The definitive history of Western Music The definitive survey, combining current scholarship with a vibrant narrative. Carefully informed by feedback from dozens of scholars, it remains the book that students and teachers trust to explain what’s important, where it fits, and why it matters. Peter Burkholder weaves a compelling story of people, their choices, and the western musical tradition that emerged. From chant to hip-hop, he connects past to present to create a context for tomorrow’s musicians.

The definitive history of Western Music The definitive survey, combining current scholarship with a vibrant narrative. Carefully informed by feedback from dozens of scholars, it remains the book that students and teachers trust to explain what’s important, where it fits, and why it matters. Peter Burkholder weaves a compelling story of people, their choices, and the western musical tradition that emerged. From chant to hip-hop, he connects past to present to create a context for tomorrow’s musicians.

The definitive history of Western Music The definitive survey, combining current scholarship with a vibrant narrative. Carefully informed by feedback from dozens of scholars, it remains the book that students and teachers trust to explain what’s important, where it fits, and why it matters. Peter Burkholder weaves a compelling story of people, their choices, and the western musical tradition that emerged. From chant to hip-hop, he connects past to present to create a context for tomorrow’s musicians.

This comprehensive collection of 205 scores illustrates every significant trend and genre of Western music from antiquity to modern times. Highlights of the repertoire include new works from all periods: more contrasting virelais, ballades, and other chansons from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries; large-scale choral works, including Gabrieli’s In ecclesiis, Lully’s Te Deum, Haydn’s Creation, and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky; more opera, including Norma, Les Huguenots, and Madama Butterfly; orchestral and chamber works by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak, and Tchaikovsky; and new twentieth-century works by Satie, Bartok, Milhaud, Prokofiev, Varese, Hindemith, Cowell, Cage, Feldman, Stockhausen, Boulez, Berio, Reich, Adams, Ligeti, Schnittke, and Michael Daugherty.

This comprehensive collection of 205 scores illustrates every significant trend and genre of Western music from antiquity to modern times. Highlights of the repertoire include new works from all periods: more contrasting virelais, ballades, and other chansons from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries; large-scale choral works, including Gabrieli’s In ecclesiis, Lully’s Te Deum, Haydn’s Creation, and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky; more opera, including Norma, Les Huguenots, and Madama Butterfly; orchestral and chamber works by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak, and Tchaikovsky; and new twentieth-century works by Satie, Bartok, Milhaud, Prokofiev, Varese, Hindemith, Cowell, Cage, Feldman, Stockhausen, Boulez, Berio, Reich, Adams, Ligeti, Schnittke, and Michael Daugherty.