Presents the history of music by compiling over two hundred annotated compositions which illustrate the various styles, forms, and facets of music.

This great anthology of music literature makes available to all music lovers a wonderful storehouse of hitherto inaccessible treasure. The volume includes the development of Oriental, Medieval, and Renaissance music from the beginning to 1600. Its more than 200 representative examples are individually complete compositions, each of sufficient length to illustrate clearly a form or style. The authors provide an explanatory commentary with bibliography, English translations of foreign texts, and an index. The "Library Journal" says of it, "in short, Volume 1 of the music historian's classic dreams No competitors on the market. Highly recommended."