The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780679728054)

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.

Author: Jan Swafford
ISBN-10: 0679728058
ISBN-13: 9780679728054
Publisher: Vintage
Language: English
Published: 12/15/1992
Pages: 624
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.27lbs
Size: 8.05h x 5.22w x 1.24d

Review Citation(s):
School Library Journal 09/01/1993 pg. 264