Baroque Music.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1981. Paperback Second Edition, Revised & Enlarged. Very Good+ in Wraps: shows indications of very careful use: light wear to extremities; mild rubbing to wrapper covers; a couple of faint creases near the bottom front corner tip; a small scar at the upper front corner, caused by the removal of a price sticker; the rose-colored background field of the backstrip has been sunned ever so slightly, but the titles thereon remain unaffected, bold and clearly legible; binding square and secure; text clean. Remains structurally sound and tightly bound: clean, strurdy, and quite presentable. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 300pp. Illustrated with musical examples. List of examples and sources. Index.Second Edition, Revised & Enlarged. First Printing Thus. Prentice-Hall History of Music Series. Academic Press Paperback. For a definitive text on the development of Baroque music, you can't do better than Claude V. Palisca's book, originally released in 1968 but updated here. Palisca, a long-time Yale professor who passed away in 2001, is almost as celebrated as the composers he spent his life writing about. Indeed, the American Musicologist Society in 2005 named an award after him to recognize excellence in their profession. So, you know you're in good hands with him. The goal of the series, H. Wiley Hitchcock, the editor of this series says, "has been to present works of solid scholarship that are eminently readable." Thus, the books are written by specialists "interested in communicating vividly." Just as a side note, what the book should be called is "Monteverdi and the Birth of the Baroque," because that's really what it reads like. Indeed, if we concede him that concentration and focus, this is truly a fine book. What Palisca has written is a book that looks mainly at changes in vocal styles that helped usher out the Renaissance era and usher in the Baroque period. It also takes a very quick lap around innovation in instrumental music.