Rating: 
Summary: Very good, but not perfect for my purposes
Review: Grout/Palisca have put together a very well-written and laid out book. From the earliest music through the end of the Romantic era, the text is extroardinarily comprehensive, very engaging, and speaks a language of lucidity and detail. I bought this for a 20th-century music history course, but have ended up using it for the general history course as well. Now, it turns out that the one area in which this book is lacking is the 20th century. Palisca (who wrote the majority of that section) covers a broad range of composers but deals only briefly with them. Instead of focusing on a few of the most important (Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Webern, Messaien, Cage, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Reich, Glass, and a couple others), he includes (in some detail) many composers whose influence on progressive music has been marginal when compared with others (e.g.Berg, Copland, Hindemith, musical theatre). Jazz, a major contribution to art music, is only given a nod. Certainly, by the end of the twentieth century more music was available to more people than there ever was before. Yet, since we are now in the twenty-first century, I think historians can begin to distinguish the two or three giants from 1900 to 1950, and deal with the rest proportionally.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but not perfect for my purposes
Review: Grout/Palisca have put together a very well-written and laid out book. From the earliest music through the end of the Romantic era, the text is extroardinarily comprehensive, very engaging, and speaks a language of lucidity and detail. I bought this for a 20th-century music history course, but have ended up using it for the general history course as well. Now, it turns out that the one area in which this book is lacking is the 20th century. Palisca (who wrote the majority of that section) covers a broad range of composers but deals only briefly with them. Instead of focusing on a few of the most important (Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Webern, Messaien, Cage, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Reich, Glass, and a couple others), he includes (in some detail) many composers whose influence on progressive music has been marginal when compared with others (e.g.Berg, Copland, Hindemith, musical theatre). Jazz, a major contribution to art music, is only given a nod. Certainly, by the end of the twentieth century more music was available to more people than there ever was before. Yet, since we are now in the twenty-first century, I think historians can begin to distinguish the two or three giants from 1900 to 1950, and deal with the rest proportionally.
Rating: 
Summary: History is history
Review: History is history. We cannot change it, no matter how we try to rewrite it to make it sound better. This book is a fair account overall, of the path that western music has taken. If you are looking for a novel, try finding something about Mozart or Beethoven, more specifically. This book is not meant to entertain, although I find it very interesting. If it were to go into minute detail, it would be a three-volume set. Thanks Norton. I give this book five stars.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent concise History of Western Music
Review: I own used this book, and the anthology and CD's, and used them for my intermediate Music history studies; I still use it as a quick reference or starting point for my current more detailed studies. When I want more detail about a period or specific composers or styles, then there are numurous more detailed books available. I have found it comprehensive in coverage, informative, easy to read and containing enough information without getting bogged down in unnecessary detail. I believe there could be more on 20th century composers/techniques, but given the scope of music development for that period, I believe a more dedicated book should be used. I must agree that as a general student text book, it is rather pricey; sadly the CD's are also very useful and NOT cheap either. Still definitely worth buying and keeping as a reference.
Rating:
Summary: The 6th edition still sets the standard !
Review: I remember the First edition of Grout's "A History of Western Music"--it was the main text in use when I was a first year undergraduate student. In fact it was one of the standard texts in use at a large number of colleges. The good news is that I was pleased to see the excellent changes. I didn't have to look far to find my first (1 st) edition Grout ( I've used it still until I purchased this new 6th edition several weeks ago)--there are 101 more pages of text. In reality there is much more to look at as the 1st edition book was only 6 x 9 inches. The new 6th Edition is larger: 7 1/4 by 10 1/2 inches. In addition, there is a highly attractive layout; the best feature? A wonderful highlighted-in-blue area (appearing every 40 pages or so) in which the composers themselves speak about a wonderful range of topics such as Francois Couperin 'On the Union of the Italian and French Styles' or, the great J.S. Bach's description of one the church service's he organized (known as an 'Order of Service') taken from a collection of his memoirs.
Lastly, I enjoyed seeing the addition of an overall "Time-Line of Events" which prefaces each unit. This includes not only items from music, but any historical event which remotely affected change in music or musical thought.
My singluar critical note is perhaps something which the authors had little time to devote to. The 6th edition ends with composers who, in this reviewer's opinion, were certainly not 'mainstream'--like John Cage (1912-1992) (who's infamous "4'33" is actually a period of four minutes and thirythree seconds in which the 'performer' remains totally silent). Cage was popular in the late 70s more for his extremism than anything else. The last paragraph of the book does state, in effect, that composers are being more sensitive to their audiences. (No doubt! Their INsensitivity nearly killed classical music in the 70s) As with any textbook, deadlines must limit speculation--there will undoubtedly be a 7th edition to address more changes in our musical world.
Lastly, the reader should take note that the current author of this work, Claude V. Palisca, is also the author of the "Norton Anthology of Music" which can be used in conjunction with this text. Also, the publisher, W.W.Norton and Co., has a website for readers (which is also mentioned in the text: http://www.wwnorton.com/grout.). The website is still active (I just visited it) and has a wealth of information and listening resources---too bad we didn't have this back in 1967 !
Rating:
Summary: The 6th edition still sets the standard !
Review: I remember the First edition of Grout's "A History of Western Music"--it was the main text in use when I was a first year undergraduate student. In fact it was one of the standard texts in use at a large number of colleges. The good news is that I was pleased to see the excellent changes. I didn't have to look far to find my first (1 st) edition Grout ( I've used it still until I purchased this new 6th edition several weeks ago)--there are 101 more pages of text. In reality there is much more to look at as the 1st edition book was only 6 x 9 inches. The new 6th Edition is larger: 7 1/4 by 10 1/2 inches. In addition, there is a highly attractive layout; the best feature? A wonderful highlighted-in-blue area (appearing every 40 pages or so) in which the composers themselves speak about a wonderful range of topics such as Francois Couperin 'On the Union of the Italian and French Styles' or, the great J.S. Bach's description of one the church service's he organized (known as an 'Order of Service') taken from a collection of his memoirs.
Lastly, I enjoyed seeing the addition of an overall "Time-Line of Events" which prefaces each unit. This includes not only items from music, but any historical event which remotely affected change in music or musical thought.
My singluar critical note is perhaps something which the authors had little time to devote to. The 6th edition ends with composers who, in this reviewer's opinion, were certainly not 'mainstream'--like John Cage (1912-1992) (who's infamous "4'33" is actually a period of four minutes and thirythree seconds in which the 'performer' remains totally silent). Cage was popular in the late 70s more for his extremism than anything else. The last paragraph of the book does state, in effect, that composers are being more sensitive to their audiences. (No doubt! Their INsensitivity nearly killed classical music in the 70s) As with any textbook, deadlines must limit speculation--there will undoubtedly be a 7th edition to address more changes in our musical world.
Lastly, the reader should take note that the current author of this work, Claude V. Palisca, is also the author of the "Norton Anthology of Music" which can be used in conjunction with this text. Also, the publisher, W.W.Norton and Co., has a website for readers (which is also mentioned in the text: http://www.wwnorton.com/grout.). The website is still active (I just visited it) and has a wealth of information and listening resources---too bad we didn't have this back in 1967 !
Rating:
Summary: The 6th edition still sets the standard !
Review: I remember the First edition of Grout's "A History of Western Music"--it was the main text in use when I was a first year undergraduate student. In fact it was one of the standard texts in use at a large number of colleges. The good news is that I was pleased to see the excellent changes. I didn't have to look far to find my first (1 st) edition Grout ( I've used it still until I purchased this new 6th edition several weeks ago)--there are 101 more pages of text. In reality there is much more to look at as the 1st edition book was only 6 x 9 inches. The new 6th Edition is larger: 7 1/4 by 10 1/2 inches. In addition, there is a highly attractive layout; the best feature? A wonderful highlighted-in-blue area (appearing every 40 pages or so) in which the composers themselves speak about a wonderful range of topics such as Francois Couperin 'On the Union of the Italian and French Styles' or, the great J.S. Bach's description of one the church service's he organized (known as an 'Order of Service') taken from a collection of his memoirs.
Lastly, I enjoyed seeing the addition of an overall "Time-Line of Events" which prefaces each unit. This includes not only items from music, but any historical event which remotely affected change in music or musical thought.
My singluar critical note is perhaps something which the authors had little time to devote to. The 6th edition ends with composers who, in this reviewer's opinion, were certainly not 'mainstream'--like John Cage (1912-1992) (who's infamous "4'33" is actually a period of four minutes and thirythree seconds in which the 'performer' remains totally silent). Cage was popular in the late 70s more for his extremism than anything else. The last paragraph of the book does state, in effect, that composers are being more sensitive to their audiences. (No doubt! Their INsensitivity nearly killed classical music in the 70s) As with any textbook, deadlines must limit speculation--there will undoubtedly be a 7th edition to address more changes in our musical world.
Lastly, the reader should take note that the current author of this work, Claude V. Palisca, is also the author of the "Norton Anthology of Music" which can be used in conjunction with this text. Also, the publisher, W.W.Norton and Co., has a website for readers (which is also mentioned in the text: http://www.wwnorton.com/grout.). The website is still active (I just visited it) and has a wealth of information and listening resources---too bad we didn't have this back in 1967 !
Rating: 
Summary: the publishers rake it in on this
Review: The book, though a fine book, is simply overpriced. The book is used primarily for students who are music majors. It is a very good marketing ploy for the publishers to rip the students off with this material. A student could probably buy a cheap car for the price of this book. As far as the content goes, it is extremely detailed and often difficult to follow. In short, this book is not worth the pruchase. As a student I would simply go to the library and check it out and pay the $1.50 overdue fine.
Rating:
Summary: the publishers rake it in on this
Review: The book, though a fine book, is simply overpriced. The book is used primarily for students who are music majors. It is a very good marketing ploy for the publishers to rip the students off with this material. A student could probably buy a cheap car for the price of this book. As far as the content goes, it is extremely detailed and often difficult to follow. In short, this book is not worth the pruchase. As a student I would simply go to the library and check it out and pay the $1.50 overdue fine.
Rating:
Summary: This is the finest text on the history of western music.
Review: This book is Donald J. Grout's masterpiece. Scholarly, detailed, and carefully considered, it includes analyses of pieces from every period in the history of western music. Grout interweaves the development of harmony, rhythm, and usage with the evolution of various instruments and vocal trends, and presents all in the context of social and political history.
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