The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music: A Listener's Companion

This dictionary spans almost 700 years of musical history--from 1300 to the present--and details the works of 425 of the world's most important composers of music for the concert hall, church, opera and ballet. Part One arranges the composers alphabetically with a chronological listing of all their major and minor works. Also included are their dates of birth and death, their nationality, the instruments for which each work was written and the age of the composer at the time of composition. Part Two is a year-by-year survey of music that shows at a glance precisely what was happening in the musical world in any given year. Part Three is a time-line that graphically plots the lifetime of each composer, enabling the reader to see instantly which of them were contemporaries.