The Oxford History of Western Music. 5-volume set

"The Oxford History of Western Music" is a magisterial survey of the traditions of Western music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time. This text illuminates, through a representative sampling of masterworks, those themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to each musical age.

Taking a critical perspective, this text sets the details of music, the chronological sweep of figures, works, and musical ideas, within the larger context of world affairs and cultural history. Written by an authoritative, opinionated, and controversial figure in musicology, "The Oxford History of Western Music" provides a critical aesthetic position with respect to individual works, a context in which each composition may be evaluated and remembered. Taruskin combines an emphasis on structure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in each age, to illustrate how the music itself works, and how contemporaries heard and understood it. It also describes how the context of each stylistic period-key cultural, historical, social, economic, and scientific events-influenced and directed compositional choices.

Vol. 1: Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century
Vol. 2: Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteen Centuries
Vol. 3: Music in the Nineteenth Century
Vol. 4: Music in the Early Twentieth Century
Vol. 5: Music in the Late Twentieth Century

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