The Rough Guide to Classical Music is a unique handbook, spanning eight centuries of music from medieval Masses to works by contemporaries such as Judith Weir and Michael Torke. Both a buyer's guide and a who's who, it features concise biographical sketches of some 160 composers, explaining their social and musical contexts; more than 150 illustrations, including some rarely seen archive photos; revealing summaries of the major compositions in all genres, from solo flute pieces to operas with casts of hundreds; and incisive reviews of hundreds of CDs, selecting both the best of the latest recordings and the pick of the classic reissues.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
The perfect classical music primer. -- BBC Music Magazine, UK
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
How this book works
Immediately after this introduction you'll find a list of all the composers covered in the guide, arranged chronologically, so you can see at a glance who fits where. If you find you like the music of Palestrina, you could check the list and decide to listen to Byrd, his contemporary. Things are more complicated with the stylistically diverse twentieth century: Xenakis and Arnold may have been born just a year apart but their music seems to come from different worlds. When a musical connection does exist, as in the case of Schoenberg and Berg, or PŠrt and Tavener, a cross-reference in the text will point you in the right direction. At the end of the book there's a detailed glossary, defining all the technical terms we've used.
Between lies the bulk of the guide, an A to Z of composers from John Adams to Alexander Zemlinsky. Each entry starts with an introduction to the composer's music, usually with an outline biography. (Many composers were too busy writing music to lead interesting lives, but if there's a story to tell we tell it.) That's followed by a run-through of the main compositions, with subheadings for individual works that need detailed discussion. These subheadings follow the same basic order, moving from largest-scale works down to the smallest: thus operas precede symphonies and concertos, which in turn precede chamber works and solo instrumental music. With the most important figures - such as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven - we've generally grouped the music under generic headings (eg "Symphonies"), giving an introduction to each composer's work in that genre before going on to the most important individual pieces, which are then arranged chronologically.
Under each heading you'll find a short discussion of the piece or pieces to which the heading refers, followed by recommended recordings of those pieces, and a review of each CD. The CD details conform to a regular format: soloist first; then orchestra (and/or choir); then conductor, with the record company and serial number in parenthesis. (The serial number is generally the same in Europe as in North America, except that the -2 suffix is usually dropped in North America.) You'll have to get your store to order many of the CDs we've recommended, as most stores stock just the best sellers and the new releases. What's more, some of the major companies have begun targeting what they regard as non-mainstream material at a specific audience. Thus the EMI recording of Samson Franois playing Ravel will be easily available in France but only available as a special import in Britain and the US. Ordering should not be a problem, however, and you should be able to get hold of eighty percent of our recommendations within ten days of asking for them, with imports taking perhaps a week longer. Should you find that a listed CD is not in your store's catalogue, get them to check that the performance has not been repackaged under a different serial number - the major companies are pretty quick to delete slow-moving items, before eventually reissuing them, either at a lower price or combined with different music.
Each CD listing in the book is preceded by a symbol indicating the price of the CD, as in the following examples of recordings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons:
r Freiburg Baroque Orchestra; Goltz (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77384-2; with Violin Concertos Op. 8, Nos. 5 & 6) = over £10 or $13.
M Raglan Baroque Players; Kraemer (VER 5 61172-2; with Violin Concertos Op. 8, Nos. 5, 6, 10 & 11) = £7-10 or $8-13.
c English Chamber Orchestra; Garcia (ASV CDQS 148; with other Vivaldi concertos) = under £7 or $8.
The pricing of CDs is a contentious subject. The difference between prices in North America and Britain is explained by differences in taxation and mark-up margins, but you'll come across the argument that top-price CDs are still overpriced in both markets. Certainly some CDs are too expensive - occasionally a label will recycle a best-selling vinyl disc as a full-price CD with little more than half an hour's music on it. That said, the vast majority of CDs are good value. The catalogues of the multinationals are bursting with CDs that pack the contents of two former LPs onto a single eighty-minute disc, often at mid-price or lower. As well as this you'll find that big stores often have special promotions, while many smaller outlets can beat the average prices of the megastores, and there are plenty of mail-order companies selling CDs at a discount.
On top of all this, in recent years there's been an explosion of budget labels, led by Naxos. Don't think that a CD can't be any good if it hasn't got a famous face on the cover - the commitment you get on many of the budget-label performances often outweighs the finesse of the major-league players, and in several instances they win on all fronts. The success of these relative newcomers has spurred the big companies to put more effort into their own budget-price series - every big company now has a range of CDs costing less than half the top price, and two-for-the-price-of-one packages are increasingly popular. All in all, the CD format has made it easier than ever to accumulate a classical collection at moderate cost and, though alternative recording technologies do surface from time to time (such as the short-lived DAT), for the foreseeable future the CD will remain the dominant format.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine all-around effort,
By "morabyshe" (Portland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Rough Guide to Classical Music (Paperback)
First of all, in order to properly consider the merits of this book, and not be surprised at the tenor of the writing or style of the criticism, it's worthwhile to check out the editorial reviews for this volume (accessible on the menu to the left), which provide an excerpt from the guide and offer some hint of whether or not you'll like the Rough Guides approach. The passionate denunciations of this book from the other customer reviews are interesting, but not particularly well-founded. By its own admission, this guide is somewhat Anglocentric, coming from a British publisher and aimed at CDs available in England - which shouldn't deter you in the slightest, since many are available in the U.S. as well, or can be easily ordered through Amazon's partner UK site. As for the complaints about the tone of the criticism, this is a wholly subjective judgment that every reader must consider. All too often with highly opinionated criticism, though, many readers take offense and launch into fiery diatribes against the author, accusing him of various literary sins, real and imagined. In this case, it's important to understand that although you will not agree with everything this author applauds or condemns, you will likely find his writing style fluid and compelling - unless of course you go for the "Classical Music for Complete and Utter Imbeciles" type of guidebook-writing. The greatest attributes this book offers are its wide breadth, covering a slew of historically obscure and unfairly ignored modern composers (typically dismissed by the likes of Jim Svejda and his fire-breathing, conservative ilk), and its pointed analysis of contemporary trends and developments in the classical world. If it's a large number of reviews per opus you're after, by all means go for the invaluable Gramophone or Penguin guides, but if you value well-written, thoughtful criticism that doesn't provide easy answers or rely on knee-jerk canonical worship, this guide is a must, both for novices and aficionados of music from plainchant to postmodernism.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
solid intro to a wide variety of composers,
This review is from: The Rough Guide to Classical Music (Paperback)
Sure, the critics are right for voicing the opinion that only a small handful of recordings are recommended -- I found the recommendations somewhat capricious (and many fine recordings were left out), but that's not the aim of the book. The portraits of each composer are very well written and give even the novice a good overview of the life of each composer and his significant works. The authors admit in the intro that they are not out to write an exhaustive list of every major work -- actually, I liked the fact that they picked out each composers best works rather than reviewing all of them, even the bad. For readers trying to build a collection, this emphasis on the best pieces is helpful. The organization of the book and the layout is excellent providing quick and easy information. The Penguin guide features many more recordings (and less on each composer and his history), but the Rough guide is equally as useful. I plan to pick up the Penguin guide to balance out the small faults of this volume. Highly recommended overall with good text boxes that explain many major movements and types of music.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent place to start,
By
This review is from: The Rough Guide to Classical Music (Paperback)
Whether or not this book is *right* about what recordings are the best of a particular work, I have yet to be disappointed purchasing a disc recommended here. It is quite strong on 20th century composers, which is unusual in books of this kind. The writing is thoughtful, readable, and intelligent, too. I think this is the ideal book for someone who wants to know more about classical music, and is more than useful for those who already know a bit. Also, I've never had trouble tracking down any of the recordings, but maybe I've just been lucky.
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