Books about music

[Thropplenoggin]

... well, some of us are still far too engrossed in Marin Mersenne's Harmonie Universelle, Thomas Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke, and CPE Bach's Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu Spielen....

Fie! I dispensed with these elementary exegeses when I grew out of my short pantaloons, sir!

Now, Rex Wimpleton-Clout's classic treatise on micropolyphony - 'Yawdle-Diddling-Diddlum-Dee: Many A Small Voice Sang Forthwith' - is sui generis. Failing that, Philippe Arraigne's 'Whither The Septimal Diatonic Semitones Of Yore?' (2nd ed, natch), is most nourishing: a pamphlet which eschews limpid harmonic discourse for something much more opaque and thorny. Therefore, a must-read (if you can locate a copy - only three are known to exist). And don't get me started on Diryck of Cobb's 'Mediæval Chordes For Thine Misericord'!

[salymap]

One I gave away,but rather wish I'd kept it--

Music on Record by the great Fred Gaisberg- all aboutthe early days of HMV recordings with some wonderful stories, not always factually correct.

[teamsaint]

Am I the only one given to riffling through Rameau's Treatise on Harmony and Johannes Kepler's Harmonices Mundi of an evening?

whilst taking pot shots at passing big game, presumably?

[Thropplenoggin]

whilst taking pot shots at passing big game, presumably?

Tacit, Gladys.

[teamsaint]

Tacit, Gladys.

is that a latin anagram or something?

[teamsaint]

Fie! I dispensed with these elementary exegeses when I grew out of my short pantaloons, sir!

Now, Rex Wimpleton-Clout's classic treatise on micropolyphony - 'Yawdle-Diddling-Diddlum-Dee: Many A Small Voice Sang Forthwith' - is sui generis. Failing that, Philippe Arraigne's 'Whither The Septimal Diatonic Semitone Of Yore?' (2nd ed, natch), is most nourishing: a pamphlet which eschews limpid harmonic discourse for something much more opaque and thorny. Therefore, a must-read (if you can locate a copy - only three are known to exist). And don't get me started on Diryck of Cobb's 'Mediæval Chordes For Thine Misericord'!

All Fine as introductions,in their own way of course.......

[Thropplenoggin]

All Fine as introductions,in their own way of course.......

As for vinteuil, answer came there none. As our friends in the New World colonies insist on saying, you do the integral calculus.

[teamsaint]

As for vinteuil, answer came there none. As our friends in the New World colonies insist on saying, you do the integral calculus.

"
now THERE is a "Dummies guide" that needs writing.
The basic differentiation was ok, but like watches, its the putting it all back together where the fun starts.........

[ardcarp]

is that a latin anagram or something?

Assuming he meant tacet Gladys, well no. It was the workers' revolutionary party's code for Gas Lady T Etc.

[teamsaint]

Assuming he meant tacet Gladys, well no. It was the workers' revolutionary party's code for Gas Lady T Etc.

there's a job for you at QI, Ardy.
(passed me by, that one!!)

Though what any of that has to do with big game hunting is beyond me.

[Thropplenoggin]

there's a job for you at QI, Ardy.
(passed me by, that one!!)

Though what any of that has to do with big game hunting is beyond me.

Tacit.

[amateur51]

All Fine as introductions,in their own way of course.......

Touché!

[vinteuil]

As for vinteuil, answer came there none.

... remind me (I am lorst) - what was the question?








.

[ardcarp]

The thread....excellent idea....has gone two ways; some people listing the contents of their shelves and others (mea maxima culpa) being a bit irreverant. I wonder if any might be interested in recommending a particular book, giving a quick summary of it and saying why it has hit the spot for them?

[Thropplenoggin]

Well noted, Ardcarp.

Beethoven: The Music and the Life by Lewis Lockwood. The most up-to-date biography on Beethoven, but very dense musicologically. i.e. more Music than Life, and that Music is expounded in all its musicological minutiae, staves'n'all. Unlike Christoph Wolff's Bach: The Learned Musician, whose musical musings never seemed (that) inscrutable to a layman such as me, (and, in any case, as a book it is more historically-minded (Life)), Lockwood's book was a slog to get through for the uninitiated such as me. If you can fathom the significance of 'an Augmented Fifth being used in the Lydian Mode', this will appeal, but look elsewhere for more of the life.