A few weeks ago I had the great fortune of picking up a 1st edition set of the Brittanica's Great Books if the Western World. As I began paging through, I realize there wasn't really anything pertaining to music, at least not what I was expecting so, I thought it would be interesting to ask on the forum, if as musicians we could have our own "Great Books" series regarding music; what would it be?
Topics can include music history, music theory, philosophy of music, liturgucal music, etc. Basically anything that was so significant that we still reference and study it today.
For me, one bo9k that comes to mind is Fux gradus ad parnassum and a collection of chant like Liber Cantualis. From a different perspective, I do think the 1940 Hymnal has had a profound impact on many hymnals published since. Melodia for Sight Singing. I'd like a book that also teaches about figured bass/numeral analysis.
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764 CE) Traité de l’harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels (1722) Nouveau système de musique théorique (1726)
Classical and Early Romantic Periods
Johann Joseph Fux (1660–1741 CE) Gradus ad Parnassum (1725)
Heinrich Christoph Koch (1749–1816 CE) Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition (1782–1793)
Anton Reicha (1770–1836 CE) Traité de haute composition musicale (1824–1826)
Jean-Baptiste Fourier (1768–1830 CE) On Sound and Vibrations (Fourier analysis contributions)
Late Romantic and Early 20th Century
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894 CE) On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (1863)
Hugo Riemann (1849–1919) Handbuch der Harmonielehre (1887) Systematische Modulationslehre (1889) Grundriss der Kompositionslehre (1902)
Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935) Harmonielehre (1906) Der freie Satz (1935, third volume of Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien) Counterpoint (Volumes I & II, 1910/1922)
Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951 CE) Harmonielehre (1911)
Mid-20th Century
Nicolas Slonimsky (1894–1995) Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (1947)
George Russell (1923–2009) The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization (1953, revised 2001)
Milton Babbitt (1916–2011) Set Theory and Serialism Essays (Various writings, including “The Structure and Function of Music Theory,” 1958)
Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) Technique de mon langage musical (1944)
Late 20th Century to Present
Allen Forte (1926–2014) The Structure of Atonal Music (1973)
David Lewin (1933–2003) Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (1987)
Mark Levine (1938–2022) The Jazz Theory Book (1995) The Jazz Piano Book (1989)
Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1983)
I have over the last few years taken the time to research a number of Catholic hymns and offer a short write-up on the author's and composers along with a short reflection. Check out my research at Mother of Mercy Catholic Hymns and click on HYMN OF THE MONTH.
There are several reference books you could look into that are available on eBay and other hard to find books and Amazon. These include John Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, a two volume set. Also, J. Vincent Higginson's two book collection consisting of the Handbook of American Catholic Hymnals and History of American Catholic Hymns. There is also a very nice book by Lucy E. Carroll called The Hymn Writers of Early Pennsylvania; Sing of Mary by Stephanie Budwey - this is an examination of Marian hymnology, and Anthony Esolen's Real Music - A Guide to Timeless Hymns and his Hundredfold - Songs for the Lord.
Cheap and easy: find an old Dover catalog, and whatever they printed, include that. Strunk's Source Readings in Music History will give you the "good parts" of all the old stuff.
Here are some nominations, with why: Thomas Morley, Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music. Maybe not so influential, but it sums up lots of practice, and is an entertaining read Fux: Gradus ad Parnassum. The book that invented species counterpoint, influential for 300 years Charles Burney: General History of Music. Arguably invented the genre of "music history textbook". Opinionated, but so was Taruskin. Berlioz: Orchestration treatise. He kind of invented that genre too.
I don't know if books about music are nearly as amenable to the "great books" approach as pieces of music are.
When Slonimsky starts an article in Baker's Dictionary "Bach, Johann Sebastian, supreme arbiter and lawgiver of music…" he might be thinking of the 24 or the Kunst, but for me the equivalents of the Harvard Great Books are the monument editions that don't fit between two covers. These include the BGA to be sure, but go back at least as far as B & H's Oeuvres Complettes de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Then there are the Great Books of Musicology: Blacking's How Musical is Man?, Rosen's The Classical Style and The Romantic Generation &c. Gradus ad Paranassum I think goes on the Great How-to Books shelf, next to Rimsky-Korsakoff; perhaps Leinsdorf's The Composer's Advocate, Casals on Music and John Bertelot's addictive-as-popcorn manuals fit there too. GBoMTheory range from Aristoxenus to Dodecachordon to Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels and Style and Idea.
Then there are less technical GB for Music-lovers: the Craft-Stravinsky Conversations, GBS's London Music reviews, Cage's Silence, and (rather than the Traité d'orchestre) Berlioz' Autobiography and the Soirées.
Then there are Great Books tout simple that touch on music: Le Neveu de Rameau, Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag, ETA Hoffman's Don Juan, an even more fascinating take on Don Giovanni in Kirkegaard's Either/Or, Nietzsche contra Wagner, some marvelous digressions in Kundera's Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
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