The History of Music

Author: Bailey
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-12-01
Features: A complete world music history should certainly not lack content from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. Similarly, a comprehensive music history seems to should also include biographies of conductors, instrumentalists, singers, or instruments. Judged by this standard, The World of Music is indeed not entirely ideal. However, the fact is that this somewhat incomplete version may actually be more appealing as a music history. This illustrated music history book, rich in emotional elements, concisely yet thoroughly narrates the origins and evolution of Western music (with a focus on classical music) — its roots in the Mesopotamia of the East, its "sanctification" process from vulgar to educational, its "rebirth" evolution from court to folk, and the reasons why it ultimately became the mainstream music model for humanity. The creative careers and fates of a series of figures who determined the direction of music development — presented in the book's interconnected temporal and spatial coordinates of Middle Eastern traditions, Jewish chants, Christian hymns, secular ballads, Renaissance new tunes, Baroque forms, classical movements, and the New Romantic trend — are rendered more vivid and authentic.