Haiku Wednesday: Classic Books on Classical Music

March 9, 2016 by Chris Gallant 5 Comments

Richard Taruskin
Howard Goodall, Burkholder,
Grout, and Palisca.

Aaron Copland and
Leonard Bernstein, Grove, Schonberg,
And Willi Apel.

Need some history?
Explanations, or old scores?
Then seek them all out.

I just finished reading Howard Goodall’s The Story of Music, and I highly recommend it.  Goodall does a fantastic job of presenting the development of music from prehistory to today in language that everyone can understand.  You don’t have to read music, or have studied music.  You won’t get bogged down in terminology.  And it is very entertaining.  There was also a companion tv series, but sadly it is not available on DVD.  It too was very well done, very lively.  You may be able to find recordings of the original series on the internet.

I got to thinking about classic books that provide an in-depth look at western music and music history, and I wanted to let you know about some of them.  Some of these are for reading, some for reference.  This list is far from exhaustive.  You may want to leave a comment if you know of a great classic resource that I’ve omitted that you’d like to share.

So who are these people in the haiku?

Richard Taruskin is the author of The Oxford History of Western Music, a five-volume set that reaches from the time of early notation to the late 20th century.  Taruskin and Piero Weiss are the editors of Music in the Western World, which is a phenomenal collection of primary-source documents.  You can read excerpts of the letters of Monteverdi, or CPE Bach’s writing on playing keyboard instruments.  Or Josef von Spaun’s personal recollections of Schubert.

Howard Goodall is the author of not only The Story of Music, but also Big Bangs, in which he discusses revolutionary developments in music history, such as the development of notation and equal temperament.  Big Bangs is also available in DVD format.  Again, an excellent, easy to understand exposition.

Burkholder, Grout, and Palisca are the authors of the current ninth edition of A History of Western Music.  My ancient third edition is by Grout alone.  The latest edition incorporates music of the twenty-first century and permits streaming of all the repertoire in the Norton Anthology of Western Music.  As in Taruskin’s five-volume tome, you will find a wealth of information, abundant detail, and sheet music to illustrate the discussion.  BG&P are well known to many university music students.

Aaron Copland’s What To Listen for in Music will help you learn to identify elements of music such as rhythm, melody, harmony, and tone.  It will also teach you about different forms of music, such as the sonata, fugue, and variations.

Leonard Bernstein’s The Joy of Music takes a different approach.  He begins with a series of imaginary conversations to get at the meaning of music and other topics.  The second half of the book includes transcripts of some of his early Omnibus television programs on Beethoven, jazz, conducting, Bach, and opera, among other topics.  Later, Bernstein hosted the incomparable Young People’s Concerts, which are available on DVD.

Grove.  One word that speaks volumes.  20 actually.  But it’s not a person.  The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is the comprehensive source of information on all things musical.  There is also a Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music.

Harold C. Schonberg is the author of The Lives of the Great Composers, The Great Conductors, and The Great Pianists.  The slant is more biographical than analytical, and if you love a good biography, you’ll enjoy Schonberg.

I include Willi Apel because he and Archibald T. Davison are the editors of the two-volume Historical Anthology of Music.  These are some meaty HAMs, two volumes of music scores for the period before the Classical era of classical music.  The Norton Anthology of Western Music covers a greater span of time, but there is something special about this collection.  Norton looks like regular sheet music.  And here is a slice of HAM (here’s L’Homme armé, which I wrote about recently):

And finally, let me not forget Charles Rosen, whose books The Classical Style, Sonata Forms, and others provide an in-depth treatment of these very specialized topics.

All of these are books are available through your favorite book vendor.  Some are available as ebooks.  For the budget-minded, look to the library, or eBay (or Amazon marketplace) for earlier editions of these classic works (eBay–HAMs–$10–just sayin’).

References

Bernstein, Leonard, The Joy of Music. Amadeus Press, 2004.

Burkholder, J. Peter, Grout, Donald Jay, and Palisca, Claude V., A History of Western Music, Ninth Edition. W. W. Norton & Co., 2014.

Burkholder, J. Peter, and Palisca, Claude V., The Norton Anthology of Western Music.  W. W. Norton & Co, 2014.

Copland, Aaron, What To Listen for in Music.  Various publishers, Copyright Aaron Copland 1985.

Davison, Archibald T., and Apel, Willi,  Willi Apel, Historical Anthology of Music.  Harvard University Press, 1949.

Goodall, Howard, Big Bangs.  Vintage (Rand), 2001.

Goodall, Howard, The Story of Music.  Pegasus, 2015.

Rosen, Charles , Sonata Forms.  W. W. Norton & Co., 1988.

Rosen, Charles, The Classical Style.  W. W. Norton & Co., 1998.

Sadie, Stanley, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, Inc., 1995.

Sadie, Stanley, The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music.  W. W. Norton & Co., 1994.

Schonberg, Harold C., The Lives of the Great Composers. W. W. Norton & Co., 1997.

Schonberg, Harold C., The Great Conductors. Simon & Schuster, 1967.

Schonberg, Harold C., The Great Pianists. Simon & Schuster, 1987.

Taruskin, Richard, The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Weiss, Piero and Taruskin, Richard, eds., Music in the Western World.  Schirmer Books, 2007.

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Image attributions: C. Gallant, 2016.