Stanley Sadie's Music Guide: An Introduction

by Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie's Music An Introduction

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction

544 pages, Hardcover

First published October 17, 1985

About the author

Stanley John Sadie CBE was an influential and prolific English musicologist, former music critic for The Times of London and editor of The Musical Times, published thirty books and edited the monumental New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Reviews

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can be used as a reference, or be read from beginning to end, or both. If someone wants to have ONE book on Western Classical Music, this is it. With generous illustrations (both art and music samples), it is a very clear reference, explaining the overall development of music, and with specific entries for individual composers. For each composer there is a short account of his (mostly his) life, a very useful summary of his works, and characteristics of his music. There are some technical analytical examples, and a list of Further Listening. It is an excellent Account. For a History proper one should turn to Lang or certainly to Taruskin.

[Galicius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great though abbreviated reference guide for reviewing the whole history of Western music to discover new artists, performers after my break in keeping up with this field. However, the key to appreciating this fine guide is not in reading it but in listening to the suggested compositions. There is so much music available on line now that it is much easier to find what you want to hear immediately. A few decades ago, the LP was the best source of gaining access to the sound—and still is to get the best sound. Hearing what the guide recommends is the primary objective here. The selections suggested are among the best. This is valuable information from a first class university.

One major limitation here is that the authors sometimes describe a composer’s popularity and output in his own lifetime, which our audience now mostly forgot, for whatever reason. A good example is Scarlatti. If you ask for him, you will probably hear Scarlatti, the son Domenico who composed keyboard music for the harpsichord ahead of his time and that present artists play them on modern pianos. Father Alessandro composed a phenomenal number of operas in Naples for eighteen years of which the authors claim some fifty survive. (This is a questionable number.)

[Rareș Lukács · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a year to read. :))