- Hardcover: 912 pages
- Publisher: Penguin (7 Oct 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141009241
- ISBN-13: 978-0141009247
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 5.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
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- #47 in Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Styles > Classical Music > By History > Classical 1750-1820
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Product Description
Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph, 3rd October 2004
'Superb'
Sir Simon Rattle
'An instant classic'
Inside This Book
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
47 of 47 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The first composer entry in this companion is Carl Friedrich Abel and the last, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. That gives you some idea of the sheer comprehensiveness of the book. Pretty much every composer you're ever likely to encounter is included here. Add to this all the musical terms, definitions, instruments, styles; plus may performers - both past and present -, major librettists (e.g Hoffmanstahl). I could go on, but you get the picture.
One feature of the original Penguin Dictionary of Music that is retained in this much expanded Companion, is separate entries for major and titled compositions (e.g The Hebrides Overture). This makes it a great reference book for the concert-goer and listener. A new feature, which is very much to be welcomed, is the referencing of web site addresses and important books related to individual entries. (There is, for instance, a web site dedicated to Joachim Raff. Or you can go to Steve Reich.com or Peter Maxwell Davies' website MaxOpus).
One feature of this book is the pithy and (often witty) style with which it gives a few key, interesting details that give insight into character, life or musicianship of a composer or performer. For instance, Alfred Brendel: "Austrian pianist, whose performances are the working of a lively, quizzical mind". Ambrose Thomas, "He held Wagner, Debussy, Faure and instrumental music in general all in him ample low esteem". This all helps make the book really enjoyable to read - look up one entry and you may find yourself browsing for hours! It also must be said that if offers a very balanced and fair critical assessment.
Accessible, enjoyable and comprehensive. I highly reccommend this book. It is the only one-volume general musical reference work you will ever need.
One feature of the original Penguin Dictionary of Music that is retained in this much expanded Companion, is separate entries for major and titled compositions (e.g The Hebrides Overture). This makes it a great reference book for the concert-goer and listener. A new feature, which is very much to be welcomed, is the referencing of web site addresses and important books related to individual entries. (There is, for instance, a web site dedicated to Joachim Raff. Or you can go to Steve Reich.com or Peter Maxwell Davies' website MaxOpus).
One feature of this book is the pithy and (often witty) style with which it gives a few key, interesting details that give insight into character, life or musicianship of a composer or performer. For instance, Alfred Brendel: "Austrian pianist, whose performances are the working of a lively, quizzical mind". Ambrose Thomas, "He held Wagner, Debussy, Faure and instrumental music in general all in him ample low esteem". This all helps make the book really enjoyable to read - look up one entry and you may find yourself browsing for hours! It also must be said that if offers a very balanced and fair critical assessment.
Accessible, enjoyable and comprehensive. I highly reccommend this book. It is the only one-volume general musical reference work you will ever need.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
[warning: this review only applies to the kindle version] I was excited to buy this. There is much about classical music I don't know, and much that I would like to know. So I downloaded it and thought, let me see what it's got to say about Beethoven. I still don't know. Why? Because there's no index, no hyperlinked content pages, not even marks to separate the entries under each letter from each other to make finding stuff slightly easier. To locate the said Beethoven you can either search by his name - but, as you might imagine, it comes up with a few references: 110 pages of them in all! Or you can guess how far through his entry would be and iterate to it. It's fun for sure...but only once. As the previous reviewer (personablewriter) notes, there are a lot of different entries here - but almost all of them are a nightmare to find! Maybe that's why he only highlighted Carl Friedrich Abel and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich - it's a system that makes you concentrate on the two ends of the book. It's an encycopaedia! You don't read it cover to cover! Anyway, you get my drift.
So why 2 stars and not 1 given the above rant? Because the bits I've read were interesting: there's a lot more to "A" (the note) than I had previously imagined; "ab" is a german term to remove the mutes; and Claudio Abbado has a brief but informative entry.
So why 2 stars and not 1 given the above rant? Because the bits I've read were interesting: there's a lot more to "A" (the note) than I had previously imagined; "ab" is a german term to remove the mutes; and Claudio Abbado has a brief but informative entry.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
50 of 50 people found the following review helpful
A Book for Dipping Into or For Reading Cover-to-Cover
15 Feb 2006
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I'm more than a little surprised that this book, published in August 2005, hadn't already received a review by the time of my own review here in mid-February 2006. There has been a lot of buzz about the book, not least because it is the work of one man: Paul Griffiths, former music critic of The New Yorker and the New York Times. The book goes toe to toe with other similar books like the Oxford Dictionary of Music or the Harvard Dictionary of Music, and others of that ilk. It appears to me to be the equal of those which were written by committees of musicologists. And it has the advantage of putting forth the viewpoints of a single author. I found myself browsing with utter delight. My problem with browsing was that when I was referred from an article on, say, Beethoven to one on Handel, I would get side-tracked when, as I turned pages, I came across an article on Frau ohne Schatten, Mirella Freni, or the French sixth. But then that's part of the pleasure of a book of this sort. I took to writing down where I wanted to eventually get to in the book because most times I would get so caught up in the intervening reading that I'd forgotten where I had intended to go.
The book contains short articles (and some not so short -- the one on Beethoven, for instance, takes six pages) on innumerable topics, covered in nearly 900 pages. It covers composers well-known (Beethoven, Bach, Brahms) and those barely heard of (Franchetti, Nanino, Gruenberg), as well as instrumentalists, music publishers, conductors, singers and the like. Basic (and some not-so-basic) musical terms are defined and sometimes examples given. There are articles on the various musical instruments and their histories, as well as disquisitions on various musical forms, techniques, styles, artistic movements et al. There are brief articles on important musical works (e.g. Goldberg Variations) and he provides brief synopses of operas.
Griffiths writes in a smooth modern authoritative-yet-casual style that is extremely easy to read; this is no surprise as he is also a published poet and novelist. He includes enough oddities and rare facts to make a grizzled veteran like myself want to keep reading. Yet he covers the basics without becoming pedantic or pompous. When in an article he uses an abbreviation or set of initials (e.g. LSO: London Symphony Orchestra) one can find the definition under the alphabetical listing for that term. One small deficiency is that he makes no effort to provide pronunciations of non-English terms. As in any work of this scope, he has had to make decisions about what to include and what to leave out. Thus, pianist Marc-André Hamelin rates an article, but his pianistic colleague Stephen Hough does not. One is amazed, though, at how much he manages to include without the work assuming truly gargantuan proportions; in its paperback format the book is easy to handle and will not break your toe if you drop it. It has an attractive format, the paper is sturdy and the print easy to read.
This book would be a valuable addition to any musiclover's library. Strongly recommended.
Scott Morrison
The book contains short articles (and some not so short -- the one on Beethoven, for instance, takes six pages) on innumerable topics, covered in nearly 900 pages. It covers composers well-known (Beethoven, Bach, Brahms) and those barely heard of (Franchetti, Nanino, Gruenberg), as well as instrumentalists, music publishers, conductors, singers and the like. Basic (and some not-so-basic) musical terms are defined and sometimes examples given. There are articles on the various musical instruments and their histories, as well as disquisitions on various musical forms, techniques, styles, artistic movements et al. There are brief articles on important musical works (e.g. Goldberg Variations) and he provides brief synopses of operas.
Griffiths writes in a smooth modern authoritative-yet-casual style that is extremely easy to read; this is no surprise as he is also a published poet and novelist. He includes enough oddities and rare facts to make a grizzled veteran like myself want to keep reading. Yet he covers the basics without becoming pedantic or pompous. When in an article he uses an abbreviation or set of initials (e.g. LSO: London Symphony Orchestra) one can find the definition under the alphabetical listing for that term. One small deficiency is that he makes no effort to provide pronunciations of non-English terms. As in any work of this scope, he has had to make decisions about what to include and what to leave out. Thus, pianist Marc-André Hamelin rates an article, but his pianistic colleague Stephen Hough does not. One is amazed, though, at how much he manages to include without the work assuming truly gargantuan proportions; in its paperback format the book is easy to handle and will not break your toe if you drop it. It has an attractive format, the paper is sturdy and the print easy to read.
This book would be a valuable addition to any musiclover's library. Strongly recommended.
Scott Morrison
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Marvellous Book, NOT on the Kindle
12 Aug 2010
Format:Kindle Edition
Outstanding book. But the inability to search easily renders it useless on the kindle platform. For example I challenge anyone to find the entry on Beethoven in under 5 minutes. Certainly a search of the word will reveal over 70 pages of references to 'the word' in references far and wide, but hidden amongst them will be the primary entry, I could not find it. One is left having to guess the likely page number, and move forward or backwards from there.
Extremely dissapointing on Kindle and not recommended as it stands.
Extremely dissapointing on Kindle and not recommended as it stands.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
OUTSTANDING CLASSICAL REFERENCE WORK
22 April 2009
Format:Mass Market Paperback
If there is a better one-volume reference on classical music, I'm not aware of it. Everytime I need info on a composer, even obscure ones, or a particular work or style, I turn to this outstanding book by Paul Griffiths and am not disappointed.
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