This book is a critical edition of the autobiography and selected musical criticism of Herbert Thompson (1856–1945) who was chief music critic at The Yorkshire Post from 1886 until 1936, and Yorkshire correspondent for the Musical Times.

This present work had it's origin in two series of twelve public lectures on music as part of the general culture, given at Harvard University between 1934 and 1935. Since these lectures this subject matter has been considerable enlarged, supplemented and concluded. Chapters include: Music of the Greeks, The Gothic Period, The Renaissance, Seventeenth-Century Baroque, Classical Tendencies of the Eighteenth Century, The Romantic Movement, The Twentieth Century and many others.