The Oxford Dictionary of Music - Hardcover

Kennedy, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198614594 ISBN 13: 9780198614593

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2006

Synopsis

An indispensable guide for all music lovers and performers, both amateur and professional, The Oxford Dictionary of Music brings together an unrivalled collection of entries - 12,500 in all - covering musical subjects of all kinds in an authoritative and accessible way. Included in this impressive work are entries on composers, performers, conductors, musical terms and forms, instruments, works, venues, and a host of other topics.

Containing 5,000 entries on composers, most of which include up-to-date worklists, The Oxford Dictionary of Music also provides entries on conductors, performers, directors, critics, producers and designers of international repute, writers and scholars. Entries also cover individual works, including operas and ballets, orchestras and companies from around the world, famous opera houses, concert-halls, and musical festivals. Musical terms and styles, as well as forms ranging from operatic, vocal, and film scores, to song cycles, chamber, hymns, barbershop, and oratorios are covered, as are general themes such as musicology, acoustics, and absolute pitch, and historical periods such as the Byzantine era. Entries also include a wide range of musical instruments, from the familiar - strings, wind, and brass - to the less familiar - aeolian harp, bamboula and sackbut.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Kennedy is a music critic and biographer. He has recently retired as music critic of the Sunday Telegraph, where he has been since 1989. Before that he was a music critic on the Daily Telegraph from 1950, and its Northern Editor from 1960 to 1986. He is an authority on English music of the 20th century and has written books on Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten, and Walton as well as on Mahler, Strauss, Barbirolli, Boult, and the Hallé Orchestra. He was made an OBE in 1981 and is governor of the Royal Northern College of Music. Associate Editor

Joyce Bourne is a retired doctor and writer on opera. She practised for almost 30 years as an anaesthetist and general practitioner. She has a lifelong interest in and love of music and has assisted Michael Kennedy with his works for the past 15 years.

From Booklist:

Kennedy, a longtime British music critic and author, has updated and expanded his 1985 Oxford Dictionary of Music with more than 1,000 new entries plus revisions (in many cases major) to about four-fifths of the original 11,000 entries. Entries define and identify all facets of music from titles of individual works to performers, orchestras, musical forms, instruments, and composers. Identifications can be as short as one line (moll) or as long as four pages (Mozart). Much mention is made of debuts in various places and of first performances; almost no note is made of personal lives apart from music. Among new entries are those for performers Cecilia Bartoli, Evelyn Glennie, Hakan Hardenberger, and Bryn Terfel; composers Robert Moran, Andrew Toovey, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich; and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. Many composer entries have added compositions, including such operas and musicals as William Bolcom's 1992 McTeague, John Corigliano's Ghosts of Versailles (which also has its own entry), and Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Sunset Boulevard. Death of Klinghoffer and Einstein on the Beach also have their own entries. An update to the entry for Paul McCartney includes his 1991 Liverpool Oratorio. Many 1990s dates of new compositions, debuts, first performances, and deaths are noted, including those of Copland and Bernstein. Entries for Carreras, Domingo, and Pavarotti are all updated, but no mention is made of the "Three Tenors" concert(s). A few people not included: Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg, Ofra Harnoy, neither Wynton nor Branford Marsalis, nor Ida or Ani Kavafian. The Beaux Arts Trio entry still includes the names Pressler, Cohen, and Greenhouse even though they have left the group; the Juilliard Quartet entry mentions Robert Mann as the sole original member left while not naming others. The first edition of this title received an unequivocal endorsement in RBB stating that it was "indispensable to all types of libraries"; this new edition merits the same recommendation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0198614594
• ISBN 13: 9780198614593
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 1008
• Editor: Bourne Joyce