A Guide To Musical Styles
It examines five great periods-the Renaissance, Broque, Classic, Romantic, and Modern-and teaches the technique of listening so as to be able to identify the style and form of the piece and place it in its proper period.
For unless our ears can tell us the difference between a fugue and a sonata, the study of names, dates, and historical trends will be futile.
After a general introduction to each period, with lists of principal composers, the author selects at least one outstanding example of every important type of composition from that period, and examines it to see how it is put together and how it fits into the temper of the age.
As far as possible each period is presented at its height, by the works performed most frequently today and most available on recordings. Typifying the Renaissance are its choral forms-masses, motets, and madrigals-and also its instrumental music. The Baroque introduces the fugue, the suite and the baroque sonata, as well as oratoria and opera.
The Classic sonata, the great Classic symphony and the string quartet are in turn followed by the Romantic songs and piano music, and the varied modern forms of suites, symphonic poems, ballet-pantomime and contemporary expression of older types.