The New Penguin Dictionary of Music

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 912 pages
• Published by: Penguin Books Ltd August 3, 2006
• ISBN 10 Number: 014100925X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0141009254
• Book Dimensions: 7.4 x 5 x 1.6 inches
• Weighs: 1.4 pounds

Product Description
In this impressive volume, music critic Paul Griffiths offers a succinct and comprehensive guide to the history, forms, and personalities of classical music. Here readers will find:

• Biographies of thousands of composers from Albinoni to Zappa, with in-depth treatment of major figures
• Coverage of individual works, including plot summaries of operas and ballets
• Articles on the history of music and instruments
• Entries on musical forms, from medieval plainchant to
z contemporary minimalism
• Clear definitions of technical terms and jargon
• And much more

This is a must for all those interested in the colorful and complex universe of classical music. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About The Author
Paul Griffiths, former chief music critic of the New Yorker and a regular contributor to the New York Times, has been writing about music professionally for more than thirty years and is a recipient of the Commonwealth Writers Prize. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Penguin Companion to Classical Music (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 Comment | | (Report this)