A Select Bibliography of Books on Music

Apart from various excellent textbooks designed for the Music Appreciation Courses in Universities, there are a number of volumes helping the reader to better understand Western Classical Music. Here goes a curated list of a few of them.

The pre-eminent of these are the seven volumes of the "Essays in Musical Analysis" by Sir Donald Francis Tovey. The music critic George Stevens writes "My copies of Tovey are constantly being taken down from the shelf several times a week, to read what he said about a particular composition." But these volumes may be a tad too erudite for the lay reader/listener.

The Penguin two volume set on "The Symphony", edited by Robert Simpson, comprises various authors' essays on the most famous symphonists. There is a single volume on "The Concerto" also.

Anthony Hopkins' three books, "Talking about Symphonies", "Talking about Concertos" & "Talking about Sonatas" are compiled into an omnibus volume called "Talking about Music."

Otto Karolyi's slim book "Introducing Music" lives upto its title by acquainting the reader with the grammar & vocabulary of music.

The American Composer Aaron Copland's "What to listen for in Music" contains the author's provocative suggestions for listening to music from the composer's point of view.

Probably the most reader-friendly volume on the subject may be Sigmund Spaeth's "A Guide to Great Orchestral Music", it's popularity attested by the fact that it is still in print after 80 years of first publication.