The Cambridge Companion to the Organ (Cambridge Companions to Music) Summary and Reviews

The Cambridge Companion to the Organ (Cambridge Companions to Music)

List Price: ~~$30.99~~
Our Price: $25.83
You Save: $5.16 (17%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $25.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Editor: Nicholas Thistlethwaite
Editor: Geoffrey Webber
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-03-13
ISBN: 0521575842
Number of pages: 354
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Book Reviews of The Cambridge Companion to the Organ (Cambridge Companions to Music)

Book Review: Better than I'd expected
Summary: 3 Stars

The comments from "a reader" (anonymous and pseudonymous reviews should be discouraged as a matter of Amazon.com policy; in non-life-or-death matters like critiques of musicology texts, surely the courage to sign your name is a prerequisite?) indicated a rip-off. In fact this publication turns out to be useful far beyond the confines of Dutch and Central European baroque topics. There can be no argument with complaints about unevenness. One section (the chapter on Austrian / South German baroque composers) is written with genuine panache; another (on Franck, his precursors, and his successors in the Gallo-Belgian romantic repertoire) is almost equally worthwhile; the advice on optimal practice methods for organists is uniformly well-judged; alas, all too many of the other sections read like - and probably were - extracts from humdrum doctoral dissertations.

The treatment of Spanish and Portuguese 16th- and 17th-century organ writing is, at least to the non-specialist writing this review, largely incomprehensible (and where not incomprehensible, is dubious: can it really be true that the "royal trumpet" stops which characterized Iberian organs, and which so well suit 17th-century Iberian "battle music", are an 18th-century invention?). A more obviously encyclopedic approach, such as Julie Anne Sadie employed when she edited Cambridge's COMPANION TO BAROQUE MUSIC, would have been superior to what we have here.

Still, here is one church organist who feels very grateful to this tome's staff-notation passages for having introduced him to valuable pieces by Teutons (the mid-17th-century's J. K. Kerll), Americans (the late-19th-century Dudley Buck), and Englishmen (somebody named Henry Smart, who apparently died in 1879), hitherto mere vaguely-contemplated names, or else, in Smart's case, not even that. Better to treat this COMPANION as a goad to the performer who seeks fresh and agreeable sheet music, rather than as a reference resource.

Write your own review

Entertainment Books

Book Subjects

Most talked about in Organ Music

The Organ Music of J. S. Bach
by Peter Williams
Cambridge University Press; Published: 2004-01-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $32.69
Price in other shops: ~~$47.00~~

Gellerman's International Reed Organ Atlas, Second Edition
by Robert Gellerman
Vestal Press; Published: 1998-06-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $20.85
Price in other shops: ~~$35.00~~

Interpreting Bach at the Keyboard (Clarendon Paperbacks)
by Paul Badura-Skoda
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1995-08-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $67.59
Price in other shops: ~~$90.00~~

Big Green Book of Piano and Organ Duets
Word Music; Published: 2001-05-01; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops: ~~$18.95~~

Organ Technique: Modern and Early
by George H. Ritchie, George B. Stauffer
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-10-27; Plastic Comb; Book
Best price: $29.95
Price in other shops: ~~$45.00~~

Works for Organ and Keyboard
by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Dover Publications; Published: 1985-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.16
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

Art of Organ Building (Volume 1 of 2)
by George Ashdown Audsley
Dover Publications; Published: 1988-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.45
Price in other shops: ~~$16.95~~

The Cambridge Companion to the Organ (Cambridge Companions to Music)
Cambridge University Press; Published: 1999-03-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.83
Price in other shops: ~~$30.99~~

Organ-Stops and Their Artistic Registration
by George Ashdown Audsley, G. A. Audsley
Dover Publications; Published: 2002-09-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.06
Price in other shops: ~~$17.95~~

The Organists' Manual: Technical Studies and Selected Compositions for the Organ
by Roger E. Davis
W. W. Norton; Published: 1985-08-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $52.36
Price in other shops: ~~$61.60~~

Similar books summaries and other product reviews

An Introduction to Organ Registration (Church Music Pamphlet Series)
by James Engel, Carl Schalk
Concordia Publishing House; Published: 1986-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops: ~~$10.00~~

Complete Organ Method: A Classic Text on Organ Technique
by John Stainer
Dover Publications; Published: 2003-12-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.78
Price in other shops: ~~$12.95~~

The Organ As a Mirror of Its Time: North European Reflections, 1610-2000 Text & CD
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2002-07-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $42.39
Price in other shops: ~~$54.95~~

Organ Technique: Modern and Early
by George H. Ritchie, George B. Stauffer
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-10-27; Plastic Comb; Book
Best price: $30.64
Price in other shops: ~~$45.00~~

The Organ Music of J. S. Bach
by Peter Williams
Cambridge University Press; Published: 2004-01-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.65
Price in other shops: ~~$47.00~~

The Language of the Classical French Organ: A Musical Tradition before 1800, New and Expanded edition
by Fenner Douglass
Yale University Press; Published: 1995-08-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.31
Price in other shops: ~~$25.00~~

All the Stops: The Glorious Pipe Organ and Its American Masters
by Craig R. Whitney
Published: 2003-03-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $43.82

The Registration of Baroque Organ Music
by Barbara Owen
Indiana University Press; Published: 1999-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

Making Music on the Organ
by Peter Hurford
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1990-10-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $23.04
Price in other shops: ~~$29.95~~