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From: dep@allegra.UUCP (Dewayne Perry)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Books on musicology
Message-ID: <5127@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 09:00:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: allegra.5127
Posted: Wed Sep 18 09:00:37 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 05:33:51 EDT
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A niggling nit: Tovey's books are more properly classified as
musical analysis and not musicology (but you are forgiven for
your inherent good taste in Haydn).

Now that the nit has been taken care of - I agree that Tovey's
books are worth having.  They can be had in both hard and paper
back forms.  And since they have been around for quite a while,
it is possible to find quite nice copies of them in used book stores.

Rosen's book gives what I consider a lopsided view of the classical
period - far too heavy on Beethoven, far too light on Haydn and
Mozart and completely silent on everyone else.

Another good writer is Karl Geiringer (University of California,
Santa Barbara - emeritus now I think).  His book on Haydn
(the latest is the third edition) is probably the best one
volume work on Haydn (for the full load, get H.C.Robbins Landon's
5 vol (approximately $80 per volume) set).  His book on Brahms
is also quite good.  Both books can be had in paperback as well
as hardback.

The standard one volume History of Western Music by Donald J. Grout
(Norton & Co) is worth having for the breadth and range of music
history (and its very good bibliography).

If you are interested inthe problems of musicology proper,
Duckle's book on musicology is pretty much the standard work.

One can never have too many good books on good subjects - Dewayne