Great Ideas In Music Author:Percy M. Young Even by his own exacting standards Percy Young's contribution to the Great Ideas series is a superslative music book. Writing with his characteristic blend of wit and scholarship, cool scrutiny and barefaced enturhisasm, he goes to the very roots of the great ideas that have fashioned that language of the emotions called music. — Schoenberg undo... more »ubtedly dismantled the accepted techniques of musical expression with his revolutionary 12-note principle...but Dr. Young puts it lucidly into its musical context and shows how the fences were already breaking down, Since each chapter of this book is related to all the others, it becomes clear that Schoenberg, like every other great composer, sought order, unity and -discipline.
Dr. Young examines not only how but also why J.S. Bach developed the fugue and Haydn invented the string quartet. He uncovers the social implications of the invention of the piano, which brought music into the home, and of the valve- which transferred romantic and thrilling sounds from the hunting-field into the concert hall. He analyzes the identification of music with dancing in the ballet, and with poetry and the theater in the various forms of opera and music drama, and the meaning of folk music.
A musicologist whose work is well known in many countries, Dr. Young not only knows about music, but music itself. Thus he illuminates his narrative and argument with many fascinating music examples. Of these an impressive number come from manuscript and early printed sources.
A profound book, then? Certainly it has depth. But Dr. Young does not know how to be dull. His book is as much a pleasure to read as it was obviously enjoyable to write.« less