Customer Reviews

The Shaping Forces in Music: An Inquiry into the Nature of Harmony, Melody, Counterpoint and Form (The Dover Series of Study Editions, Chamber Music, Orchestral Works, Operas in Full Score)

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A composer friend of mine recommended this book to me as a good introduction to composition. After reading it, I agree. Have you ever wondered why you can write something that obeys all the rules of classical music theory but has no life to it? Toch takes a good look at the practice of composition through the ages and abstracts a set of principles - the shaping forces in music - that give a composition structure and vitality. The things that I found really interesting about these principles were how universally they apply across all periods and styles of music, and how willing the 'classical' composers like Mozart and Beethoven were to break the rules of classical theory in pursuit of a larger goal.

If you have any interest in the principles of music composition, this is a great book. My only comment is that points illustrated by quotations (which is most of them) are not always clear unless you can play or 'hear' the music - easy for Mozart, not so easy for Brahms, Debussy etc. Having a piano handy would help with this. Another solution would be to read this book in a music library and listen to the relevant works as they come up - in fact I hope to do this sometime myself.

Overall highly recommended for students of music - it's a breath of fresh air after all the traditional dogma.

This book was a bit too philosophical for me. While it contains a wealth of good information, that information is oftened masked by pendantic writing. I also felt that the musical examples used were not explored enough. In summary, the overall information contained within the book is truly exceptional, and would certainly benefit any aspiring composer. I just found that the "philosophical element" was a bit over-done, and that it often masked what Toch was trying to convey. Nonetheless, for under $10, it is a book I would, in the end, reccommend.

I agree with Music Matt, and I would go further. I don't understand this book's popularity and many editions--maybe it used to be assigned for college courses, but I was not impressed. Everything he says is obvious to anyone who has made any attempt at composition, taken harmony or counterpoint, and certainly anyone with enough background to read the 290 examples. He states the obvious and then belabors it at length. I'm donating mine to the library's book sale.