Music in the Western World 2nd Edition by Piero Weiss, ISBN-13: 978-0534585990

Description

• Format: PDF
• Publisher: ‎ Cengage Learning; 2nd edition (May 7, 2007)
• Language: ‎ English
• 624 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 053458599X
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0534585990

THIS BOOK HAS GROWN out of our many years’ experience teaching both the introductory music course designed for nonspecialist students and the music history course offered over several semesters in connection with the major in music. We missed having a single book that would impart to our students the countless fascinating insights that come from reading original historical documents such as letters, memoirs, essays, and reports of all kinds—in short, the reactions of contemporaries to the music we were studying in class. There was, of course, Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, but that excellent book was never meant for the level of studies we are speaking of here. As for the standard, expository textbooks, they did not (indeed could not) devote much space to original source material.

And so we assembled this collection of documents. We assumed, for our modus operandi, no previous knowledge of music on the part of the student. This automatically ruled out readings dependent on a knowledge of musical notation and guided us when we came to write the paragraphs that introduce the readings. Another guiding principle was the assumption that our readers would not necessarily follow us from first page to last; wishing, on the contrary, to make the material as accessible as possible and amenable to a variety of approaches, we wrote each introductory paragraph as if our prospective readers were going to land on it out of the blue, so that, in effect, each reading may be regarded as self-contained. But we have carried neither principle— assumption of no previous knowledge, independence of each selection—to extremes, since that would have involved compulsively defining and identifying every single thing and person, however insignificant. Instead we have resorted to frequent cross-references; if occasionally we have allowed certain terms or names to pass without explanation, it is because we did not feel they were of central concern. A glossary at the end of the book brings together the more obscure technical terms occurring in the body of the text.

The source of each selection has been fully noted, either at the foot of that selection or, when more practical, after the group of which it forms a part. Because of the variety of sources and the diversity of authors, the pieces collected here show, naturally, variety and diversity of writing and editorial styles. Beyond basic typography, no attempt has been made to impose any artificial consistency of style on this collection. Many of the texts have been abridged, and we are sure that, given the purpose of our book, this requires no apology. Some may question our decision to dispense with the customary points of omission. But scholars, we reasoned, could always go back to the originals with the aid of our very precise references; the readers for whom our work is primarily intended would only have found a profusion of little dots a hindrance to their concentration. In all other respects, we have striven for the greatest accuracy; where existing translations proved unsatisfactory we amended them or produced new ones ourselves (identifiable by our initials at the end of the source reference).

We have used the book, in its typescript form, and are pleased with its effect. In the introductory course it has helped to humanize our subject. Students inclined to turn a deaf ear to “classical” music because of its remoteness (because they view it as old, artificial, and an upper-class symbol) have unbended upon reading of the very human circumstances that gave it birth, of the passions it has elicited, the needs it has filled. Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner has worked in our favor: prejudices have crumbled, leaving a path open to new musical impressions. In that sense ours has been a textbook of an unorthodox kind, for it has lent depth to the experience of music in our classroom without addressing its technicalities. The latter we have administered in person; other teachers, no doubt, may prefer to avail themselves of the existing textbooks for that purpose.

In the history courses offered for the major in music, our typescript was only one of several teaching tools. We expect students at this level to spend as much time with scores as with books, and as much time with the standard history texts as with these sources. But exposure to the latter has proved an invaluable and enlivening factor in their experience of the music and thus an essential element in their education. The range of our book, both chronological and topical, closely matches that of most history sequences, so that it makes an effective ancillary text through several semesters of work.

Non-matriculated students, finally—and by this we mean music lovers at large, unconfined by classrooms and teachers—are more than welcome to sample our book. We think they will enjoy it. We have done our best not to give it the grim look of a college text, preferring, on this occasion, a touch of Yeats’s Tom O’Roughley, who held that “wisdom is a butterfly/And not a gloomy bird of prey.”

Contents:

Pt. 1. The heritage of antiquity — pt. 2. The Middle Ages — pt. 3. The Renaissance — pt. 4. The Baroque — pt. 5. The pre-classical period — pt. 6. The classical period — pt. 7. The later nineteenth century : romanticism and other preoccupations — pt. 8. The twentieth century — pt. 9. The recent, past, and the present.