Review
"Written with wry good humor, this scholarly volume uncovers a rich world of previously under-appreciated masterpieces. Serious students of music—whether student, performer, conductor, or avid listener—will find this latest volume in this masterful series both informative and readable.... Essential." —M. Neil, Augustana College (IL), Choice, November 2008
(M. Neil, Augustana College (IL)
Choice 2008)
"This work is highly recommended for all larger public and academic libraries, and smaller libraries with specialized music collections. ... conductors, musicologists, and others connected with symphonic music would certainly benefit from having these volumes in their libraries." —Robert L. Wick, American Reference Books Annual
(Robert L. Wick
American Reference Books Annual 2008)
When complete, this series will be the most exhaustive study available of the symphony in the Western tradition. This release shares with its predecessors (v. 2, CH, Apr'03, 40-4510; v. 4, CH, Mar'04, 41-3953; v.3, part B, CH, Sep'08, 46-0179) a brilliance of detail. Like the earlier releases, this volume provides complete analyses of each symphony, details of first performances, and rich bibliographic resources. Moreover, Brown (who died before part B of this volume was complete) discusses formal and technical detail in a comparative way, placing each work in the context not only of its composer, but of time and place. Examining areas of compositional creativity other than Vienna (volumes 2 and 4 concern the rich Viennese tradition), Brown analyzes the works of Franz Berwald, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka and other relative unknowns and also calls attention to the influence of Mendelssohn (as mentor) and Rachmaninoff (as contrapuntalist). Written with wry good humor, this scholarly volume uncovers a rich world of previously under-appreciated masterpieces. Serious students of music--whether student, performer, conductor, or avid listener--will find this latest volume in this masterful series both informative and readable. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.M. Neil, Augustana College (IL), Choice, November 2008
(M. Neil, Augustana College (IL)
Choice )
From the Publisher
"A surprising aspect of the twentieth-century musical historiography is that some of the central repertoires of Western art music remain unexplored in broad-based treatments; the exceptions are Donald J. Grout's
A Short History of Opera (1947), William S. Newman's
History of the Sonata Idea (1959-69, 3 vols.), and, most recently, Howard Smither's
History of the Oratorio (1977-2000, 4 vols.). Except for Newman's efforts for the sonata, the large instrumental genres such as the string quartet and symphony, which form the core of the canon, have received the least attention. The reasons for this neglect have been practical: much of the music for large ensembles was disseminated in parts rather than scores during the eighteenth century, and many of the scores published during the nineteenth century have deteriorated to brittleness. Fortunately, within the 1980s and 1990s a sufficient number of the more obscure symphonies has been made available in editions and reprints so that a measured and reasonable overview can be constructed." -- from the Introduction
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