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The Oxford History of Western Music #1
Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century
The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is the eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin's provocative, erudite telling of the story of Western music from its earliest days to the present. Each book in this superlative five-volume set illuminates-through a representative sampling of masterworks- the themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to a significant period in the history of Western music.
This first volume in Richard Taruskin's majestic history, Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, sweeps across centuries of musical innovation to shed light on the early forces that shaped the development of the Western classical tradition. Beginning with the invention of musical notation more than a thousand years ago, Taruskin addresses topics such as the legend of Saint Gregory and Gregorian chant, Augustine's and Boethius's thoughts on music, the liturgical dramas of Hildegard of Bingen, the growth of the music printing business, the literary revolution and the English madrigal, the influence of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, and the operas of Monteverdi. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse period.
This first volume in Richard Taruskin's majestic history, Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, sweeps across centuries of musical innovation to shed light on the early forces that shaped the development of the Western classical tradition. Beginning with the invention of musical notation more than a thousand years ago, Taruskin addresses topics such as the legend of Saint Gregory and Gregorian chant, Augustine's and Boethius's thoughts on music, the liturgical dramas of Hildegard of Bingen, the growth of the music printing business, the literary revolution and the English madrigal, the influence of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, and the operas of Monteverdi. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse period.
906 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 25, 2012
Starting on my Taruskin and Lang Challenge... Have read Taruskin's 3rd volume already, but decided to start at the beginning. I have ahead of me close to 5000 pages on the History of Western Music.. This will take me over two years, if I do want to do other reading and have some sort of life... Will read both authors in parallel... Taruskin only starts when Music acquires literacy. Lang started with the "beautiful" and the "good" as understood by the Greeks.
February 4, 2016
To state the obvious, a hugely impressive achievement: a comprehensive, academically rigorous, analytical and thought-provoking history of Western music, which manages both to cover the canon and challenge preconceptions with new insights or at the very least unusual (albeit consistent and justified) angles.
To state the only slightly less obvious, it's also a cracking good read. Taruskin clearly set out to make it more than a mere reference book, and although I didn't whip through it with any speed (there is an awful lot to take in), I certainly read it from cover to cover.
It occasionally feels as though Taruskin overreaches himself in his aim to make this a good read, with little bouts of silliness or slightly patronising comparisons that suggest that he doesn't quite get that what he has written is still very, very niche. I have a degree in music and this was a heavy read, so I don't quite think this is going to be lifted off the shelf by your casual enthusiast. That being the case, I'm not sure that comparing Caccini's 1601 description of 'graces' to Frank Sinatra and Perry Como adds much - he can leave those comparisons to the likes of Alex Ross, who is welcome to them.
My other gripe is perhaps only specific to my paperback copy, but given the absolutely vital nature of the musical examples and illustrations I do feel that OUP might have taken a little more trouble over the reproductions. 'As you can see at a glance,' says Taruskin in the chapter on Music For An Intellectual and Political Age, 'the manuscript… uses a different kind of notation.' Well, no I can't -even following up my unfruitful glance with much screwing up of eyes and peering, even with a year's study of early notation up my sleeve, I couldn't identify any such difference. What price a few plates, OUP? Honestly, I'll fork out for them.
Mind you, Taruskin does sometimes make assumptions about what we mere mortals will be able to follow, and if there's one genuine flaw in the writing here it's that his analysis doesn't always guide the reader through the examples with enough clarity. I haven't found this a problem in later volumes, so it may simply be that the terminology of the middle ages is so unfamiliar, or that without the reassuring presence of bar numbers and instrumental names it's much harder to give precise navigational directions, but trying to find a particular section of plainchant on a poorly reproduced manuscript when the only clue given is that it's 'the triplum part' would have required more dedication and page flicking than I was quite prepared to give.
The failure to account for such human failings is, of course, the remit of great intellects, and Richard Taruskin is clearly a man of very great intellect. This is an unparalleled achievement and nothing has put me off diving into the next weighty volume.
After a pause for air, obviously.
To state the only slightly less obvious, it's also a cracking good read. Taruskin clearly set out to make it more than a mere reference book, and although I didn't whip through it with any speed (there is an awful lot to take in), I certainly read it from cover to cover.
It occasionally feels as though Taruskin overreaches himself in his aim to make this a good read, with little bouts of silliness or slightly patronising comparisons that suggest that he doesn't quite get that what he has written is still very, very niche. I have a degree in music and this was a heavy read, so I don't quite think this is going to be lifted off the shelf by your casual enthusiast. That being the case, I'm not sure that comparing Caccini's 1601 description of 'graces' to Frank Sinatra and Perry Como adds much - he can leave those comparisons to the likes of Alex Ross, who is welcome to them.
My other gripe is perhaps only specific to my paperback copy, but given the absolutely vital nature of the musical examples and illustrations I do feel that OUP might have taken a little more trouble over the reproductions. 'As you can see at a glance,' says Taruskin in the chapter on Music For An Intellectual and Political Age, 'the manuscript… uses a different kind of notation.' Well, no I can't -even following up my unfruitful glance with much screwing up of eyes and peering, even with a year's study of early notation up my sleeve, I couldn't identify any such difference. What price a few plates, OUP? Honestly, I'll fork out for them.
Mind you, Taruskin does sometimes make assumptions about what we mere mortals will be able to follow, and if there's one genuine flaw in the writing here it's that his analysis doesn't always guide the reader through the examples with enough clarity. I haven't found this a problem in later volumes, so it may simply be that the terminology of the middle ages is so unfamiliar, or that without the reassuring presence of bar numbers and instrumental names it's much harder to give precise navigational directions, but trying to find a particular section of plainchant on a poorly reproduced manuscript when the only clue given is that it's 'the triplum part' would have required more dedication and page flicking than I was quite prepared to give.
The failure to account for such human failings is, of course, the remit of great intellects, and Richard Taruskin is clearly a man of very great intellect. This is an unparalleled achievement and nothing has put me off diving into the next weighty volume.
After a pause for air, obviously.
December 5, 2021
Amazing historico-musicological tour de force, with spunk.
July 19, 2017
I FINISHED IT
September 14, 2025
guys did you know that parallel seconds were considered a valid form of secondary consonance (usually at cadences but also elsewhere) in de Machaut's treatise on plainsong accompaniment??? #RETVRN #bigupparallelseconds
September 7, 2018
Yes, it's true: this took me over a year to read, including listening to the musical examples on YouTube. A great review of my music major college classes. I loved it, even though Taruskin sometimes tries to pass of his opinions as fact. Onward to the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries!
March 16, 2012
best book on music I've ever read. This series should replace the Grout for all time. Incredibly insightful and contemporary.
Want to read
May 19, 2015Purchased. Stoked.
January 5, 2017
Thus begins a hugely ambitious work by one of the most respected musicologists in history, Richard Taruskin. This work is aimed at serious students of music, I say that because several people on other sites have said it was too technical for them. To be honest I can't imagine a non-music student getting much out of this, however, serious students (and professors!) will find a wealth of information and an interesting new take on the way music history books are written. Rather than setting our arbitrary timeframes for each chapter or just moving from one composer to the next, Taruskin focuses specifically on the techniques used by several composers of the day and the historical context that influenced these technical developments. As such, you may not get a wealth of biographical detail of every composer important to the period but you will gain valuable insight as to their technique and several representative works. In this first volume he deftly handles the difficult origins of written music from the Carolingian Renaissance through the end of the ars perfecta of Palestrina and the beginnings of what would later be called (much to Taruskin's chagrin), the Baroque Era. Very enjoyable especially if you have recordings of the works, or his own collection of audio examples, readily available.
October 26, 2025
An unavoidable masterpiece, unjustifiably still untranslated into Spanish. Taruskin builds on solid foundations and a reliable epistemology: he asks the right questions —aesthetic, social, and artistic ones— and, of course, never forgets the music itself (while also paying attention to literature and politics).
Of course, many theoretical and methodological aspects of the great Taruskin can be criticized: the authors and works he chooses and those he leaves aside, his Anglocentrism, his neglect of certain genres —such as the villancico—, and his sweeping omissions of vast areas (Ibero-America, for instance). And yet, his insight and his constant ability to present original theses (challenging what continues to be repeated in Spanish-language manuals and essays) make him one of the high points in the entire bibliography on classical music.
Of course, many theoretical and methodological aspects of the great Taruskin can be criticized: the authors and works he chooses and those he leaves aside, his Anglocentrism, his neglect of certain genres —such as the villancico—, and his sweeping omissions of vast areas (Ibero-America, for instance). And yet, his insight and his constant ability to present original theses (challenging what continues to be repeated in Spanish-language manuals and essays) make him one of the high points in the entire bibliography on classical music.
January 10, 2022
Part I complete - achievement unlocked. Would never recommend as a be-all end-all - Taruskin is much too opinionated to risk that - but it is a staggering achievement all the same, and his perspectives are most certainly worth dwelling on.
September 13, 2017
Taruskin isn't always to my taste, and like most history texts, this one is drowning in detail. But at least Taruskin understands that music was a part of culture, and acknowledges that.
April 25, 2023
in medias res-That is how this author opens his epic narrative of the history of Western music. A 13 year endeavor that was finally published in 2005. Monumental and ambitious in its scope and intention, this volume 1 sits beside its 4 companion tomes as a remarkable achievement by the esteemed music historian Richard Taruskin. And this is only Volume 1, a massive survey from the earliest musical notation to the performance practices of the 16th century. 834 pages packed with copious musical examples and analysis in great detail. But why begin in the (admitted) middle of western music’s story? The author presents musical thought beginning with ancient Greece and Rome but concludes that the paucity of literate information and the prevalence of an oral transmission of musical information and performance practices of that era are unreliable resources for modern practicers of the musical arts thus any understanding of western musical thought must be started somewhere in the Carolingian/Frankish world of the 8th and 9th century.
As the Catholic Church emerged as the successor to the declining Roman world, music became parasitic to the churches aim to express and educate its congregations of the Christian story. The birth of “chant” with its historic relation to the Judaic cantorial tradition embraced a variety of chant structures (Gallican, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Beneventan and Old Roman) with the Gregorian version winning out. All of this traced with care and clarity by the author thus placing our beginning of the story of western music in the 8th century with unison chanting of sacred texts eventually moving toward multi voice chanting (called Polyphony) for the ensuing 200 years whereupon the landmark invention of musical notation appeared thus standardizing church music across borders. The printing press further standardized music’s availability and eventual rise of the “star” composer/performer. Thus the author presents the written musical experience as a more literate resource thus shedding the oral tradition historically as a declining necessity as music moved towards a unified sharing and a stored memory available to those educated in reading the written notes across the European continent.
The author traces these developments in detail from the vaunted Notre Dame School to the age of printed music without sidelining the secular music that remained in the oral tradition long after sacred vocal music had adopted written notation. Exiting the Middle Ages in the early 13th century music had progressed from the church as a complex artistic expression of a “God” centered world of the 8th-13th centuries to a “Man” centered world of the late Renaissance. Both sacred and secular. Names that are detailed are those probably unfamiliar to the average music lover but well worth exploring; Leonin, Perotin, Guillame du Fay, Guillame de Machaut, Josquin des Prez, John Dunstable, Johannes Ockeghem, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, John Dowland and William Byrd among others. Motets, Masses, madrigals, music ficta, Troubadors, Minnesingers, Humanism, The Reformation and much more for an ardent reader’s contemplation. All worthy endeavors for the patient inquirer.
The book is written and should appeal to the musically literate person as the jargon and analyses is beyond the average music lover. This book is an invaluable resource. Highly recommended for those with an abundance of curiosity and ample time to digest a breath of information ably presented.
As the Catholic Church emerged as the successor to the declining Roman world, music became parasitic to the churches aim to express and educate its congregations of the Christian story. The birth of “chant” with its historic relation to the Judaic cantorial tradition embraced a variety of chant structures (Gallican, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Beneventan and Old Roman) with the Gregorian version winning out. All of this traced with care and clarity by the author thus placing our beginning of the story of western music in the 8th century with unison chanting of sacred texts eventually moving toward multi voice chanting (called Polyphony) for the ensuing 200 years whereupon the landmark invention of musical notation appeared thus standardizing church music across borders. The printing press further standardized music’s availability and eventual rise of the “star” composer/performer. Thus the author presents the written musical experience as a more literate resource thus shedding the oral tradition historically as a declining necessity as music moved towards a unified sharing and a stored memory available to those educated in reading the written notes across the European continent.
The author traces these developments in detail from the vaunted Notre Dame School to the age of printed music without sidelining the secular music that remained in the oral tradition long after sacred vocal music had adopted written notation. Exiting the Middle Ages in the early 13th century music had progressed from the church as a complex artistic expression of a “God” centered world of the 8th-13th centuries to a “Man” centered world of the late Renaissance. Both sacred and secular. Names that are detailed are those probably unfamiliar to the average music lover but well worth exploring; Leonin, Perotin, Guillame du Fay, Guillame de Machaut, Josquin des Prez, John Dunstable, Johannes Ockeghem, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, John Dowland and William Byrd among others. Motets, Masses, madrigals, music ficta, Troubadors, Minnesingers, Humanism, The Reformation and much more for an ardent reader’s contemplation. All worthy endeavors for the patient inquirer.
The book is written and should appeal to the musically literate person as the jargon and analyses is beyond the average music lover. This book is an invaluable resource. Highly recommended for those with an abundance of curiosity and ample time to digest a breath of information ably presented.
February 26, 2017
A wonderful survey that really renewed my interest in early music.
At the conservatory we studied Grout, so it is not my first
encounter with early music. Still I had always difficulties to get
really into this music, get an understanding that surpasses
the theoretical. Taruskin did this for me.
Beware: this book contains jokes! I don't want to spoil them,
but you should sing some examples aloud.
An impressive, well-written book that
completely rekindled my interest in ancient music.
At the conservatory we studied Grout, so it is not my first
encounter with early music. Still I had always difficulties to get
really into this music, get an understanding that surpasses
the theoretical. Taruskin did this for me.
Beware: this book contains jokes! I don't want to spoil them,
but you should sing some examples aloud.
An impressive, well-written book that
completely rekindled my interest in ancient music.
March 15, 2015
Some years ago, back when I studied musicology at university, I got to know about this writer and academic called Richard Taruskin. He was sort of a superstar among musicologists -- still is, I imagine -- particularly for his work on Stravinsky and various other Russian composers. I remember seeing the two or three books for which he was best known on the shelves but never taking the time to read them. Recently I discovered that he'd been busy writing a 6-volume, 4272-page long history of Western so-called 'art' music. To my further surprise and glee, all of the volumes were available in cheap (ish) kindle editions. Since abandoning my study and practice of music, I have missed it and this seemed like an excellent way to reconnect. I wasn't disappointed.
This history is many things. Taruskin is clearly erudite and his mastery of a huge variety of sources (in multiple languages and across multiple continents) was confronting to someone who claims to write history himself. But while people like to criticise Taruskin for acting and writing a little like a school bully, that didn't come across in this history at all. This is history as exploration, history as opening out, history that shows you why the questions you were asking should maybe be rephrased as this other even bigger set of questions.
One example: his chapter on Josquin de Prez (#14). Not only is Josquin a stage in his overall argument, but Taruskin takes the time to look at how Josquin was made into a sort of legend by peers and later historians. He deconstructs how these arguments were made over time, and then reconstructs a more likely account, turning all those historians' accounts on their heads. It's a masterful chapter, not only taking us through the stylistic development of a particular composer in a particular time, but also looking at how the reception history colours how we listen to that music now, and how this colours how we view the history of music in general.
At any rate, this is only volume 1 of 6. I emerged at the end with a thick wad of notes, saved albums on Spotify and a reminder of what real, serious scholarship looks like.
(A word of warning: this book is not for the faint of heart, not just on account of its length. It pretty much requires a musical training to follow his extensive analyses. Probably not suitable for the lay reader, unless you really want to dig in.)
This history is many things. Taruskin is clearly erudite and his mastery of a huge variety of sources (in multiple languages and across multiple continents) was confronting to someone who claims to write history himself. But while people like to criticise Taruskin for acting and writing a little like a school bully, that didn't come across in this history at all. This is history as exploration, history as opening out, history that shows you why the questions you were asking should maybe be rephrased as this other even bigger set of questions.
One example: his chapter on Josquin de Prez (#14). Not only is Josquin a stage in his overall argument, but Taruskin takes the time to look at how Josquin was made into a sort of legend by peers and later historians. He deconstructs how these arguments were made over time, and then reconstructs a more likely account, turning all those historians' accounts on their heads. It's a masterful chapter, not only taking us through the stylistic development of a particular composer in a particular time, but also looking at how the reception history colours how we listen to that music now, and how this colours how we view the history of music in general.
At any rate, this is only volume 1 of 6. I emerged at the end with a thick wad of notes, saved albums on Spotify and a reminder of what real, serious scholarship looks like.
(A word of warning: this book is not for the faint of heart, not just on account of its length. It pretty much requires a musical training to follow his extensive analyses. Probably not suitable for the lay reader, unless you really want to dig in.)
January 21, 2015
It's big and heavy, and full of information, so naturally it isn't the smoothest read you'll ever experience. For what it is (a non-fiction text book), though, it is a smoother read than many.
I like Taruskin's approach. Just read the introduction and you'll pretty much see what you get.
The book combines some very technical analysis of various pieces of written music with the "life and times" of the people who made it. Depending on your musical background, the technical analysis may be a bit much.
One down, four to go.
I like Taruskin's approach. Just read the introduction and you'll pretty much see what you get.
The book combines some very technical analysis of various pieces of written music with the "life and times" of the people who made it. Depending on your musical background, the technical analysis may be a bit much.
One down, four to go.
February 4, 2017
A thorough and interesting insight on the development of music in this time period. This book is a great read, especially for anyone who has only had exposure to the Burkholder, Palisca, and Grout. Taruskin is more detailed, opinionated, and humorous.
June 16, 2014
My semester-long journey through this first volume is complete. It was truly a joy, and I can't wait to start on Volume II.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews