Bertil van Boer is professor of Musicology-Theory at Western Washington University. Trained as a performer, his focus of research is on the music of the European periphery during the 18th century, with special emphasis on Scandinavia. He has written substantially on Classical music, this partly in the form of articles in learned journals and reference works, and has also edited music for performance for Naxos Records. He was one of the founding members and past president of the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music.
Van Boer (music history, Western Washington Univ.) defines music’s
“Classical period” as covering composers active between 1730 and
1800 (a standard and useful, if not always agreed-upon, range)
whose work “must conform to either a developmental or conventional
stage of some style we can call ‘Classical.’” He provides more than
1000 cross-referenced entries on Classical composers (primarily),
major performers of the time, prominent librettists, influential
patrons, important public concerts, major orchestras, styles and
genres, and “occasional peculiarities,” e.g., unusual musical
instruments. Also included is a chronology of key musical and
historical events. Readers may think of Haydn, Mozart, and
Beethoven when they think of this period, but here they will
discover Lodewijk van Beethoven, a Flemish-German singer and
Kappelmeister who was idolized by his more famous grandson Ludwig;
Italian composer Giuseppe Gazzaniga; Dutch-American composer,
violinist, and music publisher Peter Albrecht von Hagen, and so
many more. VERDICT While most personal, public, school, and
academic music libraries own an edition of the Oxford Companion to
Music, a spot-check of the present volume showed that of ten
composers randomly chosen, only three were found in the Oxford
Companion; and while musicians, students, and scholars may still go
on to look up more comprehensive information on these musicians in
the New Grove Dictionary of Music, or in the Grove Online database,
this broadly researched, carefully edited, single-volume work is
invaluable for ready reference as well as fascinating for
browsing.
*Library Journal*
This work offers more than 1,000 brief entries for composers,
performers, and terms related to music composed between
approximately 1730 and 1800. Defining this period in terms of time
frame and musical style is difficult at best, but Van Boer is
convincing in his arguments for his chosen chronology. This is
intended as a quick reference tool, and many entries are unique to
this volume....A time line and an excellent essay on the
classical-music period are also included.
*Booklist*
This dictionary is an appropriate addition to both public and
academic music reference collections as an introduction to the
composers as well as a quick reference guide.
*American Reference Books Annual*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |