general

This book is undoubtedly the place to begin any serious look into music history. It is an omnibus study of what is commonly referred to as Western Art Music. It discusses composers, styles, and trends within music history itself. It doesn't cover ethnomusicology more than necessary (although it does point out examples beyond the scope of the book that merit further study, such as jazz). As for tying music history to art history, world history, and philosophy (ie the "new" musicology), this book does a commendable, albeit conservative, job. There are discussions of how major historical trends shaped music (most notably the spread of Christianity) and plenty of color plates showing works of art contemporary to the pieces being discussed.

What sets this book apart from other omnibus texts is its throughness. It starts at the very beginning of music history and remains strong to the present. Here is a page breakdown to illustrate my point:

1-32 - Ancient Greek and Roman Musical Thought (very few textbooks start before the Medieval period)

32-152 - Medieval Music

152-268 - Renaissance Music

268-439 - Baroque Period

439-533 - Classical Period

533-692 - Romantic Period

692-805 - Modern and Postmodern trends

805-822 - Glossary (very useful)

As you can see, it treats all the phases of music history relatively equally, giving a better sense of how the big picture comes together. There is some excellent supplemental material which includes the basics of reading medieval and renaissance music notation.

Donald Grout and Claude Palisca aren't so much boring in their writing style as they are serious. The book is concise and well-written. While it is by no means a page-turner (it's much too dense), it does have a good flow.

At $65, this book is expensive, but it's well worth the extra money to get the best text available. I know this will be a reference resource in my library for years to come.

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 !

For better or worse, this is the standard music history text that most college music majors use. For that purpose, I've yet to find anything as complete and concise. It also works well as a reference, when trying to place some composer or composition in the correct historical context. However, as any freshman music student can tell you, the book is also a fantastic cure for insomnia. Reading this book for any purpose other than academic interest is going to be a hard slog, and I wouldn't recommend it.