Classical Music
The Rough Guide to Classical Music is the ideal handbook on the subject, spanning a thousand years of music from Gregorian chant via Bach and Beethoven to contemporaries such as Thomas Ade`s and Kaija Saariaho. Both a CD buyer's guide and a who's who, it features:
• Concise biographical profiles of more than 200 composers, explaining their social and musical contexts.
• Informative summaries of the major compositions in all genres, from chamber works to operatic epics.
• Incisive reviews of hundreds of CDs, selecting the very best of the latest recordings and the pick of the reissues, plus the lowdown on downloading.
• Engaging feature boxes on such topics as notation, conducting, the concerto and film music.
• More than 150 illustrations of composers and performers, including some rare archive photos.