M. Messiaen’s growth in the past decade as an international figure in mid-Twentieth-Century music has demanded attention from various artistic quarters. As a contemporary musician of stature, M. Messiaen should find a ready audience for his comments on any aspect of the current musical scene, particularly on those aspects which most affect his own production.Tolerance and appreciation of any given music are always enhanced by a microcosmic approach to an understanding of the technical procedures involved. In this relatively brief book, the composer has laid out for properly equipped readers a clear outline of certain principles of construction he has employed in composition. Made aware of these principles, the listener brings to the music a more meaningful receptiveness.The cataloguing and explanation of methods of building tonal structures may strike a creative response in a student or mature composer. The book is one of the growing number of works on contemporary theory and practice which will contribute to the history of music in our century.(Introduction by Translator, John Statterfield)

    

    Soon after its initial publication, the Harvard Dictionary of Music by Willi Apel was firmly established as a standard and essential resource for everyone concerned with music. The product of exceptional scholarship, it was praised as being comprehensive, concise, authoritative, scholarly, and enjoyable. Leopold Stokowski wrote, "I so often consult your dictionary of music, and with such never failing enlightenment, that I must offer you my thanks for your unique book, so profound and so broad in scope... The vast scholarship...is of immeasurable value to the whole world of music."For this second edition the dictionary has been thoroughly revised, updated, and substantially enlarged. Apel and eighty-eight other eminent music scholars have contributed new articles and revised old ones completely. The already comprehensive list of accurate definitions has grown measurably and it now even includes nothus, pyiba, and merengue.In the greatly expanded coverage of ethnomusicology, cumbia--an Afro-Panamanian dance form--and Vietnam are only two of the new entries. Additionally, all the general information about individual countries has been revised and the discussion of both theory and history has been amply increased. Developments of the last two decades are given special attention with particular emphasis on compositional techniques, including electronic music and serial music. Individual compositions, representative of every type from every era, are described. The bibliography following each article, a unique feature of the first edition, has been updated and expanded. There are fifty percent more illustrations than in the first edition, including explicit drawings of instruments, clear music examples, diagrams, charts and a full-page outline of the history of music.An extensive list of the most important music libraries and collections throughout the world with summaries of their significant musical holdings is a valuable part of the dictionary. The section on historical editions now lists fifty-three collections of music and briefly describes each volume within each collection.The Harvard Dictionary of Music, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, is the result of imaginative, specialized, modern, and reliable music scholarship. Containing nearly 1,000 pages of precise and accessible information on all musical subjects, it offers over fifty percent more material than the first edition. It is essential not only to the scholar of music, the professional performer, and the practicing amateur, but to everyone who has ever anticipated the pleasure of a weekly musical broadcast, purchased a favorite recording, or truly enjoyed a concert.

    Originally published as six volumes from 1935-39, Essays in Musical Analysis reappeared in 1981 as two paperback volumes, Symphonies and Other Orchestral Works and Concertos and Choral Works, along with a supplementary volume, Chamber Music. Now available in new paperback editions, these three volumes contain the most famous works of musical criticism in the English language.Symphonies and Other Orchestral Works contains 115 essays which cover Beethoven's overtures and symphonies, including Tovey's famous study of the Ninth Symphony, all of Brahms' overtures and symphonies, eleven of Haydn's symphonies, six of Mozart's, three each of Schubert's, Schumann's, and Sibelius', and four of Dvor k's, as well as many other works by composers from Bach to Vaughan Williams.Concertos and Choral Works contains essays on fifty concertos, including nearly all of the concertos in the standard repertory from Bach's for two violins to Walton's for the viola. It also presents essays on Bach's B minor Mass, Beethoven's Mass in D, Brahms' and Verdi's Requiems, and Haydn's The Creation and The Seasons, along with other famous works.Chamber Music contains some of Tovey's most important essays, including those on Bach's "Goldberg" Variations and Art of Fugue, and on key works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms. Taken together, the three volumes reveal Tovey's unequalled acuteness, common sense, clarity, and wit, making ideal reading for anyone interested in the classical music repertory.

    

    Written by one of the world's outstanding music historians and critics, the late Alfred Einstein, this classic study of Mozart's character and works brings to light many new facts about his relationship with his family, his susceptibility to ambitious women, and his associations with musical contemporaries, as well as offering a penetrating analysis of his operas, piano music, chamber music, and symphonies.