#000489
A History of Musical Style
Richard L. Crocker
A rare music history that looks for the causes of change inside the music itself. Richard Crocker, a Berkeley medievalist, narrates the evolution of Western style from Gregorian chant to twentieth-century atonality — the Parisian motet, Franco-Flemish polyphony, the Classic and German symphonic styles, on to Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg — stressing the persistence of basic principles across long spans and supporting it with more than 140 examples. It is demanding but clear, assuming musical literacy and a willingness to read scores, which makes it more textbook than bedside companion; the payoff is an unusually coherent account of why music actually changed, rather than a parade of composers and dates. Kept in print by Dover, it complements the more biographical, culture-first narrative histories. For the serious student, it teaches you to hear the logic.
more…less ▴
The author
Richard L. Crocker (1927–2021) was an American musicologist who taught for decades at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in medieval music and the history of Western theory. He brought a scholar's precision and a fresh analytical eye to a subject often taught by rote.
The book
A History of Musical Style narrates the evolution of Western style from Gregorian chant to twentieth-century atonality, from the Parisian motet and Franco-Flemish polyphony through the Classic and German symphonic styles to Schoenberg, Webern and Berg. Its distinctive method is to seek the causes of stylistic change inside the music, stressing the persistence of basic principles across long spans. Over 140 examples and chapter study lists support it.
How it reads
Demanding but clear. Crocker assumes musical literacy and a willingness to read scores, which makes it more textbook than bedtime companion; the payoff is an unusually coherent account of why music changed. Dover's long-running reprint has kept it accessible.
For more context
It complements broader narrative histories such as those in the Norton tradition, which lean more on biography and cultural context.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Richard L. Crocker
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Music
- Location
- Colorado