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A Dictionary of Musical Themes
New York, Crown, 1948, 8vo cartonato con sovraccopertina a colori, pp. 656.
- GenresMusicReferenceNonfiction
656 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1948
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 28, 2018
Of the approximately 10,000 musical themes in this book, I was able to find almost all of them on Youtube and listen to them. There are some errors in the 1948 edition but the erroneous titles or keys could be corrected with a little digging. I will keep an eye out for some of the themes I could not find, (for example, Johann Schobert's Sonata in F, op. 8, or Théodore Lack's Arlequin), but for the most part, I consider this book as having been read by me. But maybe if one has not tracked down those last few melodies, that's cheating. Hey, for all I know, Frederick Jacobi's Indian Dances is the ivory-billed woodpecker of musicology.
March 21, 2010
It's hard to believe that this book exists, I had fantasized about it for years before it was suggested to me during a conversation with my saxophone "professor" during sophomore year of college!
April 3, 2022
If you're into classical music, this is an amazing find - it is what it says, a dictionary of 10,000 musical themes, listings of unique sequences of notes that make up works of instrumental music by various composers. The volume does not include vocal music.
The book is divided into three parts, the first are all the themes listed alphabetically by composer. Here you find the composer's name followed by single lines of notes from each of his/her works. For Beethoven, each major work is named showing staffs with the notes of the theme so, for example, the symphony #5 in C has 18 staffs listed corresponding to 18 different themes in the four movements of the symphony. All the themes of Beethoven's major works - the symphonies, concertos, quartets, piano sonatas, the overtures, and others - are included but it's not a exhaustive listing of every composer's works. For example I don't see themes of the Diabelli Variations listed. Under each composer, each staff has the name of the work, the name of the theme (1st movement theme 3), the staff showing the notes, key and time signature, then a unique number of that particular theme, so e.g., D437 for the first theme of the second movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony.
The second part is the Notation Index which lists all of the works by a sequence of letters corresponding to the notes of the theme and the unique number mentioned above. The first two entries in this Notation Index are a sequence of eight As: A A A A A A A A, the second entry is a sequence of seven As follow by a G: A A A A A A A G. The unique number of the first entry is S1554 which takes us to the S in the alphabetic section and we learn this sequence of eight As is the 2nd theme of the Danse Russe section of Stravinky's Petrouchka Ballet Suite. Leave it to Igor for that trick. The second entry in the Notation Index of seven As followed by a G has the unique number I-125. Turning to the alphabetic part we learn it is the 2nd theme of a work by a certain J. Ivanovici called Waves of the Danube Waltzes. Examples of other listings in this section are:
E Ab G E Ab G........K23
E B A C G A.............R75
E B A E D# E..........N11
E B A G E C............B1263
This section is a pretty amazing way of thinking about musical themes as sequences of notes that can be listed as alphabetically organized strings.
The last section of the book is an index of titles of all the works included in the dictionary.
For music nerds this is a pretty cool volume. I've spent my entire adult life listening to classical music and I only found this dictionary this year, a gift from a friend who'd had it on his shelf for years. Mine is the 1963 10th printing hardback edition of the dictionary which was originally published in 1948. As another reviewer mentioned, one could use this like a bird book, to explore and identify music themes and works and check them off as you learn them.
The book is divided into three parts, the first are all the themes listed alphabetically by composer. Here you find the composer's name followed by single lines of notes from each of his/her works. For Beethoven, each major work is named showing staffs with the notes of the theme so, for example, the symphony #5 in C has 18 staffs listed corresponding to 18 different themes in the four movements of the symphony. All the themes of Beethoven's major works - the symphonies, concertos, quartets, piano sonatas, the overtures, and others - are included but it's not a exhaustive listing of every composer's works. For example I don't see themes of the Diabelli Variations listed. Under each composer, each staff has the name of the work, the name of the theme (1st movement theme 3), the staff showing the notes, key and time signature, then a unique number of that particular theme, so e.g., D437 for the first theme of the second movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony.
The second part is the Notation Index which lists all of the works by a sequence of letters corresponding to the notes of the theme and the unique number mentioned above. The first two entries in this Notation Index are a sequence of eight As: A A A A A A A A, the second entry is a sequence of seven As follow by a G: A A A A A A A G. The unique number of the first entry is S1554 which takes us to the S in the alphabetic section and we learn this sequence of eight As is the 2nd theme of the Danse Russe section of Stravinky's Petrouchka Ballet Suite. Leave it to Igor for that trick. The second entry in the Notation Index of seven As followed by a G has the unique number I-125. Turning to the alphabetic part we learn it is the 2nd theme of a work by a certain J. Ivanovici called Waves of the Danube Waltzes. Examples of other listings in this section are:
E Ab G E Ab G........K23
E B A C G A.............R75
E B A E D# E..........N11
E B A G E C............B1263
This section is a pretty amazing way of thinking about musical themes as sequences of notes that can be listed as alphabetically organized strings.
The last section of the book is an index of titles of all the works included in the dictionary.
For music nerds this is a pretty cool volume. I've spent my entire adult life listening to classical music and I only found this dictionary this year, a gift from a friend who'd had it on his shelf for years. Mine is the 1963 10th printing hardback edition of the dictionary which was originally published in 1948. As another reviewer mentioned, one could use this like a bird book, to explore and identify music themes and works and check them off as you learn them.
October 20, 2013
Someday, Google will index musical note sequences. It nearly exists now: http://www.multimedialibrary.com/Barl...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews