THE ESSENTIAL CANON OF CLASSICAL MUSIC

To attempt to cover the range of serious music is a herculean task—from medieval polyphony to the minimalism of Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass, offering insights, biographical information on dozens of major and minor figures, and even finding room for moderately useful, if necessarily incomplete, discographies, Dubal has brought it off better than might have been expected. As a teacher at the Juilliard School and with 20 years as a classical program director at New York's WNCN radio station, he brings strong qualifications to the job, and since he writes decently, if sometimes rather bluntly, and has thought through his organization clearly, the book is probably the most useful of its kind now available. He divides music into the traditional five periods, and lists the significant composers as well as a host of lesser figures chronologically within those. In each case, he offers a few biographical snippets (more extended portraits for the great figures), provides a sense of where the composer fits into the scheme of things, then lists significant works and some chosen recordings. These are likely to be the most controversial aspects of the book, though Dubal is careful to point out that his choices offer a range of approaches to the seminal works. He does seem to have vast affection for the recordings of Sir Thomas Beecham and, more recently, for the work of Charles Dutoit; and inevitably some will question his priorities: nearly twice as much space for Richard Strauss as for, say, Sibelius? For Paul Dukas over Carl Nielsen? But the book's usefulness and comprehensiveness cannot be denied. (Sept.)