Customer Reviews

Heritage of Music (4 Volume Set)

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This 4-volume work is the centerpiece of my collection of books related to classical music. Abundantly illustrated, each volume discusses a period in the history of Western music from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century.

Each volume presents the key composers of that time and discusses how their lives and their personalities, as well as the culture of the time, exerted an influence on their compositions. (Other contemporaneous composers are presented in a section at the end of each volume.)

But that is not all, for separate chapters, called "Interludes", are interspersed throughout each volume giving pictures of the development of instruments, the orchestra, concert halls and opera houses, and much more.

You don't have to be an expert to enjoy these books (I'm not), they offer much for anyone interested in classical music.

Enjoying music must be the demanding toy. It exacts not only our time and money, but also knowledge. You should be acquainted with a heap of idiosyncratic terminology, and be able to distinguish masterwork from the mass of lemon. There is no easy workout. All you could do is just listen and listen. Here comes in the critics who coach us what is good or bad. But the problem is this: day by day, new pieces are flooding the market and just reviewing only the title is a daunting task. So most listen what they find surreptitiously.
But the merit of classical music is that all the works are already canonized and there are well established critical mechanics. You don¡¯t need to pick up by yourself. The valuables have been culled over generation and generation. All you have to do is registering the list of the established canon in your mind and choose between players.
This book is written to help audience with encyclopedic survey of masters in Western classical music. This is not the textbook for the class on the history of music, but the reference for the common audience. Subjects are restricted to well-known masters like Bach, Mozart, Brahms or Prokofiev. The discography-like descriptions are provided for masterpieces of each composer by over 50 critics. With no doubt, words are not that suitable to demonstrate the beauty of the music. So writers seem to assume that readers have already given ear to the music or at least have CDs at hand. It¡¯s not that problem for the music can tell itself only with sound in the note not with words in the paper. But the real beauty of this book lies in its comprehensive approach. It offers not only the accounts on music itself, but relates it to the rest of society. Not only they explain each composer¡¯s personal life, but also they set them in the context of their times. Music tells itself. But knowing the social settings that the music was played and enjoyed is definitely helpful to the modern audience. For such purpose, this book contains thousands of illustration showing the social and historical background. This book could, in this regard, be read something of a history in the view of music. This heightens the joy of reading.
But this book has some weaknesses. First, this book is targeted to somewhat advanced reader. So there is no explanation about some basic terminology like polyphony, cord, or counterpoint. Those should be the basic. And this kind of writing style leads to pedantic and textbook-like reservedness, in some cases. But overall, this book is readable and informative.