ISBN The Oxford History of Western Music ( Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century ) book English Hardcover

The Oxford History of Western Music is a magisterial survey of the traditions of Western music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time. This text illuminates through a representative sampling of masterworks those themes styles and currents that give shape and direction to each musical age. Taking a critical perspective this text sets the details of music the chronological sweep of figures works and musical ideas within the larger context of world affairs and cultural history. Written by an authoritative opinionated and controversial figure in musicology The Oxford History of Western Music provides a critical aesthetic position with respect to individual works a context in which each composition may be evaluated and remembered. Taruskin combines an emphasis on structure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in each age to illustrate how the music itself works and how contemporaries heard and understood it. It also describes how the context of each stylistic period-key cultural historical social economic and scientific events-influenced and directed compositional choices.