The Oxford Companion to Music

Abstract

MR. WELLS'S “World Encyclopedia” has not, as yet, materialized, but encyclopaedias and dictionaries are now appearing which, if they do not show that unity of plan which should dominate the work that Mr. Wells has in mind, may yet be regarded as its precursors. The “Oxford Companion to Music” conceals, under its modest title, a vast amount of learning, set out in orderly and scholarly fashion, and designed to provide clear and exact answers to the thousand-and-one questions raised by any inquiring and intelligent amateur of the art. It woiild be idle to expect to find, even within the compass of nearly eleven hundred large octavo pages of small print, detailed treatises on harmony, counterpoint, singing, the pianoforte, the organ, and so forth. But Dr. Scholes does better. He gives succinct accounts of the fundamentals of the technical side of the art, sufficient.ly detailed to give the reader a firm grasp of the elements of the subject, and in many instances provides pointers which show where further information may be obtained.

The Oxford Companion to Music

By Dr. Percy A. Scholes. Pp. lv + 1091 + 179 plates. (London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1938.) 21s. net.