- ISBN13: 9781843532477
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Synopsis This expanded and completely revised fourth edition is a unique handbook, spanning a thousand years of music from Gregorian chant via Bach and Beethoven to current leading lights such as Thomas Ades and Kaija Saariaho. There are concise biographical profiles of more than 200 composers and informative summaries of the major compositions in all genres, from chamber works to operatic epics. Topics such as the influence of jazz, notation, conducting, the mad… More >>
The Rough Guide To Classical Music – 4th edition
Tags: Beethoven, biographical profiles, chant, Classical, composers, edition, epics, Guide, informative summaries, kaija saariaho, Music, remainder mark, Rough, rough guide, thomas ades
#1 by Seulean Tudor Iustin on April 22, 2010 - 11:07 pm
This guide is, on the whole, an excellent book. The only things I do not like about it are
A. that Romanian composer and musician George Enescu is not even mentioned here – not only was he Romania’s best composer, he was also Yehudi Menuhin’s mentor and idol. It is strange for this guide to not even mention someone like Enescu, who is held in such high esteem by Menuhin, whom many regard as the greatest violinist of the 20th century; and
B. that in the case of Mozart, for instance, the book only speaks about what it considers to be Mozart’s best operas, but what is frustrating is that it does not even mention the titles of Mozart’s other important operas.
It would have been a lot more helpful if this guide had also provided a (quasi-complete) list of each composer’s works before dealing with certain “more relevant” of these works on an individual basis. For instance, Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, Idomeneo, and La Clemenza di Tito are among those operas that are not even mentioned here. They should have been mentioned even if only in passing, even if only to give the reader a more complete picture of Mozart’s opratic work.
Rating: 3 / 5
#2 by John W. A. Palmer on April 23, 2010 - 12:04 am
The Rough Guide to Opera is an excellent and fairly comprehensive guide to opera in generak and even recent (modern?) opera.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Miles Egan on April 23, 2010 - 2:10 am
This is the best guide I’ve found for the newcomer to classical music. Full of well written descriptions of composers and their works. It helped me tremendously in approaching the daunting and confusing body of works & recordings and I still pick it up regularly for casual reading and as a reference.
To complain that this isn’t a 1500 page comprehensive guide with everyone’s favorite composers is to miss the point entirely. There are plenty of other books to choose from that serve that purpose but as a starting point you can’t do better than this.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Larry VanDeSande on April 23, 2010 - 2:39 am
For those that have never sampled one, the “rough guide” series is a group of books that pretend to be expert guides into something for newbies. This book is a guide to classical music. Its cover brags that it is, “The A-Z of composers, key works and top recordings.”
Amazon’s text says this, the 4th edition of the Rough Guide to Classical Music, is completely revised. I’m not sure what they mean by that since the contents are virtually the same as the third edition. Only the “feature boxes” section — which includes one-page features on stuff like “What is a Fugue” and “The English Reformation” that appear during a composer section — looks to be about twice as large. The third edition (with Kissin on the cover) totaled 610 pages; this edition (with Rattle on the cover) totals 642 pages. But, when placed on its side and measured with a ruler, the third edition is 1 1/2 inches thick and the new edition is 1/3/8 inches thick with equal type size. Furthermore, there is not a single new composer represented in the new edition.
I am very disappointed and disconcerted that my favorite little composer, Franz Krommer — a 19th century composer of woodwind and harmoniemusik that was once a rival to Beethoven — is not included. Neither is another of my recent discoveries, Richard Wetz, a late romantic that lived until 1935 whose three symphonies (reminiscent of Bruckner and Mahler), violin concerto and requiem have all been recorded in recent years. While neither is represented in the rough guide, obscure composers named Roberto Gebhard, Johnathan Harvey and Giacinto Scelsi each get a page or two. They were all included in the third edition, as well.
Maybe I’m wrong, you say, and these are important composers worthy of mention? The Rough Guide says Roberto Gebhard is, “One of the most important and distinctive Spanish composers of the 20th century.” They list recordings of his Symphony No. 3 and string quartets to justify his inclusion. Yet there is not a mention in this guide about the British symphonist Robert Simpson, one of England’s more important postwar symphonists who wrote 11 of them. They have all been recorded and a box of the 11 was released last year to great acclaim in certain quarters. He is not important enough to be mentioned in this book.
Not mentioning the low profile Simpson is one thing. The failure to include a profligate and popular crossover classic-to-romantic era composer like Krommer in a book that pretends to represent classical music is ridiculous. To ensure I wasn’t being petty, I went to Arkiv Music to count recordings. There are 35 recordings by Franz Krommer listed at Arkiv Music while the trio of Gebhard, Harvey and Scelsi are represented by a big fat zero. This tells me the authors, or the corporation that publishes the rough guide series, doesn’t know this industry and makes little attempt to improve its product from edition to edition.
Perhaps I am just being finicky about this? Maybe this is really a good guide that can do a lot for someone new to classical music and I am needlessly being critical of its obvious shortcomings? I admit certain of its feature boxes are helpful and there are a lot more of them this time than last. Brief features on “Postmodernism and After”, “The Concerto”, “The Leitmotiif” and “The Rise of the Virtuoso” will help someone just getting started in classical music come to know a bit about its historic intricacies.
I can’t be very enthusiastic about the recordings recommended in this guide, however. There seems to be a marked step backward in the dozen or so I reviewed. Whom among you reading this review would accept a recommendation of the Harnoncourt-Berlin Philharmonic box as the best set of Brahms symphonies available? Or the same conductor and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe being the preferred set of Beethoven symphony recordings? Incredibly, these are the first sets listed under each composer.
Getting this version of the Rough Guide to Classical Music was, as you can tell, more of a disappointment for me than coming to know the earlier version of the book. Now, with the 1,500-page All Music Guide available for only a couple dollars more than this one — a book that discusses every composer and most performers in more depth than this one and makes more judicious recommendations on recordings — there is no need for people just coming to classical muisc to settle for this. There is just about nothing here of value to experienced collectors. I’d say avoid this if you know anything about classical music and spend your money on the All Music Guide if you’re just getting started.
Rating: 2 / 5
#5 by Christopher J. Sharpe on April 23, 2010 - 3:23 am
This book is invaluable for those who have a limited knowledge of classical music and want to expand their listening repertoire. It is a compendium of information on over two hundred classical composers and their works. In addition to the information presented by composer, a number of boxes explore themes as diverse as “What is a Fugue?” (under Bach), “The Cult of the Conductor” (under Mahler) and “The Crisis of Tonality” (under Schoenberg). The choice of composers is excellent – of course when the number is limited, one can always gripe about the favourites that have been left out. The accounts are written in a lively, up-beat style that does not compromise the fidelity of the information. Each composer is covered by an introductory section that is largely biographic, followed by a treatment of major works. Finally, a number (typically one to three) of key recordings are recommended – they tend towards the conservative, but pretty much ensure that the new listener will not be disappointed.
It is worth pointing out that this book does not aspire to be a buyer’s guide to CDs. That is the task of, for example, the Penguin and Gramophone guides (on Amazon: ISBN 0141022620 & 0860249727 respectively).
I would certainly recommend this book above the NPR guide and other “beginners guides” I have seen. Testimony to that is the fact that my copy has fallen apart from overuse over the years and is now held together with rubber bands. Enjoy!
Rating: 5 / 5