Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music [Hardcover]

Peter Van der Merwe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0198166478 | ISBN-13: 978-0198166474

Roots of the Classical identifies and traces to their source the patterns that make Western classical music unique, setting out the fundamental laws of melody and harmony, and sketching the development of tonality between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. The author then focuses on the years 1770-1910, treating the Western music of this period - folk, popular, and classical - as a single, organically developing, interconnected unit in which the popular idiom was constantly feeding into 'serious' music, showing how the same patterns underlay music of all kinds.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a marvelously stimulating and important book: a masterpiece of canny observation, a miracle of effective organization, a model of colorful, pungent writing, and an ear-opener that should be read and pondered by all scholars and musicians who deal with music of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries in any and all of its genres."--Music & Letters

"Providing an insightful account of the roots of Western classical musical style, Van der Merwe looks at melody, counterpoint and harmony, and traditional tonality in the 18th century. The author draws on a variety of sources to demonstrate the relative simplicity of musical constructions that theorists and historians have previously considered complex. He also looks beyond the traditional sources, examining the importance of styles from alternative repertoires such as children's song and dances of Central Europe. The strengths of this book are the breadth of Van de Merwe's examples and his perspective, which is relatively free of the value judgments commonly placed on the selected repertoires. By avoiding the good music/bad music dichotomy, the author provides some fresh insights on the origins of classical style...Highly recommended." --CHOICE

About the Author

Peter Van der Merwe was born in Cape Town of Boer and Irish stock. He has studied at the College of Music in his native city but is virtually self-taught as musician and musicologist. He divides his time between the study of music and work as a cataloguer at the municipal library in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. His first book, Origins of the Popular Style, was published by OUP in 1989.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 17, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198166478
• ISBN-13: 978-0198166474
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,517,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting alternative view of music history, November 22, 2008

By 

Stephen D. Kahn (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music (Paperback)

This book is a bold departure from the mainstream view of the progressive complication of harmony in classical music from 1500 to 1910. I have read through several standard theory texts--and gone through theory sequences at two music schools--and the usual explanation is that people's ears mysteriously got used to wilder and wilder dissonances. If any reason for this development is adduced, it is the rise of industrial capitalism and its attendant folkways. While this may satisfy my curiosity at a sociological level, it doesn't shed too much light on things that interest me more at a purely musical level--why, for instance, the bVI key area became such a hallmark of music of the second half of the 19th Century, particularly in Brahms.

Van der Merwe takes the view that a great deal of this practice percolated through from popular and folk music of the day and the Gypsy "Fringe" of Eastern Europe. Vienna, in particular, was open to such influences, being a crossroads of a multi-cultural empire; and many of the leading composers of the day made it their home. He demonstrates convincingly that many of the "strange new harmonies" of the day were simply borrowings from the Fringe--things you could hear in the street if you listened hard enough.

He further shows how a lot of folk music (including children's teasing songs, our 'earliest' music) has a pentatonic structure, and that this, too, was important in art music one would not usually think of as pentatonically-inspired.

Van der Merwe, who is not a professor of music, holds marked, unorthodox views, which are entertainingly expressed. Yet he writes with great erudition and without crankishness.

At times the thread can be hard to follow and one must go back over sections a few times. This isn't a book to plow through! But if you're looking for a new explanation of why music developed as it did, this book will open new vistas for you. (Note: there are many musical examples in the book--if you don't read music, you will be lost.)