The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music

by Jan Swafford

Book Overview

The most readable and comprehensive guide to enjoying over five hundred years of classical music -- from Gregorian chants, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, and beyond. The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is a lively -- and opinionated -- musical history and an insider's key to the personalities, epochs, and genres of the Western classical tradition. Among its features- -- chronologically...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679728058
• ISBN13: 9780679728054
• Release Date: December 1992
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 624 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

A no-brainer recommendation for classical music newbies.

I spend a fair bit of time (well, perhaps *too* much time) participating in classical music discussion boards on the internet. A frequent question that arises from people new to classical music is that of a good reference book to acquaint them with the field. Generally, what these newbies ask for is, in my experience, too much to expect from a single book: typically, they are looking for both composer information (and how a particular composer fits into the canon of classical music) and recommendations for specific recordings of works of classical composers. While I have a few such books in my own library, these tend to date themselves quickly on the recommended-recordings side while remaining serviceable on the composer-description side. I have a better recommendation for those interested, which I provide in my concluding remarks. For now, I'll limit my comments to the composer-description (or, better, composer-contribution) side of the matter, and the strengths of Swafford's book. My experience with such books goes back to Aaron Copland's 1957 "What to Listen for in Music." This classic played a large role in getting me on my own journey in classical music, but it is now quite out of date; it doesn't even touch on the most recent half-century. (William Schuman updated this book, but even that fell well short of the mark for those interested in contemporary music.) This Swafford book is, I believe, the best of its kind for the purpose of setting out the "essential canon of classical music" and the composers (and their key works) who comprise it. To better understand why I think Swafford's book is best, perhaps I should begin with the fact that I have a few views, somewhat strongly held, regarding what such a book should contain if it is to encourage the classical music newcomer. The first of these is that it should cover, in helpful detail, the entire tradition of western classical music from the Middle Ages to (more or less) the present day. To do less, by including less, is to downplay the role of historical development: an isolated composer, or period in music, lacks context to understand his, or its, place in the canon. The second is that, like it or not, all composers are not equally "canonical" in the sense of being of equal importance from an historical perspective. If the writer is *too* inclusive by including a large number of composers of lesser stature, this will only serve to dilute the importance of the true "canonical" composers unless the effort is of encyclopaedic length. The third is that temporal context, i.e., the societal and cultural milieu in which a composer has worked, is a key component to understanding what, how and why the composer has written what he (or she) has. A part of that understanding is how the composer acted within that milieu and reacted, or worked, according to the tradition and the materials available. The fourth - and perhaps most important - is that the author's preferences and prejudices should n

Excellent for what it is, but not for the unstudious

Imagine if you had a brilliant friend who knew everything about classical music, but he or she did all the talking, and you couldn't get a word in edgewise. That's how "The Vintage Guide to Classical Music" pans out for me. I think I've read eight or ten introductions to classical music in the last year, and Swafford is by far the author who really "delivers the goods." But this is a thick, heavy, brainy read. It's the kind of text that, if you memorized it, you could fool people into thinking you were an Harvard-trained musicologist (which I think Swafford is). At any rate, this is a very solid, very well-done, jam-packed-with-fascinating-little-details study with a real graduate-school feel. I recommend you begin with either of two more accessible books, either Phil Golding's "Classical Music" or else David Pogue's and Scott Speck's "Classical Music for Dummies," and then move on to this one. All three are excellent, but Swafford's is by far the most advanced of the three.

An indispensable introductory guide to classical music.

When I first decided to learn more about classical music, this was the first book I turned to. "The Vintage Guide to Classical Music" is an excellent reference guide for those who love this genre of music but don't know a great deal about it. Using reasonably detailed and very interesting biographical essays on the major composers, author Jan Swafford gives the reader an excellent historical overview of classical music from its beginnings until the early 1990s, when this book was published. Also included are "sidebars" which explain in clear and easy to understand prose different topics such as sonata form, melody, atonal music, etc. Swafford also includes a section which explains how to begin building a classical music library. I found this especially useful in building my own classical CD collection."The Vintage Guide to Classical Music" is extremely well written, and obviously well researched. It's also very entertaining! The author consistently demonstrates not only a wealth of knowledge about his subject, but his love for it as well. For me, this book remains an indispensable guide to classical music. Highly recommended!

Amazing resource for the classical music lover.

My wife selected this book a few years back when we were first becoming interested in classical music. At every step, this wonderfully written, easy to read reference gave us some new bit of information on the people who have shaped Western music. The book is a collection of delightful essays, mostly biographies of the influential composers, as well as some background on various musical topics, such as sonata form, atonal music, and the like. I have read and re-read many a section, and am always amazed at how fresh they remain. Swafford's writing is sublime; I recommend this book (as well as his other works) highly.