This volume offers hundreds of entries for Romantic period composers, performers, styles, and other subjects and terms. Many appear in other reference works, most notably New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, but many are unique to this one. The major difference is that the authors here present entries in context with regard to specific styles, customs, and thinking of the Romantic period—the so called long nineteenth century. For example, entries such as String quartets are discussed in terms of their nineteenth-century form, and eighteenth-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s entry delves into how he and his music were viewed throughout the 100 years after his death. Recommended for most public and academic libraries.

Booklist

Cooper offers a handy one-volume work covering composers, genres, styles, and sociopolitical activities associated with the late 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. One of some 70 titles in the 'Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts' series, it features more than 500 alphabetically arranged entries. This hefty volume includes illustrative material where pertinent, a useful list of acronyms and abbreviations, and cross-referencing in each individual entry (via terms printed in boldface the first time they appear). Prior to the introduction, readers will find a useful year-by-year chronology covering major events from the beginning of the French Revolution to the start of WW I. Entries contain brief descriptions of landmark events ranging in scope from political affairs (e.g., Washington's election as the first US president, Napoleon becoming president of the Italian Republic, and the Mexican War of Independence) to the publication and performance of major musical works (e.g., Rossini's Guillaume Tell; Haydn's Symphony no. 92; and Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, K. 581). Selected source-critical series of editions are included near the back. Primary sources (e.g., collections, anthologies, and treatises) and surveys of 19th-century music are provided, as are works on aesthetics, genre, harmony and counterpoint, and performance practice. Also included is a section pertaining to studies on individual composers. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers.

Choice Reviews

Beginning in the late eighteenth century and lasting well into the 1850s, Romanticism as a philosophical and artistic movement embraced the awakening of modernism while at the same time reinterpreting the classical tradition that came before it. Many of the composers and musicians we associate with the nineteenth century find their roots in romanticism. This work, by a professor of music noted for his work in the artistic period, has a lengthy introduction discussing the roots, changes, and influences on the future that Romanticism brought to the world. The major portion of the work is an alphabetically arranged listing of composers and musicians, instrument makers, patrons and publishers, specific works and significant events associated with Romanticism. Each entry is from a half-page to one and one-half pages in length. In the case of individuals birth and death dates are given where known. Each entry discusses the importance to the Romantic idea with bold typeface referencing other topics in the dictionary. An extensive bibliography for further reading and research completes the volume. . . .This volume will find ready use in music and music history collections. Well bound in hardcover format and with its easy to use alphabetic format, the work should stand up to years of use in the library setting. Any library with collecting interests in the music, arts, philosophy, or the history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries will find this a useful addition.

American Reference Books Annual