" and the other is "The Concerto". The Choral book contains essays on over forty works.
Steinberg admired Robert Shaw and had known him for many years. The book is dedicated to Shaw. 
The Concerto contains works by 45 different composers and over 120 works. It go's from Bach 1720 to Adams 1994. All the big ones are in it, plus a few pleasant surprises. 
Another two volume set I have to mention by way of the biography is Berlioz:The Making of an Artist Volume One and Volume 2: Servitude and Greatness. The author is David Cairns. Anyone interested in Berlioz would enjoy these books. They are excellently written and provide full range of Berlioz's music, life and times. This man was one of a kind.


----------



## Taplow

Nocture In Blue said:


> Highly recommended for any Wagner lover. This is really the ultimate book on the Bayreuth Festival (the book is in German).
> 
> View attachment 98580


Tack så mycket! I'm not sure my German is quite up to this level yet (I'd be better off reading it in Swedish), but I'm going to add it to my wishlist for future reference.


----------



## KenOC

*Books about classical music*

I can't find a thread on books specifically about classical music. So here goes with a book report.

I'm currently reading Lewis Lockwood's _B__eethoven's Symphonies: An Artistic Vision_. Interesting but a bit slack and not exactly chock-full of good stuff. Somewhat disappointing.

Anybody interested in Beethoven's symphonies should really get _Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies_, written by Sir George Grove well over a century ago. This book is the gold standard notwithstanding Grove's reliance on the execrable Schindler for some anecdotes. Be warned! Otherwise his insights are keen, his historical backgrounds interesting, his language delectable, and his many musical examples clear, relevant, and informative. Do I recommend this book? You betcha!

What are you reading?


----------



## PlaySalieri

Not reading anything at present but I enjoy dipping into many of the books on Mozart I have, including

Mozart's Last year
Einstein's biography on Mozart
Mozart's letters
Mozart and Posterity

and many many more


----------



## MarkW

I will mention that Lewis Lockwood's Beethoven biography is the one I recommend to people who are likely only to want one. 

(For the rest of you: Thayer's is the Gold Standard for non-interpretive "just the facts," Maynard Solomon's has some really interesting chapters (including his identification of the "Immortal Beloved") but treads dangerously close to "psycho-biography" territory, Swafford's attempts to be encyclopedic but has some affectations.)


----------



## Brahmsian Colors

The two musically related books I've enjoyed most over the last several years:

Johannes Brahms by Jan Swafford
Otto Klemperer-His Life and Times (2 volumes) by Peter Heyworth


----------



## Nate Miller

I've been reading The Classical Style by Charles Rosen

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393317129/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

he focuses on the work on Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. I've been enjoying it, but I think you need to be able to read music to get the most out of it. He's basically driving the discourse with musical examples, so if you didn't read music it would be a lot like looking at those hard boiled chess books and you didn't play chess.

but being a guitar player, these 3 giants are missing from the repertoire for my instrument because they never wrote for the guitar. so reading an analysis written by a pianist is interesting stuff for me


----------



## Taggart

KenOC said:


> I can't find a thread on books specifically about classical music.


What about this one - http://www.talkclassical.com/2150-music-books-quick-reference-14.html#post1326803 - which you posted on back in October? It's actually a sticky thread so stays at the top.


----------



## Judith

Loved "Trio" A novel biography by Boman Desai. The story of Brahms and the Schumanns.


----------



## KenOC

Taggart said:


> What about this one - http://www.talkclassical.com/2150-music-books-quick-reference-14.html#post1326803 - which you posted on back in October? It's actually a sticky thread so stays at the top.


Heh-heh, right up top there, it is! Maybe you should move these posts to that thread.


----------



## Taggart

Done ................................................


----------



## Forss

I have been reading (and rereading) Bruno Walter's portrait of Gustav Mahler for the last couple of weeks (in an excellent, albeit old, Swedish translation). They knew each other fairly well, of course, and Walter's approach (to Mahler, his subject) is of a similar spirit as that of Plato's approach to Socrates. Full of reverence, admiration, even _love_, but not submissive in any way.

There are also many musical insights. For example, I started to listen to the _Scherzo_ of Mahler's _Symphony No. 2_ in a whole different way after reading Walter's (astute) thoughts about it.


----------



## KenOC

I just posted an Amazon review of Lewis Lockwood's ​_B__eethoven's Symphonies: An Artistic Vision_. It is not a very enthusiastic one.​


----------



## Mowgli

KenOC said:


> I just posted an Amazon review of Lewis Lockwood's ​_B__eethoven's Symphonies: An Artistic Vision_. It is not a very enthusiastic one.​


That review was helpful to me 

Seriously, I was interested in reading that but now not so much.


----------



## Barbebleu

The Sorcerer of Bayreuth - Barry Millington.

It's ok but not very revealing unless you know absolutely zilch about Wagner. Nice pictures though.


----------



## JosefinaHW

Barbebleu said:


> The Sorcerer of Bayreuth - Barry Millington.
> 
> It's ok but not very revealing unless you know absolutely zilch about Wagner. Nice pictures though.


Warm Greetings, Barbebleu. What is your favorite biography of Wagner?


----------



## Barbebleu

Ernest Newman's four volume biography was the first one I read and I suppose it's still my go to version. Cosima's two volume diaries are an entertaining, if slightly laborious, read.


----------



## Brahmsian Colors

Conductors--I especially enjoyed the works on Reiner and Mitropoulos

Fritz Reiner: A Biography by Philip Hart
John Barbirolli by Charles Reid
Leonard Bernstein by Humphrey Burton
Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos by William R. Trotter

Composers--Holden's Tchaikovsky particularly recommended

Schubert: The Music and the Man by Brian Newbould
Mendelssohn: A Life In Music by R. Larry Todd
Haydn: A Creative Life In Music by Karl Geiringer
Tchaikovsky: A Biography by Anthony Holden


----------



## classical yorkist

I need some help with a few book recommendations please. I'm just starting to investigate the classical period and I'm looking for books that are low on musicology and high on the history/trends/social side of things. My brain finds it very difficult to understand music but I'm endlessly fascinated about contextualising music within it's social and historical period. Mozart, Haydn whoever. If anyone here has read _Evening in the Palace of Reason_ I'm thinking something like that and this book is on my list as well;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninth-Beethoven-World-1824/dp/0571221467/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521283324&sr=1-2&keywords=beethoven+9th.


----------



## Bill Pearce

I think you might enjoy "Mozart and the Enlightenment; Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart's Operas" by Nicholas Till (1992). Here is a bit from the dust cover: "He (Till) evokes for us the Vienna of the 1780's, a world of intense intellectual argument, political debate, and religious inquiry, which deeply influenced the philosophical content of Mozart's operas." I enjoyed it and it is rather different in the approach from most of my other books on Mozart.

Bill


----------



## Bill Pearce

I just recently finished reading Trotter's book on Mitropoulos. He was certainly an unusual person, wasn't he?

Bill


----------



## haydnguy

I am currently reading "The Way We Listen Now and other writings on music (Poetics of Music)"
by Bayan Northcott.

I have just started reading it but the writing style is very good. Not too technical. Full of information so I'm reading slowly to "absorb" it all. It came to me highly recommended.


----------



## Fredx2098

I haven't fully read any music books so I may not be the best person to make recommendations, but I bought a few books to help me learn to compose and I like them so far. It also seems likely that these books have been mentioned already, but I can't figure out the search function, so anyways:

The Study of Counterpoint by Johann Joseph Fux

Fundamentals of Music Composition by Arnold Schoenberg


----------



## RogerExcellent

Bill Pearce said:


> I just recently finished reading Trotter's book on Mitropoulos. He was certainly an unusual person, wasn't he?
> 
> Bill


Clever to be a listener


----------



## GeorgeMcW

classical yorkist said:


> I need some help with a few book recommendations please. I'm just starting to investigate the classical period and I'm looking for books that are low on musicology and high on the history/trends/social side of things. My brain finds it very difficult to understand music but I'm endlessly fascinated about contextualising music within it's social and historical period. Mozart, Haydn whoever. If anyone here has read _Evening in the Palace of Reason_ I'm thinking something like that and this book is on my list as well;
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninth-Beethoven-World-1824/dp/0571221467/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521283324&sr=1-2&keywords=beethoven+9th.


May I recommend Tim Blanning's Truimph of Music?


----------



## classical yorkist

GeorgeMcW said:


> May I recommend Tim Blanning's Truimph of Music?


Only just spotted your reply. I thank you and, yes, it looks like it's a good fit for me.


----------



## 13hm13

Classical Music (Eyewitness Companions; DK; 2006)
by John Burrows


----------



## 13hm13

The NPR Listener's Encyclopedia of Classical Music
Ted Libbey (2006)


----------



## Guest

I recently bought: The classical music lover's companion to orchestral music by robert philip published by yale university press, which is an amazing book full of interesting views and descriptions of major orchestral works between 1700 and 1950


----------



## Flyer75

So I just purchased on Kindle "Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph" by Jan Swafford. Just trying to dive in and learn more about composers and classical music. Plus I love biographies anyway. Gonna read it over the weekend at a cabin my family is going to for Christmas.


----------



## JasonHolloway

Hey all! I know that I'm like diving in between a discussion. But I would like to know about the Piano musical notes. Asap... Please, someone, give me a suggestion. And I felt some of the people in the forum are just like seeing my posts and not giving any useful replies. I request you to make me clear on my question. Please give some best reference to have the piano notes.


----------



## juliante

Is there a book devoted to chamber music out there?


----------



## Eramire156

juliante said:


> Is there a book devoted to chamber music out there?


I highly recommend James Keller's _*Chamber Music: A Listener's Guide.*_


----------



## Roger Knox

Walker, Alan *: Fryderyk Chopin: A life and times*. 2018, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York NY, xxxi + 729 pages.

Has anyone had a peek at Liszt biographer Alan Walker's new bio of Chopin? I haven't yet, but Walker writes well and has a tremendous breadth of musical knowledge, both scholarly and practical.


----------



## NLAdriaan

I really love the 'Memoires' by Berlioz, who was a great writer as well.

I admire the four (!) huge parts of de la Granges Mahler biography. however, I must admit they are on my bookshelves, but I still didn't really start off. It's the Mount Everest of musical biographies.


----------



## millionrainbows

classical yorkist said:


> I need some help with a few book recommendations please. I'm just starting to investigate the classical period and I'm looking for books that are low on musicology and high on the history/trends/social side of things. My brain finds it very difficult to understand music but I'm endlessly fascinated about contextualising music within it's social and historical period. Mozart, Haydn whoever. If anyone here has read _Evening in the Palace of Reason_ I'm thinking something like that and this book is on my list as well;
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninth-Beet...&qid=1521283324&sr=1-2&keywords=beethoven+9th.


Try James Galway's history of music. He comes to it with a very social perspective. BTW, I got to see him with the Tokyo String Quartet when I won front-row tickets from Borders. It was an unforgettable experience, and he was smiling and looking directly at me & my wife, as we laughed out loud in places. Yes, he was quite entertaining, and technically flawless!









​


----------



## Barbebleu

What was Galway doing with the Tokyo SQ?


----------



## Rogerx

Barbebleu said:


> What was Galway doing with the Tokyo SQ?


Making music


----------



## newyorkconversation

Barbebleu said:


> What was Galway doing with the Tokyo SQ?


My guess is Mozart's Flute Quartets - they did an album of them

https://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Flute-Quartets-Wolfgang-Amadeus/dp/B000003F0O


----------



## JhonyL

thanks for the info before i enter this forum i didn't know about a lot of these books 
Lucky Patcher 9Apps VidMate


----------



## flamencosketches

Is anyone familiar with any good books about the Second Vienna School? Or good biographies of any of its three central figures? I would love to read more about the history of this fascinating movement.


----------



## Bluecrab

flamencosketches said:


> Is anyone familiar with any good books about the Second Vienna School? Or good biographies of any of its three central figures? I would love to read more about the history of this fascinating movement.


Try this: https://www.amazon.com/Schoenberg-His-School-Rene-Leibowitz/dp/0806529563

If you're looking for historical/biographical info, there's a fair bit in Alex Ross's book about 20th-century music, _The Rest is Noise_. Very well researched and written. A pleasure to read.


----------



## flamencosketches

Bluecrab said:


> Try this: https://www.amazon.com/Schoenberg-His-School-Rene-Leibowitz/dp/0806529563
> 
> If you're looking for historical/biographical info, there's a fair bit in Alex Ross's book about 20th-century music, _The Rest is Noise_. Very well researched and written. A pleasure to read.


For $8 I had to order it right away. Good call, thanks.


----------



## millionrainbows

Good luck on pricing...








​








Also, see my post #119, Joan Peyser's "The New Music." Get this "old" version, before it was expanded into a book about Boulez.


----------



## JosefinaHW

Detailed commentary on the text of Moneverdi's (and others, but first and foremost M.) madrigals.

In the booklets of some of the Monteverdi madrigal discs that are only a very few notes re/ the meaning and hidden meanings of the words, phrases and the madrigal as a whole.

If you are aware of any text that gives very detailed notes, please let me know the title of the text. Even if the only thing available is commentary on the original poetry without regard to Monteverdi.

Thank you very much.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Have anyone here any thoughts on the Cambridge History of Music series? I've been scrolling around on their website, and they have an awful lots of books...


----------



## Roger Knox

The ones I have seen have chapters by different experts. Some of the writers are post-modern/revisionist.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I'm curious to the medieval and 14th to 16th century volumes. Do you think post-modern/revisionist is a good or bad thing?


----------



## KlaydVet

I've been lent a book called "The Great Pianists" by Harold C. Schonberg, which covers the complete history of European piano from Bach to the 60's. Can't seem to find it online because it is a very old book, but it is full of vivid and humorous anecdotes.


----------



## flamencosketches

If anyone can recommend me a great book about Gustav Mahler, his life, his works, anything... I would really appreciate it. 

Thinking of purchasing Bruno Walter's book on him, anyone know if it's good? Looks like a relatively easy read.


----------



## classical yorkist

Does anyone know of a biography of Georg Philip Telemann? Is there a book written about him at all?


----------



## Xisten267

I'm in need of a book exploring history of harmony in the common practice period. Could someone please recommend me one?


----------



## flamencosketches

Schoenberg's Harmonielehre, maybe


----------



## Xisten267

flamencosketches said:


> Schoenberg's Harmonielehre, maybe


It's really nice that I get a recommendation for this book, because I have access to it in the the university where I study. I have not read it yet because my focus in the moment is the common practice period, and somehow I associate it with the twentieth century.


----------



## flamencosketches

Allerius said:


> It's really nice that I get a recommendation for this book, because I have access to it in the the university where I study. I have not read it yet because my focus in the moment is the common practice period, and somehow I associate it with the twentieth century.


It's all about the common practice period. Schoenberg may have been a 20th century composer but he was obsessed with and knowledgeable about common practice harmony.


----------



## Xisten267

flamencosketches said:


> It's all about the common practice period. Schoenberg may have been a 20th century composer but he was obsessed with and knowledgeable about common practice harmony.


I will have a look at it then. Thanks for the recommendation.


----------



## flamencosketches

Allerius said:


> I will have a look at it then. Thanks for the recommendation.


No problem. One caveat is that it's pretty dense, but you seem to be pretty savvy, I'm sure you'll get something out of it.


----------



## millionrainbows

Allerius said:


> I'm in need of a book exploring history of harmony in the common practice period. Could someone please recommend me one?


It sounds like what you're looking for is a "history" of CP harmony. That's a hard one. The Harmonielehre is more of a pure theory book, with Schoenberg's Views interspersed.

The closest thing I can think of as a "history" of CP is Dmitri Tymoczko's _A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice (Oxford Studies in Music Theory). 
_
It may go beyond the scope of what you're after, but it does analyse various practices in the Medieval period, The Renaissance, and up through Romanticism to modern times.

https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?as...linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_V8c0DbK7CCNKS


----------



## Xisten267

millionrainbows said:


> It sounds like what you're looking for is a "history" of CP harmony. That's a hard one. The Harmonielehre is more of a pure theory book, with Schoenberg's Views interspersed.
> 
> The closest thing I can think of as a "history" of CP is Dmitri Tymoczko's _A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice (Oxford Studies in Music Theory).
> _
> It may go beyond the scope of what you're after, but it does analyse various practices in the Medieval period, The Renaissance, and up through Romanticism to modern times.
> 
> https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?as...linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_V8c0DbK7CCNKS


You're right, that's what I'm looking for. Thanks for the recommendation.


----------



## perempe

Is there a book about transcribing music you can recommend? I want to transcribe orchestral works for organ. What are the (types of) pieces I can have success? what are the ones that can't be trascribed?


----------



## flamencosketches

I'm looking for a book on the life and music of Franz Schubert, I'm sure there have been plenty. If you have read a good one, recommend it to me here, please...?


----------



## Rogerx

flamencosketches said:


> I'm looking for a book on the life and music of Franz Schubert, I'm sure there have been plenty. If you have read a good one, recommend it to me here, please...?







All at Amazon.


----------



## Schopenhauer

Hello everyone,

Is there a book that covers all the classical music authors, their works and their best recordings? Something like _Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1, 000 Greatest Works_ by _Phil G. Goulding_ but more extensive.

And for those of you interested in Wagner and Philosophy, I recommend the following books:


Wagner And Philosophy by Bryan Magee
The Philosophies of Richard Wagner by Julian Young


----------



## BabyGiraffe

Schopenhauer said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> Is there a book that covers all the classical music authors, their works and their best recordings? Something like _Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1, 000 Greatest Works_ by _Phil G. Goulding_ but more extensive.
> 
> [/LIST]


You are searching for some kind of "Impossible to be written" book. Norton and Oxford have their own series of "history of Western music" in several volumes. (Don't forget that many famous composers ((in their own time)) are now forgotten ((Vivaldi's modern popularity is a recent phenomena - he was rediscovered)), so any such book will be pretty subjective.)


----------



## classical yorkist

Is there a good, fun biography of Haydn? I'm particularly interested in his time in London and Paris. Nothing musicological or technical, that doesn't do it for me. Rather something personal and intimate. I know he had a fairly quiet and uneventful life.


----------



## fluteman

Schopenhauer said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> Is there a book that covers all the classical music authors, their works and their best recordings? Something like _Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1, 000 Greatest Works_ by _Phil G. Goulding_ but more extensive.
> 
> And for those of you interested in Wagner and Philosophy, I recommend the following books:
> 
> 
> Wagner And Philosophy by Bryan Magee
> The Philosophies of Richard Wagner by Julian Young


There actually is a surprisingly good reference book with all of that information and more for composers great and minor, old and (up to the date it was compiled) new, called Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers. Of course, the more celebrated composers have much longer and more detailed entries. It is no substitute for Grove's, but the author does a good job of accurately providing the most pertinent information in a single volume.


----------



## Alina

Hey guys

Very interesting topic - I wanted to know if we have biographies for modern classical players. In my mind, Michael Cretu is an amazing pianists but we dont know much about him


----------



## annaw

Schopenhauer said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> Is there a book that covers all the classical music authors, their works and their best recordings? Something like _Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1, 000 Greatest Works_ by _Phil G. Goulding_ but more extensive.
> 
> And for those of you interested in Wagner and Philosophy, I recommend the following books:
> 
> 
> Wagner And Philosophy by Bryan Magee
> The Philosophies of Richard Wagner by Julian Young


I just started reading _The Ring of Truth: The Wisdom of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung_ by Roger Scruton and so far it seems to be a very insightful read. Also, Robert Donington's _Wagner's 'Ring' and its Symbols_ is an absolutely amazing book!


----------



## gregorx

Schopenhauer said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> Is there a book that covers all the classical music authors, their works and their best recordings? Something like _Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1, 000 Greatest Works_ by _Phil G. Goulding_ but more extensive.


This book covers a lot of composers, some in depth. From 1100 to late 20th c. - Guillaume de Machaut to Alfred Schnittke.

The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music by Jan Swafford


----------



## flamencosketches

gregorx said:


> This book covers a lot of composers, some in depth. From 1100 to late 20th c. - Guillaume de Machaut to Alfred Schnittke.
> 
> The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music by Jan Swafford
> 
> View attachment 136859


I can wholeheartedly back this suggestion. This was a helpful book for me getting into classical music.

On the subject of Swafford, I have recently received his biography of Johannes Brahms and am very excited to read it, which I will likely start soon once I've gotten my fill of Hesse and Mann, whose fiction I can't get enough of lately.


----------



## ASalzone

Just started reading through Lockwood's _Beethoven: The Music and the Life._ I picked it up in January and saw that it was recommended by several people in this thread. Just finished the first fifth or so, and I can attest to its excellence. Very engaging, very informative!


----------



## Luchesi

ASalzone said:


> Just started reading through Lockwood's _Beethoven: The Music and the Life._ I picked it up in January and saw that it was recommended by several people in this thread. Just finished the first fifth or so, and I can attest to its excellence. Very engaging, very informative!


negative review



John E Klapproth

_1.0 out of 5 stars__ Solomon's Disciple _
_Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2016 The Immortal Beloved Compendium: Everything About The Only Woman Beethoven Ever Loved - And Many He Didn't contains everything about this subject (including what Lockwood dosn' know).
Yet another biography of Beethoven, and yet another sad example of what comes about when German sources are ignored or regurgitated second hand. Lewis Lockwood made it very clear who he was following:
"I favor the hypothesis advanced by Maynard Solomon that the probable recipient of the 'Immortal Beloved' letter was Antonie Brentano. In light of the currently known evidence Solomon's view is by far the most convincing." (p. 499, note 16)
What kind of evidence is "currently known", is shown by the entry "1812" under "Chronology":
"Beethoven presents autograph of song 'An die Geliebte' ('To the Beloved'), WoO 140, to Antonie Brentano … In summer Beethoven … writes a letter to an unnamed woman called the 'Immortal Beloved' (almost certainly identified as Antonie Brentano)." (p. 555)
Beethoven never "presented" this to Antonie, but to the singer Regina Lang; Antonie got it only many months later - on "request".
Under "Relations with Women", Lockwood showed that he did not read carefully Josephine's letters (nor did he learn anything about letters the other members of the Brunsvik family wrote each other):
"Josephine did not reciprocate his feelings and … would not agree to sleep with him." (p. 197 f.)
(You notice that these are two different things!)
In all seriousness, he then presented a part of one of Josephine's letters to Beethoven:
"Even before I knew you, your music made me enthusiastic for you - the goodness of your character, your affection increased it. This preference that you granted me, the pleasure of your acquaintance, would have been the finest jewel of my life if you could have loved me less sensually. That I cannot satisfy this sensual love makes you angry with me, [but] I would have to violate holy bonds if I gave heed to your longing." (p. 198)
He not only gave the wrong date (some time in 1805 - it was in fact at the beginning of 1807), he also carefully omitted the preceding and the following sentences. I give here on the right, for comparison, the complete letter in my translation. The quoted one (from Albrecht 1996, #100) is in parts quite different if not misleading.
Citations out of context can easily achieve the desired effect - if this was: to mislead the reader, or to drive home a point that otherwise would not be there.
And then Lockwood once again perpetuated the myth (as quoted above) that
"Antonie … was, as Solomon discovered, the recipient of the autograph manuscript of his song 'An die Geliebte' ('To the Beloved') WoO 140." (p. 200)
What Lockwood's readers won't discover: To be fair, Antonie was indeed the recipient, not of "the", but of one autograph copy of this song, however, it was not its text (which was not authored by Beethoven), but the music which she obviously desired - to practice her guitar skills.

_


----------



## 444mil

I've recently read "The musician's way" and it's an excelent book for performers.


----------



## Chilham

.........................


----------



## Rogerx

Alina said:


> Hey guys
> 
> Very interesting topic - I wanted to know if we have biographies for modern classical players. In my mind, Michael Cretu is an amazing pianists but we dont know much about him


Wasn't he more from the "non classical " like Enigma?


----------



## juliante

I picked up a hefty old tome in a charity shop called 'The Complete Book of Classical Music' Edited by David Ewen. I am very pleasantly surprised by really accessible critical evaluation but also the general prose, lovely CM appreciation.


----------



## EnescuCvartet

Can someone please tell me how to include a picture with an OP? I need to put up 2 images with a thread I intend to start. Thanks

In response to this thread, I'll add Hector Berlioz's outstanding work if fiction, Evenings with the Orchestra. Has anyone else read this? His autobiography is a good read too. He was an excellent writer. Evenings... is a great, fun read and should be better known.


----------



## flamencosketches

Asking an open ended question here...: thoughts on any great books on Baroque music? Can be about an individual composer, performance practice, something more general about the evolution of music, something more historical about music and its relation to the times, anything. I've been voraciously devouring a lot of Baroque music that I wasn't previously familiar with over these past few weeks, and I would love to read a book to gain a deeper understanding of this brilliant music. 

I think the only book on Baroque music that I've read was Evening in the Palace of Reason by James R. Gaines, which I loved. This would be an example of a musico-historical kind of book about Bach, Frederick the Great, and the times they both lived in. 

Any answers would be appreciated!


----------



## classical yorkist

flamencosketches said:


> Asking an open ended question here...: thoughts on any great books on Baroque music? Can be about an individual composer, performance practice, something more general about the evolution of music, something more historical about music and its relation to the times, anything. I've been voraciously devouring a lot of Baroque music that I wasn't previously familiar with over these past few weeks, and I would love to read a book to gain a deeper understanding of this brilliant music.
> 
> I think the only book on Baroque music that I've read was Evening in the Palace of Reason by James R. Gaines, which I loved. This would be an example of a musico-historical kind of book about Bach, Frederick the Great, and the times they both lived in.
> 
> Any answers would be appreciated!


Try Handel in London







I've really struggled to find fun, readable books about the Baroque. Often, they're impenetrable musicology textbooks which mean nothing to me sadly. I'll have another think.


----------



## flamencosketches

^That looks amazing, thanks!


----------



## DavidA

I’ve finished Jan Swafford’s Beethoven. Takes some reading but very rewarding


----------



## EnescuCvartet

Does anyone have any of the Groves editions? I'm looking at a set, 20-volumes, for a dang reasonable price, but I don't want to get it if it doesn't make interesting reading. I can Google stuff for reference. What I'd like it to be is medi depth, interesting articles that may not turn up with an online search. How close am I to it's reality?

Thanks


----------



## Rogerx

EnescuCvartet said:


> Does anyone have any of the Groves editions? I'm looking at a set, 20-volumes, for a dang reasonable price, but I don't want to get it if it doesn't make interesting reading. I can Google stuff for reference. What I'd like it to be is medi depth, interesting articles that may not turn up with an online search. How close am I to it's reality?
> 
> Thanks


Far off, what is a reasonable price, and all we cab do is search the internet for you.


----------



## Tinaj0669

_The Indispensable Composers_ by Tommassini is an entertaining and thoughtful book particularly if you're a fan of his New York Times articles and his blogs.


----------



## Gothos

Another one of those used book store bargains($1)
So however it turns out,I've no cause for complaint.


----------



## Guest002

EnescuCvartet said:


> Does anyone have any of the Groves editions? I'm looking at a set, 20-volumes, for a dang reasonable price, but I don't want to get it if it doesn't make interesting reading. I can Google stuff for reference. What I'd like it to be is medi depth, interesting articles that may not turn up with an online search. How close am I to it's reality?
> 
> Thanks


Sorry not to have see this until now. Hope it's not too late.

I have the 20-volume set from 1980. (I also have the 6 volume set from 1940, but we don't talk about that in polite company, because it singularly lacks an entry for Benjamin Britten ...even in 1940, he should have been worth a mention, war or no war!)

Ebay tells me I paid £75 for the 20-volume version last year, which in retrospect sounds ludicrously cheap. Bizarrely, I bought the 1940 edition the week before for a princely £12.

I can tell you that I use the 20-volume New Grove almost daily. Well, let's say, every three days or so. It's very informative. It is, of course, very "encylopædia-ish", so none of its articles are exactly fun, light reading. But if you want to spell a guy's name correctly, or know what his name actually was versus what everyone says it is, then it's indispensible. And the articles are certainly more in-depth than anything I've met on Google or Wiki. They also have a stamp of authority about them that I just don't get with anything on Wiki! They are worth what I paid for them, anyway. If you're paying a little bit more, fine. Paying _much_ more... it depends on how much you value adjudicated information versus the wisdom of the (invariably stupid) crowd.

Additionally, the thing about Google is, you can't sit back in a comfy chair in front of a fire with an adoring cat on your lap and readily consult it (my cat likes chewing USB cables. Pray he never fancies chewing a 240v power cable!), whereas -though each of the New Groves volumes are not exactly paperlight reads, it is possible to relax back with the Groves and a glass of something, perched felines included. Paper does that for a person: I highly recommend it!!


----------



## Ich muss Caligari werden

EnescuCvartet said:


> Does anyone have any of the Groves editions? I'm looking at a set, 20-volumes, for a dang reasonable price, but I don't want to get it if it doesn't make interesting reading. I can Google stuff for reference. What I'd like it to be is medi depth, interesting articles that may not turn up with an online search. How close am I to it's reality?
> 
> Thanks


I have the _New Grove's _; I purchased it (ridiculously) inexpensively from a public library that was downsizing its reference collection. I found that I cannot live without it; that said, it is written by specialists for specialists, some of the more technical articles may make all but musicological students shake their heads in wonderment. Still, if you are in this forum, the set is worth it alone for the biographies, histories of record labels, definitions of terms, country-specific music histories, etc. It's a bundle to carry about with one but it's a burden I'm prepared to deal with! Recommended purchase.


----------



## Sondersdorf

Has anyone read "A SOUND MIND How I Fell in Love With Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite Its Entire History)"
By Paul Morley yet?


----------



## Ariasexta

I have this, I enjoy both musicological and musico-historiological texts, as long as they are talking about music it will be more than just fine for me. Mr Gardiner calls JS Bach a learned musician, I beg to differ, JS Bach is a musical nirvana, which means any definitive term is an insult to him.


----------



## EnescuCvartet

Any mentions yet of Wilhelm von Lenz's The Piano Virtuosos of Our Time? It's a great little read, full of humor and great anecdotes, chiefly about Liszt, Chopin, Tausig and Henselt. Lenz of course knew them all. 

Likewise the Gottschalk (sp?) memoirs are a pretty insightful read.


----------



## sofiabelle

Hello Philly,
Thanks for sharing the list of music books.


----------



## EnescuCvartet

Schubert Songs - A Biographical Study by the great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has been my favorite sketch of the composer and his most returned-to form. The works that are considered minor by Dieskau don't receive much attention, unless their back story warrants the attention. But as long as one trusts the author/interpretor and his value on each song, you'll stay consistently interested. Fischer-Dieskau gives notes on performance, places specific songs in context of the time they were written, as well as their place in posterity. He compares Schubert's settings to those of other composers and gives a plenty of anecdotes of both larger, historical interest, as well as the impact they had in Schubert's own circle. An invaluable and eternally interesting read. I found much quiet entertainment listening to the singer's interpretation while reading his impetus behind it.


----------



## EnescuCvartet

As per my above post, can anyone recommend Einstein's book on Schubert?


----------



## Guest002

Just wanted to alert people to the fact that amazon.co.uk is currently offering the Tippett biography in _hardback_ for considerably less than a tenner. I paid £8.77 postage-paid for next-day delivery of a brand-new copy, but it's available for even less than that from other sellers (but with postage costs, so it's all a bit of a wash). Seems cheap to me, though, given it's normal list price of £25 or more.


----------



## Handelian

Jan Swafford’s new biography of Mozart has just been published. I’ve put my order in.


----------



## Handelian

Just started. It is so good


----------



## John O

Robert Layton The Symphony is really good 
(The Concerto by the same author less so)


----------



## Sondersdorf

After years of resisting streaming services, I recently subscribed to Spotify. In these modern times, despite all my reservations, it looks like a great resource. Despite reading books, forums, blogs, and magazines—online and print—I was missing a lot it seems.

I went to Spotify to hear Mozart's K.356, Adagio for Glass Harmonica in C Major, and it puts me down in the middle of a multi-CD album, The Life and Works of Mozart, by Jeremy Siepmann, on Naxos. It seems Siepmann did a whole series of these audiobooks released about 2001 to 2005.

I have listened to "Mozart" and am now part way into "Beethoven". I am really impressed. Most of my previous experience with this sort of thing has been Robert Greenberg's Great Courses, formerly The Teaching Company, lectures. The Siepmann series are quite different. He is not a composer like Greenberg but his knowledge and perspectives are spot on. There is more of a tendency to present complete movements and Siepmann is witty and entertaining. He has the big broadcaster's voice and has found outstanding actors to read the composers' quotes.

I am very surprised I never heard of this series and it has received so little mention on talkclassical. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about a composer and their works. I haven't listened to any of his series beyond "The Life and Works" sets but I see "Classics Explained" albums dedicated to individual works like Beethoven's Sixth, and Brahmns' Piano Concerto No. 2.

A begrudged thank you to Spotify, I guess.


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## WorldOfBeethoven

Handelian said:


> Jan Swafford's new biography of Mozart has just been published. I've put my order in.


Thank you I did not know this! I actually discussed Beethoven with him at a public talk&concert in NYC, he is incredibly knowledgeable and humble at that. Will order this book right away.


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## Rogerx

WorldOfBeethoven said:


> Thank you I did not know this! I actually discussed Beethoven with him at a public talk&concert in NYC, he is incredibly knowledgeable and humble at that. Will order this book right away.


Let us know if it was as good as your expectations?


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## Haydn70

WorldOfBeethoven said:


> Thank you I did not know this! I actually discussed Beethoven with him at a public talk&concert in NYC, he is incredibly knowledgeable and humble at that. Will order this book right away.


I enjoyed Swafford's Brahms bio.


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## cheregi

I'm about halfway through Susan McClary's Modal Subjectivities: Self-Fashioning in the Italian Madrigal, and it's fair to say it's 'blowing my mind'. Her analyses, which are grounded in musicological rigor but not afraid to bring in sociocultural arguments as well, are just so lucid and compelling. Madrigals go so much farther than the cliche 'madrigalisms' that it may even be fair to say that 'madrigalisms' represent a small and insignificant portion of how madrigals work and what they are doing... Has anyone else read this? Does anyone have any other good books on madrigals or earlier modal forms?


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## OMD

Peter Schmelz is an associate prof at Arizona State specializing in the Soviet "Thaw" composers of the '60s and beyond. _Such Freedom_ is the best (only?) overview of the immediate post-Stalin scene, which saw the emergence of an underground that gave rise to Part, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Denisov, et. al. It is very readable for general readers despite the academic pedigree (published by Oxford). Also a book on Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 1 (Oxford as well) that is the most insightful account of Schnittke's music I've read. Looking forward to Schmelz's next, which looks at polystylism in Schnittke's and Silvestrov's more mature work.


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## EnescuCvartet

Sondersdorf said:


> After years of resisting streaming services, I recently subscribed to Spotify. In these modern times, despite all my reservations, it looks like a great resource. Despite reading books, forums, blogs, and magazines-online and print-I was missing a lot it seems.
> 
> I went to Spotify to hear Mozart's K.356, Adagio for Glass Harmonica in C Major, and it puts me down in the middle of a multi-CD album, The Life and Works of Mozart, by Jeremy Siepmann, on Naxos. It seems Siepmann did a whole series of these audiobooks released about 2001 to 2005.
> 
> I have listened to "Mozart" and am now part way into "Beethoven". I am really impressed. Most of my previous experience with this sort of thing has been Robert Greenberg's Great Courses, formerly The Teaching Company, lectures. The Siepmann series are quite different. He is not a composer like Greenberg but his knowledge and perspectives are spot on. There is more of a tendency to present complete movements and Siepmann is witty and entertaining. He has the big broadcaster's voice and has found outstanding actors to read the composers' quotes.
> 
> I am very surprised I never heard of this series and it has received so little mention on talkclassical. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about a composer and their works. I haven't listened to any of his series beyond "The Life and Works" sets but I see "Classics Explained" albums dedicated to individual works like Beethoven's Sixth, and Brahmns' Piano Concerto No. 2.
> 
> A begrudged thank you to Spotify, I guess.


I listened to all of the Siepmann Life and Works on Spotify. They were all very good. At home I still listen to go vinyl. I use Spotify when on the road. Lately, however, I've been using Primephonic, which is a streaming app like Spotify, but one that is exclusively for classical music lovers. As such, it is a lot better than Spotify. Its classical library is enormous compared to Spotify. If you mainly use Spotify for classical, I would definitely look into Primephonic. I'm still buying it by the month but I've decided to get a year subscription, I just haven't but the bullet yet.


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## Chopin Fangirl

.


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## composingmusic

Some more book recommendations: 
_The Messiaen Companion_ by Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone (biography)
_Michael Tippett: The Biography_ by Oliver Soden (biography)
_Behind Bars_ by Elaine Gould (I guess this would probably go under composition)
_Flûtes au Present_ by Jean-Yves Artaud (under instrument-specific, it's in French but also has a ton of useful multiphonic fingerings and other technical stuff)
_The Techniques of Saxophone Playing_ by Marcus Weiss and Giorgio Netti (instrument specific)
_The Contemporary Violin_ by Patricia Strange and Allen Strange (instrument specific)
_Instrumentation and Orchestration_ by Alfred Blatter (theory and composition)


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## ando

Finishing this one soon. It's library copy. Still looking for a copy at a decent price. Highly Recommended.










*The Letters of C.P.E. Bach*, Translated and Edited by Stephen L. Clark (1997, Clarendon Press)


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## TheCoctor

Which book would you recommend about Schumann’s life and music?


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## mikeh375

John Worthen's excellent tome on Schumann is a great read....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Robert-Schumann-Life-death-musician-ebook/dp/B08ZDT7TJ7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3HK4G6G3RP4ZV&keywords=john+worthen+schumann&qid=1644591062&s=books&sprefix=john+worthen+schumann%2Cstripbooks%2C46&sr=1-1


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## Luchesi

I downloaded this and gave them a donation.

https://kupdf.net/download/ludmila-ulehla-contemporary-harmony_590de3e0dc0d60802f959eaa_pdfLudmila Ulehla - Contemporary Harmony


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## Andrew Kenneth

Just received this => 

Gegenwärtig - 100 Jahre Neue Musik - Die Donaueschinger Musiktage
(216 page fully illustrated history of the Donaueschinger Musiktage)


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## Jay

Music In the Western World: A History In Documents -- Piero Weiss/Richard Taruskin
Contemplating Music: Challenges To Musicology -- Joseph Kerman
Music and Marx: Ideas, Practice, Politics -- Regula Qureshi
Music As Cultural Practice, 1800-1900 -- Lawrence Kramer


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## juliante

Anyone know if a good overview of chamber music - history, discussions on 'greatest' works?


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## Xenophiliu

juliante said:


> Anyone know if a good overview of chamber music - history, discussions on 'greatest' works?


I don't know how in depth you are looking, but these are general surveys that aren't comprehensive. I find a lot of these overview books tend to be along the lines of recording liner notes, which is fine if you don't want a lot of depth and would rather have a companion or a starter guide.

I really only know Mark Radice's well, as it is a textbook and have come across it from time to time.

Chamber Music: An Essential History, Radice
Guide to Chamber Music, Dover
Chamber Music: A Listener's Guide, Keller
A Friend's Guide to Chamber Music: European Trends from Haydn to Shostakovich, Monsman


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## larold

Just started this, a new examination of Liszt's symphonic poems from Joanne Cormac at University of Nottingham (England.) She details Liszt's years in Weimar, his ideas on music and art, motivation and premieres, and repositions the composer as a dramatist. whose symphonic oeuvre should be placed alongside dramatic works of Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Wagner. Eminently readable and not at all didactic this is an exciting venture into an area that, unlike the worlds of Beethoven, Bach or even Bruckner, has not been particularly explored. Fun so far.


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## Hogwash

juliante said:


> Anyone know if a good overview of chamber music - history, discussions on 'greatest' works?


Here's a couple I found at the library:


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## Cheyenne

juliante said:


> Anyone know if a good overview of chamber music - history, discussions on 'greatest' works?


The reference work on Chamber Music has always been _Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music_, with the caveat that it is by now outdated and old-fashioned. Still very fun and exactly what you're looking for!


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## juliante

Cheyenne said:


> The reference work on Chamber Music has always been _Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music_, with the caveat that it is by now outdated and old-fashioned. Still very fun and exactly what you're looking for!


Excllent thanks. I will look for it online and hope it is not exuberantly priced.


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## fluteman

Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World's Peoples 6th Edition, Jeff Todd Titon, gen. ed., often used as a college textbook, is a good introduction to the subject of non-western classical music, in other words the other side of the coin of most of what is discussed here. IMO it helps put the whole subject of western classical music in its cultural context. It is readable with lots of neat photos and illustrations.


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## MartinDB

In case anyone is interested, I stumbled across this copy of "The operas of Benjamin Britten" at the UK Oxfam online shop. I already have a copy of it, which I find helpful for Britten operas for which I don't have a libretto. At £8.99 it is an incredible bargain. I know I paid far more for it. 













https://onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/the-operas-of-benjamin-britten/product/HD_300819483?pscid=ps_ggl_OOS+-+Performance+Max+BOOKS+-+2022_&crm_event_code=20REUWWS08&gclid=Cj0KCQiAg_KbBhDLARIsANx7wAwtthpQcJ2UjUE7bzW_t2YO-Gusu35zw5IA6voFa6aM1gPyZv7Gl5EaAjb6EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds


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## partisan

It is possible that this has been answered numerous times throughout this thread's 17 pages, but perhaps there are better answers to this question now: what is the most enjoyable and enlightening book to learn reading music? 

I've long forgotten even the basics since after grade school!


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## Viajero

"Casals and the Art of Interpretation" . . . an indispensable primer with excellent written musical examples for any serious musician. Highly recommended.
Viajero


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