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A history of classical music finally reaches paperback
A feast for musicians, students and casual concert-goers
Aug 13th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Oxford History of Western Music (five volumes). By Richard
Taruskin. Oxford University Press; 3,856 pages; $185 and £90. Buy
from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
AKG
“THE feeble beginnings of whatever afterwards becomes great or
eminent are interesting to mankind.” So wrote Charles Burney in
1776, opening his history of music with a subtle apologia for the
historian’s method. Before Burney, treatises on music had been
theoretical, intended for practical use or to elaborate the eternal laws
of musical science. The new historical approach brought with it the
advantage of a more nuanced conception of the art, better suited to
a wider public. But as in other areas of 18th-century learning, history
introduced an element of doubt: had there really been progress from
ancient to modern times? Might today’s music not be worse than it
used to be?
That the ancients eventually won the argument may be gleaned from
the fact that we live in an artistic age almost completely dominated
by the dead. The modern historian’s task is all the more delicate. It
is also lengthier, as is clear from a comparison of Burney’s history Different, but not better or worse
with its contemporary equivalent, Richard Taruskin’s five-volume
work. Since its initial publication at the end of 2004, Mr Taruskin’s five-volume survey of 1,200 years of
musical tradition has come in for many criticisms—selectivity, subjectivity, riding roughshod over
contemporary intellectual orthodoxy—but prolixity and over-comprehensiveness have not been among
them.
If the original publication of Mr Taruskin’s history sent shock waves through the academic musical world,
the present reissue of the set in paperback is, if anything, a more momentous event. For the work,
marvellously awash with judicious reflection on the latest scholarship though it is, is not really aimed at
professional scholars. Rather, its greatest value comes in bringing the fruits of advanced scholarship to a
general readership through a compelling, easy-to-read narrative.
But the original price of the set ($750 or £350), together with an internal arrangement that made the
acquisition of individual volumes impractical, put Mr Taruskin’s efforts beyond the reach of those who
might benefit from it the most. The new edition is not only much cheaper but its individual volumes are
packaged in a way that allows them to be bought separately.
The book excels for three main reasons. First, as the author is keen to point out, this is genuine history.
We are presented not with a miraculous chain of great composers producing timeless masterpieces from
nowhere. Rather, musical works and stylistic movements are presented in context so that, for example,
the origins of the dynamic, dramatic style of Mozart and Haydn are shown to lie in Italian opera buffa
rather than in the architecturally static idiom of Bach and Handel.
Second, and despite the sense of flying through the terrain at breakneck speed, the level of detail remains
high, with extended commentaries on individual works that show how they were originally conceived and
understood. Third, and despite protestations to the contrary in his preface, Mr Taruskin’s subjective
preferences make themselves felt throughout the weighty five volumes.
That may sound like damning criticism. In fact, the author’s numerous bee-infested bonnets are a delight,
as is the way his enthusiasms inform, for example, an extended discussion of Debussy or the radically
Russophile conception of early 20th-century works. After all, however objective we may aim to be in
historical discussion of the arts, the truth is that we are interested in art because we like it.
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