The Essential Canon of Classical Music - David Dubal

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The Essential Canon of Classical Music

North Point Press, October 2003
ISBN: 978-0-86547-664-6, ISBN10: 0-86547-664-0,
6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches, 800 pages, Includes 62 Black-and-White Illustrations, a Source List, a Glossary, and an Index,
Trade Paperback, $22.00

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Excerpt
Table of Contents
Biography
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Music, according to Aaron Copland, can thrive only if there are "gifted listeners." But today's listeners must choose between classical and rock, opera and rap, and the choices can seem overwhelming at times. In The Essential Canon of Classical Music, David Dubal comes to the aid of the struggling listener and provides a cultural-literacy handbook for classical music. Dubal identifies the two hundred forty composers whose works are most important to an understanding of classical music and offers a chronological guide to their music—singling out the sixty most significant with comprehensive essays covering all aspects of their lives and works. Dubal has searched beyond the traditional canon to introduce readers to little-known works by some of the most revered names in classical music—Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Haydn—as well as to the major works of lesser-known composers. In a spirited and opinionated voice, he seeks to rid us of the notion of "masterpieces" and instead to foster a new generation of master listeners. The result is an uncommon collection of the wonders classical music has to offer for the novice and experienced listener alike.

Praise

"Packed full of useful information that every musician and music lover needs almost daily."—Richard Cormier, The Tampa Tribune

"David Dubal's The Essential Canon of Classical Music is an engaging and informative listener's companion. It will help to introduce the beauty and extraordinary legacy of the classical music repertoire from all historic periods to a wide audience."—Joseph W. Polisi, President of the Julliard School

"The Essential Canon of Classical Music is a terrific book. David Dubal's spirited essays are wonderful introductions to the composers, and his vivid descriptions of the music and recommendations of recordings are invaluable. This book has something for everyone, from the beginner to the sophisticated listener. It has a permanent resting place on my CD player."—Tony Randall

"No one writes more cogently on music than David Dubal. I learned a lot. Dubal instructs even as he entertains. And he cares deeply."—Ned Rorem

"David Dubal's new book is more than a comprehensive survey. He reminds us once again, as he does in all his books, that the culture of classical music must be preserved as an integral part of our modern lives. Just when we feel this 800-year-old legacy is fast disappearing, David Dubal comes up with a wake-up call that we can't ignore."—Peter Rosen, Award-winning Producer and Director

"For the serious music lover, The Essential Canon of Classical Music tells it all in the most elegant prose."—Margaret Mercer, Program Director, WQXR

"An invaluable reference that will delight and inform all with a curiosity about or a passion for classical music. With wit and concision, David Dubal brings a sensibility to the study of classical music that both enlightens and entertains."—Peter B. Goodrich, Vice President, Worldwide Concert and Artist Activities, Steinway & Sons

"I am often asked by music lovers, experienced and inexperienced alike, to recommend a single volume they might use in getting to know music better. In The Essential Canon of Classical Music, David Dubal has met this need brilliantly. Readers will grow to rely on his splendid array of facts about composers, their lives and work, together with recommended recordings."—Garrick Ohlsson

"What is especially wonderful about this informative and exhaustive guide is the encyclopedic knowledge of recordings that Mr. Dubal brings to the task. His recommendations are a fascinating mix of the familiar and the very unusual, but always exciting, performances that we all treasure."—Emanuel Ax

"This book may never gather shelf dust, destined as it is to become a regular commuter from library to stereo."—Ed Shanaphy, Piano Today

"A professor of piano literature at Julliard and a former, longtime classical music programmer for WNCN in New York, Dubal brings strong credentials to the task . . . The scope and attention to detail are very impressive."—Larry Lipkis, Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Booklist

"The book is probably the most useful of its kind now available."—Publishers Weekly

About the Author(s)

David Dubal

David Dubal is an acclaimed pianist and a professor at the Julliard School. He has won several awards, including the Peabody Award and an Emmy for the documentary The Golden Age of the Piano. The former classical music program director at WNCN, Dubal is currently a broadcaster on WQXR. He is also the author of many books.

Excerpt

The Essential Canon of Classical Music
PART ONETHE MEDIEVAL, RENAISSANCE, AND ELIZABETHAN AGESWe can only speculate about the origins of music, but its seemingly magical qualities must have been apparent early in human prehistory. Primitive music of some sort probably preceded speech by thousands of years. Those with unusual vocal abilities may have used their power in rituals or to convey messages over a distance.

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Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part 1 - The Medieval, Renaissance, and Elizabethan Ages
Guillaume de Machaut
Guillaume Dufay
Josquin Desprez
Thomas Tallis
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Orlande de Lassus
William Byrd
Tomás Luis de Victoria
Giovanni Gabrieli
Carlo Gesualdo
John Dowland
Claudio Monteverdi
Gregorio Allegri

Part II - The Age of the Baroque
George Frideric Handel
Johann Sebastian Bach
Domenico Scarlatti

Other Baroque Composers
Girolamo Prescobaldi
Heinrich Schütz
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Dietrich Buxtehude
Arcangelo Corelli
Henry Purcell
Alessandro Scarlatti
François Couperin
Tomaso Albinoni
Antonio Vivaldi
Jan Zelenka
Georg Philipp Telemann
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello

Part III - The Age of Classicism
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Franz Joseph Haydn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ludwig van Beethoven

Other Classical Composers
Francesco Geminiani
Giuseppe Tartini
Thomas Arne
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

up0William Boyce
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Pietro Nardini
Antonio Soler
Luigi Boccherini
Domenico Cimarosa
Muzio Clementi
Luigi Cherubini
François-Adrien Boieldieu
Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Fernando Sor
Mauro Giuliani

Part IV - The Romantic Age
Nicolò Paganini
Carl Maria von Weber
Gioachino Rossini
Franz Schubert
Gaetano Donizetti
Vincenzo Bellini
Hector Berlioz
Felix Mendelssohn
Frédéric Chopin
Robert Schumann
Franz Liszt
Richard Wagner
Giuseppe Verdi
Charles Gounod
Jacques Offenbach
César Franck
Bedrich Smetana
Anton Bruckner
Johann Strauss II
Johannes Brahms
Alexander Borodin
Camille Saint-Saëns
Georges Bizet
Modest Mussorgsky
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Antonín Dvorak
Edvard Grieg
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Gabriel Fauré
Leoš Janácek
Sir Edward Elgar
Giacomo Puccini
Hugo Wolf
Gustav Mahler
Frederick Delius
Claude Debussy
Richard Strauss
Jean Sibelius

Other Romantic Composers
Daniel-François Auber
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Franz Berwald
Albert Lortzing
Adolphe Adam
Mikhail Glinka
Otto Nicolai

ri0Charles-Valentin Alkan
Franz von Suppé
Édouard Lalo
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Karl Goldmark
Amilcare Ponchielli
Henryk Wieniawski
Léo Delibes
Mily Balakirev
Max Bruch
Hermann Goetz
Emmanuel Chabrier
Arrigo Boito
Sir Arthur Sullivan
Jules Massenet
Charles-Marie Widor
Pablo de Sarasate
Henri Duparc
Vincent d'lndy
Engelbert Humperdinck
John Philip Sousa
Anatoly Liadov
Ernest Chausson
Ruggiero Leoncavallo
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov
Gustave Charpentier
Edward MacDowell
Isaac Albéniz
Charles Martin Loeffler
Anton Arensky
Pietro Mascagni
Alexander Glazunov
Carl Nielsen
Paul Dukas

Part V - The Age of Modernism
Alexander Scriabin
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Arnold Schoenberg
Maurice Ravel
Béla Bartok
Igor Stravinsky
Alban Berg
Sergei Prokofiev
Paul Hindemith
George Gershwin
Francis Poulenc
Aaron Copland
Dmitri Shostakovich
Benjamin Britten

Other Modern Composers
Erik Satie
Ferruccio Busoni
Umberto Giordano
Enrique Granados
Scott Joplin
Hans Pfitzner
Albert Roussel
Franz Lehár
ardAlexander von Zemlinsky
Max Reger
Gustav Holst
Charles Ives
Josef Suk
Reinhold Glière
Fritz Kreisler
John Alden Carpenter
Manuel de Falla
Ernö von Dohnányi
Ottorino Respighi
Frank Bridge
Nikolai Medtner
Ernest Bloch
George Enescu
Karol Szymanowski
Joaquín Turina
Percy Grainger
Zoltán Kodály
Anton Webern
Sir Arnold Bax
Alfredo Casella
Edgard Varèse
Charles Tomlinson Griffes
George Butterworth
Marcel Dupré
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Jacques Ibert
Bohuslav Martinu
Frank Martin
Arthur Honegger
Ferde Grofé
Darius Milhaud
Walter Piston
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Carl Orff
Virgil Thomson
Howard Hanson
Roger Sessions
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Roy Harris
Silvestre Revueltas
Carlos Chávez
George Antheil
Kurt Weill
Harry Partch
Gerald Finzi
Joaquín Rodrigo
Maurice Duruflé
Sir William Walton
Aram Khachahirian
Dmitri Kabalevsky
Sir Michael Tippett
Elliott Carter
Olivier Messiaen
Grazyna Bacewicz
Samuel Barber
Alan Hovhaness
Gian Carlo Menotti
John Cage
Morton Gould
Witold Lutoslawski
parGeorge Perle
Milton Babbitt
Alberto Ginastera
Lou Harrison
Leonard Bernstein
Karel Husa
Iannis Xenakis
György Ligeti
Ned Rorem
Luciano Berio
Pierre Boulez
Hans Werner Henze
Karlheinz Stockhausen
George Crumb
Toru Takemitsu
Rodion Shchedrin
Krzysztof Penderecki
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Alfred Schnittke
Arvo Pärt
Philip Glass
William Bolcom

A Brief Glossary of Musical Terms
Source List
Name Index

The Essential Canon of Classical Music

Praise

About the Author(s)

Excerpt

Table of Contents