This unique book is an authoritative and detailed guide to all the best musical creations for small string ensembles, including prominent works by Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven, Schubert and more. It provides a description and evaluation of all the works covered, rating the level of difficulty and the level of enjoyment for the amateur performer.

Chamber music includes some of the world's greatest music. It is widely played in homes, without an audience, by players who are mostly amateurs, and much of the repertoire is playable even by those of quite moderate ability. A Player's Guide to Chamber Music gives advice on what music is available and helps the player to identify what is suitable. It covers chamber music from the seventeenth to the later twentieth century and all instrumental combinations including strings, piano, wind instruments, duet sonatas and baroque ensembles. All the significant composers and musical aspects of playing are covered along with works suitable for inexperienced players. Illustrated with 63 black & white illustrations.

Authoritative guide presents 231 of the most frequently performed pieces by 55 composers. A must for music lovers and musicians alike. "No lover of chamber music should be without this Guide." — John Barkham Reviews.

This guide is intended to help amateur players, from beginners to the most proficient, choose rewarding works within their capabilities and widen their repertoires. There are works for children and adult beginners specifically written for teaching and for practising chamber music, and also many fairly easy works for piano and strings. -- Provided by publisher.

Chamber Music: A Listener's Guide brings together acclaimed program annotator James Keller's essays on the essential chamber-music repertoire. Written to be meaningful to non-professional music-lovers while also providing enrichment for chamber-music professionals, these notes offer generous historical background for 193 works by 56 composers from the 18th century to the present.

Few joys equal the pleasure of playing music on the instrument you love, a joy that can be enhanced by joining fellow musicians in a piece of chamber music. Despite the extraordinary growth of interest in chamber music, there has not been a single book or even a combination of books to help a chamber musician or program planner determine what music, if any, exists for a given combination of instruments. This unique book fills that gap. Authors Victor Rangel-Ribeiro and Robert Markel, both musicians themselves, have gathered over 8,000 listings of pieces for three to 20 musicians. Culled from over 100 catalogues of music publishers worldwide plus other sources, Chamber Music covers the last 500 years of music. It includes not only a complete listing of the standard chamber music repertoire but thousands of other, lesser-known pieces written for an array of instrumental combinations - including the voice. More than 5,000 listings are for 20th-century music. Chamber Music is divided into three sections for easy access to information. The first contains music composed up to the time of Haydn and Mozart; the second, music from Beethoven to the present. Each listing contains the composer's name and dates, the title of the piece, the opus or catalogue number, if any, the year composed or published, if known, the key, if any, the duration of the piece, if specified by the composer or publisher, the instrumentation of the piece - including indications for voices and unusual instruments - and finally the name of the publisher. Comments, where appropriate, show when instrumental substitutions can be made, when the composer has not specified particular instruments, what unusual instruments are required, when a conductor might be needed, or any other relevant information of interest to the player. The third section, the "Master Quick-Reference Index," lists a number of instrumental combinations and directs the reader to composers who have written for those particular ensembles. Comprehensive and easy to use, for the amateur or professional musician or anyone with an interest in the subject, Chamber Music is sure to enhance any music lover's reference shelf.