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

The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical MusicThe most readable and comprehensive guide to enjoying over five hundred years of classical music from Gregorian chants, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, and beyond. The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is a lively and opinionated musical history and an insider's key to the personalities, epochs, and genres of the Western classical tradition. Among its features: chronologically arranged

The most readable and comprehensive guide to enjoying over five hundred years of classical music -- from Gregorian chants, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, and beyond.

The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is a lively -- and opinionated -- musical history and an insider's key to the personalities, epochs, and genres of the Western classical tradition. Among its features:
-- chronologically arranged essays on nearly 100 composers, from Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377) to Aaron Copland (1900-1990), that combine biography with detailed analyses of the major works while assessing their role in the social, cultural, and political climate of their times;
-- informative sidebars that clarify broader topics such as melody, polyphony, atonality, and the impact of the early-music movement;
-- a glossary of musical terms, from a cappella to woodwinds;
-- a step-by-step guide to building a great classical music library.

Written with wit and a clarity that both musical experts and beginners can appreciate, The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is an invaluable source-book for music lovers everywhere.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 12/15/1992
ISBN: 9780679728054
Pages: 624
Weight: 1.27lbs
Size: 8.05h x 5.22w x 1.24d

Review Citations: School Library Journal 09/01/1993 pg. 264