High Fidelity’s Music Listener's Book Service invites you to read ...
The New York Philharmonic Guide to the Symphony
by Edward Downes
All in one 1,058-page volume, "the most comprehensive English-language reference work on the present-day symphonic repertory."
Three centuries of music from C.P.E. Bach to Bernd Alois Zimmermann, arranged by composer and by work with descriptive analysis of each orchestral composition.
Over 450 works, over 400 musical examples, numerous photographs and portraits of composers.
Includes symphonies, concertos, symphonic poems, suites, overtures, ballet music and incidental pieces, plus the texts of vocal works.
Provides rich and pertinent historical background, including quotations from composers' letters, the circumstances in which the work was written, interesting stories behind the compositions and related biographical material.
"Downes, program annotator of the New York Philharmonic Symphony for 14 years, is a distinguished musicologist who has the rare gift of being able to write about his subject for the non-specialist, serious listener.
If Downes has any prejudices, they do not appear in these notes, which comment fluently and lucidly on every composer and every work."
- Library Journal
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(High Fidelity, Oct. 1977)
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