The Oxford History of Western Music (6 Volume Set)

Customer Reviews

• Let's set the record straight, folks  Jan 20, 2005 (97 of 109 found this helpful)

  "Anonymous IV" has a right, of course, to dislike Richard Taruskin's magnificent Oxford History of Western Music, and to express that opinion - however unfathomable it may seem -- on amazon.com.
  But inaccuracies, especially at the core of so damning a response to a new book, must not remain unchallenged.
  Let's start with Anonymous IV's insinuation that Taruskin lacks expertise in music before 1800. (According to Anonymous IV, Taruskin's "superficial" and "sketchy" first two volumes summarize "the extent of what the author knows about music before 1800"; he is "obviously... on home turf" only in the 19th and 20th centuries.)
  Perhaps Anonymous IV cannot imagine a musicologist being on home turf in more than one period. But Taruskin is just such a rare being: a formidable scholar of 19th- and 20th-century Russian music, he is equally celebrated in the realm of early music. His influential book, Text and Act (1995), contains numerous essays on pre-19th-century music. And even the brief author's biography on the back cover of that book informs us that Taruskin has published "numerous editions of Renaissance music, including a complete edition with commentary of the sacred music of [the 15th-century composer] Antoine Busnoys," and that while teaching at Columbia University, Taruskin had a distinguished performing career in early music. (Among other activities, he conducted the Cappella Nova, a New York-based choir specializing in medieval and Renaissance music; as a viola da gambist he recorded and toured with the Aulos ensemble.)
  Anonymous IV's whining that Taruskin "rushes through more than 1000 years of music history" is no less mystifying. Hello! Taruskin devotes 1,612 pages to the first 1000 years of notated music in the Western world - rather more than the 843 pages in which Grout/Palisca, to which Anonymous IV repeatedly compares Taruskin, covers the entire history of Western music.
  But most importantly: if Anonymous IV has indeed read Taruskin's History of Western Music, he/she will have found, in its opening paragraphs, (pp. xxi and xxii), a clear statement of the book's aim. It is not, Taruskin explains, a survey à la Grout. Rather, it is "an attempt at a true history" - that is, an attempt "to explain why and how things happened as they did" - in short, not the usual laundry list that has too often passed for music history. To compare Taruskin to Grout on this count is rather like faulting a cognac for not being a beer.
  Taruskin fulfills his stated aim exhilaratingly. His book is a towering achievement of scholarship and intellect; a challenge to complacency; a joy to read.
  As to the accusation that Oxford's production of Taruskin's book is shoddy: well, I do not know what Anonymous IV has been doing with his/her copy. I have been reading mine, for some weeks now, and have had no problem whatsoever with its binding.

• Taruskin *****, Oxford *  Sep 19, 2005 (30 of 40 found this helpful)

  Oxford gets two very black eyes for this one. Here are five magnificent textbooks for graduate music-history classes. But they can't be ordered separately: my class of 15 are sharing a single library copy of vol. 4 (and lapping it up).
  
  The text volumes, all but one around 800 pp., have no indexes or bibliographies; those are in vol. 6: sixty-nine separate chapter bibliographies, the entire index in a single alphabet. Did anyone at Oxford give a moment's thought to how these books would be used?

• Extraordinary work.  Sep 12, 2009 (3 of 3 found this helpful)

  Music history with a distinctive point of view, as is true of everything Taruskin writes. It's a work in the magisterial tradition, exhibiting a humanity and a command of material that goes far beyond anything I've ever encountered.
  
  It's also a delight to read; charmingly written and clearly argued. If you love music and love thinking about music, you should have this on your shelf.

• Brilliant work  Dec 15, 2004 (49 of 69 found this helpful)

  Taruskin challenges many of the deep-seeded assumptions about music history. His work is compelling, smart, and deeply-layered. This five-volume set will prove to a be landmark in the study of western classical music, one which come to be valued as *the* reference.
  
  His distracters are often noisy, for it is their work which is called into question by Taruskin. He is considered a "new musicologist," one who seeks connections between music and culture, and looks to explain music as part of a larger whole of life and history rather than in the insular autonomous space preferred by traditional musicologists. Many of us were trained by these old-school musicologists; coming to grips with scholarship which lies outside that scope requires thoughtful work and reevaluation. It is well worth it, and Taruskin is the man to alleviate those border tensions.

• Interested in 'Classical Music'? A MUST READ!  Sep 21, 2006 (8 of 11 found this helpful)

  This 6-volume history is both entertaining and highly idiosyncratic. For a 'survey', that's an unusual combination, but in this case the idiosyncracies are a great advantage. The reader is treated to a comprehensive tour of Western music, from a cultural perspective infused with brilliant social and political insights. For example, the extended discussion of 'Romanticism' and 'The Folk', with all the psycho-social baggage attendant to the latter is a stunning tour-de-force. You won't agree with all of Taruskin's observations: the charm he finds in Mozart's 'Magic Flute' (with its high dose of 'Das Volk') falls flat with me. Mozart wrote several operas head and shoulders above that one, to my ears. But one need not agree with Taruskin to find the journey wondrously edifying.
  
  As history, Taruskin's work is surprisingly readable. I learned more about the history of Europe in the Middle Ages from Volume I than I ever could have from a straight history book.
  
  In the end, the achievement of these books is awe-inspiring. If you love 'Classical Music' (Taruskin is at his best taking that loaded phrase apart) you will find Taruskin's large-scale meditation on the subject both a challenge and a delight.