Source Readings In Music History [Hardcover]

I am a visual artist with a great appreciation for music. Over the years, I have had many questions about music, why it was done this way or that, why some people felt something wasn't music that others did, and the like. I generally listen to music while I paint and draw. I am educated in visual art making, history, and aesthetics. I wanted a book that would answer my questions and in the voices of the composers, critics, philosophers, performers, and others of the periods in question. I wanted something not too technical, something that explained the whys and why nots. I wanted a book like the Art in Theory series, but about music. This is that book!

Granted, a person's appreciation for the texts will be deeper with the ability to read music and a knowledge of how to play it. A few essays are almost entirely about sophisticated technical issues. But most of the book is accessible to the layperson or philistine. True, some issues in visual art and music overlap, but there are many differenes in thinking. So, my art education itself would not explain to me what I needed to know.

The book made me as comfortable with music as I have been in my life with visual art. Music can have an intimidation factor due to it being a language most of us cannot write. But hearing the issues that concerned the creators of music as well as philosophers who wished to discuss it made it an incredibly human and welcoming phenomenon. Yes, you can have a sense of humor about great composers, performers, and the like. Yes, some composers find other composers boring. But even the composers you can't stand work their tails off to make experiences that we can enjoy. Hey, everybody wants to be loved ;-).

This revised edition has some snappy articles by various women in it. Yay! So, it's not just a boys club. And it attempts to have a global cultural edge to it, while staying in the Western tradition. So, you get a variety of perspectives that sometimes have an outsider feel about them.

It took me two months to read this book and I don't regret a minute of it! It was a very enriching experience and has opened my eyes to musics I never imagined I'd like! :-{D}

This is an excellent compendium of music philosophy from ancient times through the 20th century. The selections are grouped into large sections covering individual periods, and the sections are subdivided into subsections covering various movements. Each section opens with a helpful introduction that clarifies the material to follow, and most of the selections are complete. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the development of orchestral music and aural philosophy.

For first-hand accounts, period criticism and reviews, I recommend Weiss and Taruskin's "Music in the Western World" ISBN: 0-02-872900-5.

A great firsthand perspective on music history - filled with primary sources. Several excerpts were used in my graduate music history course.