Product Description

The Eighth Edition of A History of Western Music is a vivid, accessible, and richly contextual view of music in Western culture.

Building on his monumental revision of the Seventh Edition, Peter Burkholder has refined an inspired narrative for a new generation of students, placing people at the center of the story. The narrative of A History of Western Music naturally focuses on the musical works, styles, genres, and ideas that have proven most influential, enduring, and significant—but it also encompasses a wide range of music, from religious to secular, from serious to humorous, from art music to popular music, and from Europe to the Americas. With a six-part structure emphasizing the music’s reception and continued influence, Burkholder’s narrative establishes a social and historical context for each repertoire to reveal its legacy and its significance today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25604 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1152 pages

About the Author
J. Peter Burkholder is Distinguished Professor of Musicology at Indiana University. He is the author of previous editions of A History of Western Music, the Norton Anthology of Western Music, and the Study and Listening Guide. In addition, he has written or edited four books on Charles Ives and has written numerous articles on topics spanning from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of Musicology, Musical Quarterly, 19th-Century Music, Music Theory Spectrum, and other journals. He has served as President, Vice President, and Director-at-Large of the American Musicological Society and on the board of the College Music Society, and his writings have received awards from the American Musicological Society, Society for American Music, and ASCAP.

Donald Jay Grout, late professor of music at Cornell University, also wrote a standard history of opera.


Claude V. Palisca, late professor of music at Yale University, began his collaboration on A History of Western Music with the Third Edition. Among his many publications are a history of Baroque music and a collection of scholarly essays on Italian Renaissance music.