The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians

by Don Michael Randel (Editor)

This new compact guide to the history and performance of music is both authoritative and a pleasure to use. With entries drawn and condensed from the widely acclaimed The New Harvard Dictionary of Music and its companion The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music , it is a dependable reference for home and classroom and for professional and amateur musicians.

This concise dictionary offers definitions of musical terms; succinct characterizations of the various forms of musical composition; entries that identify individual operas, oratorios, symphonic poems, and other works; illustrated descriptions of instruments; and capsule summaries of the lives and careers of composers, performers, and theorists. Like its distinguished parent volumes, The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians provides information on all periods in music history, with particularly comprehensive coverage of the twentieth century.

Clearly written and based on vast expertise, The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an invaluable handbook for everyone who cares about music.

Genres: Reference, Music, Nonfiction

768 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1978

About the author

Don Michael Randel is a prominent American musicologist, the fifth president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a member of the editorial board of Encyclopaedia Britannica. He has previously served as the twelfth president of the University of Chicago, as Provost of Cornell University, and as Dean of Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences.