Classical Music Encyclopedia

Classical Music Encyclopedia
Customer Review: Detailed, but patchy and repetitive
Half the book is spent on music up to the Classical period, meaning there’s a lot dedicated to the Romantics onwards. The different musical periods are covered well, with a historical background to each period, positioning the music within the main events. The layout is good, although I rapidly got lost in amongst the various icons which represent different sections. In each musical period the different musical forms, composers and instruments are considered. Composers are given biographies, with the more famous receiving several pages and less well known just a paragraph.

I found that the style varies wildly, and many pieces of information are repeated in different sections, despite the use of cross-referencing. In some cases information is slightly contradictory, for example JS Bach’s D minor toccata is mentioned as being a good example of his style, but also mentioned as possibly being written by someone else.

Even though it’s entitled a Classical music encyclopedia, I felt that not enough information was given on non-Western music. While recommended recordings are given, there’s no information given on why the particular recordings have been chosen, and for some of the lesser known composers the choices must be extremely limited.

So a lot of good information, nicely presented, but if you’re looking up something specific be prepared to read about subjects on many different pages.

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