Baroque Music: Music in Western Europe, 1580-1750 (The Norton Introduction to Music History) [Hardcover]

John Walter Hill (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0393978001 | ISBN-13: 978-0393978001 | Publication Date: March 16, 2005

John Walter Hill’s highly anticipated text presents a broad survey of the music of Western Europe from 1580 to 1750.

This essential addition to the Norton Introduction to Music History series provides a comprehensive introduction to the music of the Baroque, incorporating discussions of culture, religion, and political history with in-depth analysis of musical compositions. The narrative is complemented by a wide range of music in both the text and the accompanying Anthology of Baroque Music; the works included reflect the innovations and great stylistic diversity of music during this dynamic period.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Walter Hill is a professor of musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society from 1984 until 1986 and serves on a number of international boards and committees. He is the author of many articles and books, including The Life and Works of Francesco Maria Veracini, Vivaldi’s Ottone in villa: A Study in Musical Drama, and Roman Monody, Cantata, and Opera from the Circles around Cardinal Montalto, 2 vols.. Articles by and about Professor Hill appear in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 525 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (March 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393978001
• ISBN-13: 978-0393978001
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #452,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, solid textbook, April 25, 2006

By 

T. Sparfeld (Miami, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baroque Music: Music in Western Europe, 1580-1750 (The Norton Introduction to Music History) (Hardcover)

Many have awaited this final volume in the new Norton Music History Series. Manfred Bukofzer's volume in the original series was written in 1947 - clearly, much has been discovered since then.

Hill's text is designed to be for upper level music majors, as the writing can become quite dense. The book begins with an introduction of the social and political factors shaping Europe during the Baroque Era. Other chapters cover the birth of opera and monody, new genres of instrumental music, and other subjects, generally switching back in between France, Italy, England, and Germany (Spain and Portugal are also included in a chapter).

Great aspects about Hill's book first. The scholarship is excellent, and is as thorough (if not more so) than any other Baroque textbook out there. His bibliographical notes at the end of the chapter (as in the other books from the series) are wonderfully helpful. The description on the Doctrine of the Affections is as clear and informative as I've ever seen. His brief explanation of dance steps and tempo descriptions reminds me of Leonard Ratner's book on topics and is an excellent resource. The optional Anthology can prove to be very helpful for teaching or illustrating Hill's explanations as well.

Here are the things I think readers may not like as much, though I was not able to find many. The reading is dense and can be difficult to follow with interest at times, which is not surprising for a 500-page upper-level textbook. Of the books in the Norton Series, I found several other author's writings to be of much lighter prose than Hill's, including Hoppin's tome on Medieval music. Many others will argue over the relative weight of importance of some composers in the textbook (there are many second-tier Italian composers, and Bach only gets about 25 pages), but I believe that any professor worth his/her salt will be easily solve this difficulty by supplementing the text with a few other materials.

Though I would not rank this book as the best in the series, I do think it is certainly an improvement from Bukofzer and Claude Palisca's Prentice Hall textbook (not bad, but much less thorough). Any upper-level course on Baroque music should consider adopting Hill's text and Anthology.