The Best Books About Classical Music
What are the best books to read about Classical Music?” We looked at 549 of the top classical music books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
Below you will find a ridiculous amount (over 500!) of classical music books. These titles range from biographies of famous composers or musicians, to fictional stories where classical music plays a significant role, and of curse guide books and how-to guides for budding or seasoned musicians alike.
The top 37 books, all appearing on 2 or more lists, have been ranked below with images, summaries, and links for learning more or purchasing. The remaining 512 books, as well as the sources used to create the list, can be found listed alphabetically at the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
The Top 37 Classical Music Books Of All-Time
37 .) A History of Musical Style by Richard Crocker
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- Taruskin Challenge
“Style — the distinctive manner of presentation, construction, and execution in any art — is a topic of primary importance in music history. This highly regarded text by noted musicologist Richard Crocker (University of California, Berkeley) takes a much-needed fresh look at the subject and attempts to reshape some basic ideas in the light of modern research. Seeking the reasons for stylistic change within the history of style itself (rather than in the history of men or of ideas), this enlightening account shows how music, growing out of its own past, has shaped its own development.
Professor Crocker’s exceptionally clear and systematic presentation enables students to easily follow the evolution of Western musical style from Gregorian Chant (ca. 750) to the atonal music of the mid-20th century. The book stresses the continuity of basic musical principles over long periods of history, while it explores in detail moments of high stylistic achievement and the composers who exemplified them.”
36 .) Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music by Angela Myles Beeching
Lists It Appears On:
- Music Branding
- About Great Books
This second edition of Beyond Talent provides user-friendly real-life advice, examples, and perspectives on how to further a career in music. Understanding the unique talents and training of musicians, veteran music career counselor Angela Myles Beeching presents a wealth of creative solutions for career advancement in the highly competitive music industry. Step-by-step instructions detail how to design promotional materials, book performances, network and access resources and assistance, jump start a stalled career, and expand your employment opportunities while remaining true to your music. Beeching untangles artist management and the recording industry, explains how to find and create performance opportunities, and provides guidance on grant writing and fundraising, day jobs, freelancing, and how to manage money, time, and stress. The companion website puts numerous up-to-date and useful internet resources at your fingertips. This essential handbook goes beyond the usual “how-to,” helping musicians tackle the core questions about career goals, and create a meaningful life as a professional musician. Beyond Talent is the ideal companion for students and professionals, emerging musicians and mid-career artists.
35 .) Concerto Conversations by Joseph Kerman
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical CD Guide
- About Great Books
34 .) Draw A Straight Line and Follow It: The Music and Mysticism of La Monte Young by Jeremy Grimshaw
Lists It Appears On:
- WQXR
- About Great Books
Draw A Straight Line and Follow It: The Music and Mysticism of La Monte Young stands as the first narrative study to examine Young’s life and work in detail. The book is a culmination of a decade of research, during which author Jeremy Grimshaw gained rare access to the composer and his archives. Loosely structured upon the chronology of the composer’s career, the book takes a multi-disciplinary approach that combines biography, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music analysis, and illuminates such seemingly disparate aspects of Young’s work as integral serialism and indeterminacy, Mormon esoterica and Vedic mysticism, and psychedelia and psychoacoustics. Draw A Straight Line and Follow It is a long-awaited, in-depth look at one of America’s most fascinating musical figures.
33 .) Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Classical Music: But Were Too Afraid to Ask by Darren Henley and Sam Jackson
Lists It Appears On:
- The Guardian
- About Great Books
All too often, potential classical music listeners are put off due to its perceived elitism. This book gleefully dispels this notion and many others as it works brilliantly to make classical music not only accessible, but also disarmingly simple and utterly engrossing. It is broken into three sections designed to steer readers through the terminology and etiquette of classical music; open the fascinating history of the genre and its key figures over the last thousand years, showing their sheer brilliance coupled with their very human natures; and provide an indispensible reference guide for any reader, whether they prefer traditional chamber music or sweeping film scores.
32 .) Gambara by Honoré de Balzac
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- ABQ Journal
From the prolific writer Honore de Balzac, Gambara is a short story first published in Revue et gazette musicale de Paris. The talented composer Gambara has a problem as his music is only beautiful when drunk. Added by his wife Mariana who sacrifices herself working many jobs to provide him with money and drink. Once Andrea Marsosini a Milanese nobleman sees her he pursues after her. Who will this end badly for as all three of them can’t live happily ever after. Honore de Balzac produces another beautiful story where the characters come alive.
31 .) Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven: Studies in the Music of the Classical Period by Sieghard Brandenburg
Lists It Appears On:
- Questia
- About Great Books
This collection of nineteen essays honors Alan Tyson, Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Fellow of the British Academy, and leading authority on the Classical period. The distinguished contributors include Neal Zaslaw, Joseph Kerman, Lewis Lockwood, Cliff Eisen, James Webster, Jan LaRue, Douglas Johnson, Maynard Solomon, and Richard Kramer.
30 .) Jean Christophe by Romain Rolland
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- ABQ Journal
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
29 .) Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers since Beethoven’s Time by Nicolas Slonimsky
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- About Great Books
A snakeful of critical venom aimed at the composers and the classics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music. Who wrote advanced cat music? What commonplace theme is very much like Yankee Doodle? Which composer is a scoundrel and a giftless bastard? What opera would His Satanic Majesty turn out? Whose name suggests fierce whiskers stained with vodka? And finally, what third movement begins with a dog howling at midnight, then imitates the regurgitations of the less-refined or lower-middle-class type of water-closet cistern, and ends with the cello reproducing the screech of an ungreased wheelbarrow? For the answers to these and other questions, readers need only consult the “Invecticon” at the back of this inspired book and then turn to the full passage, in all its vituperation. Among the eminent reviewers are George Bernard Shaw, Virgil Thomson, Hans von Bülow, Friedrich Nietzsche, Eduard Hanslick, Olin Downes, Deems Taylor, Paul Rosenfeld, and Oscar Wilde. Itself a classic, this collection of nasty barbs about composers and their works, culled mostly from contemporaneous newspapers and magazines, makes for hilarious reading and belongs on the shelf of everyone who loves―or hates ―classical music.
28 .) Music and the Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life in London, Paris and Vienna by William Weber
Lists It Appears On:
- Questia
- About Great Books
27 .) Music in Western Civilization by Paul Henry Lang
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- Taruskin Challenge
The scope of the book is vast, beginning with the music of ancient Greece and ending with that of the first two decades of the twentieth century. But music is not viewed in isolation. Rather, the author presents music as one of the many arts that, taken in conjunction, form the essence of the artistic spirit of an era
26 .) Norton Anthology of Western Music by Burkholder, Palisca
Lists It Appears On:
- Lib Guides
- Classical Net
The anthologies feature outstanding teaching pieces that reveal the sweep of history through changing genres, styles, conventions, forms, techniques, and materials. The Seventh Edition includes new twentieth- and twenty-first-century works by Adams, Bernstein, Carter, Golijov, Higdon, Revueltas, Saariaho, Strauss, and Villa-Lobos.
25 .) Structural Functions in Music by Wallace Berry
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- Taruskin Challenge
“This brilliant inquiry into tonal, textural, and rhythmic structures in music, filled with original formulations and provocative ideas, has become one of the most widely read and studied works in music theory, frequently adopted in college and university curricula, and often cited in scholarly studies in the field.
Starting from an all-encompassing viewpoint — a belief in the importance and necessity of logical analysis of the musical experience, and the study of objective data derived therefrom — it moves toward a deeper understanding of musical structure and experience through a systematic exploration of tonality, melody, harmony, and rhythm, and their important interrelations. These are illuminated in penetrating analyses of musical works and extracts ranging from early model styles to modern compositions.”
24 .) The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- ABQ Journal
A national bestseller, voted by Time as the #1 novel of 1991, selected as one of the “Best Books of 1991” by Publishers Weekly, and nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award–a magnificent story that probes the meaning of love, science, music, and art, by the brilliant author of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance.
23 .) The Gramophone Classical Music Guide by James Jolly
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical CD Guide
- About Great Books
22 .) The Insider’s Guide to Classical Recordings by Jim Svejda
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical CD Guide
- About Great Books
For hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners throughout the United States, Jim Svejda’s weekly radio program The Record Shelf is not to be missed. Now, this amusing and irreverent guide captures the special flavor of Svejda’s unique program. Without fear or favor, he recommends his choices of CDs and cassettes for hundreds of compositions from the standard, and not-so-standard, fare. You’ll enjoy reading this wryly humorous and candid collection time and time again.
21 .) The Lives of the Great Composers by Harold C. Schonberg
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical CD Guide
- About Great Books
Harold Schonberg offers music lovers a series of fascinating biographical chapters. Music, the author contends, is a continually evolving art, and all geniuses, unique as they are, were influenced by their predecessors. Schonberg discusses the lives and works of the foremost figures in classical music, among them Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, the Schumanns, Copland, and Stravinsky, weaving a fabric rich in detail and anecdote. He also includes the creators of light music, such as Gilbert and Sullivan and the Strausses.
20 .) The Memory of Whiteness by Kim Stanley Robinson
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- ABQ Journal
“In 3229 AD, human civilization is scattered among the planets, moons, and asteroids of the solar system. Billions of lives depend on the technology derived from the breakthroughs of the greatest physicist of the age, Arthur Holywelkin. But in the last years of his life, Holywelkin devoted himself to building a strange, beautiful, and complex musical instrument that he called The Orchestra.
Johannes Wright has earned the honor of becoming the Ninth Master of Holywelkin’s Orchestra. Follow him on his Grand Tour of the Solar System, as he journeys down the gravity well toward the sun, impelled by a destiny he can scarcely understand, and pursued by mysterious foes who will tell him anything except the reason for their enmity.”
19 .) The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection by Ted Libbey
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical CD Guide
- About Great Books
Berlioz. Vaughan Williams. Schubert and Schumann. Mozart after the Jupiter Symphony, Bach beyond the Brandenburg Concertos, opera after The Magic Flute. In his informed and indispensible guide with over 157,000 copies in print, National Public Radio’s Ted Libbey takes listeners by the hand through the classical repertory to build a music library. For the second edition, with five years of new performances to consider, five years of new releases to review, and five years of reissues to re-evaluate-the author has completely revised and updated the book.
18 .) The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein
Lists It Appears On:
- Musical Toronto
- The Guardian
“The varied forms of Leonard Bernstein’s musical creativity have been recognized and enjoyed by millions. These lectures, Mr. Bernstein’s most recent venture in musical explication, will make fascinating reading as well. Virgil Thomson says of the lectures: “”Nobody anywhere presents this material so warmly, so sincerely, so skillfully. As musical mind-openers they are first class; as pedagogy they are matchless””.
Mr. Bernstein considers music ranging from Hindu ragas through Mozart and Ravel, to Copland, suggesting a worldwide, innate musical grammar. Folk music, pop songs, symphonies, modal, tonal, atonal, well-tempered and ill-tempered works all find a place in these discussions. Each, Mr. Bernstein suggests, has roots in a universal language central to all artistic creation. Using certain linguistic analogies, he explores the ways in which this language developed and can be understood as an aesthetic surface. Drawing on his insights as a master composer and conductor, Mr. Bernstein also explores what music means below the surface: the symbols and metaphors which exist in every musical piece, of whatever sort. And, finally, Mr. Bernstein analyzes twentieth century crises in the music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, finding even here a transformation of all that has gone before, as part of the poetry of expression, through its roots in the earth of human experience.”
17 .) This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin
Lists It Appears On:
- Musical Toronto
- The Guardian
Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. A Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, This Is Your Brain on Music will attract readers of Oliver Sacks and David Byrne, as it is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.
16 .) Treatise on Harmony by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- Taruskin Challenge
The Traité de l’harmonie of Jen-Philippe Rameau is one of the most important books in the history of Western music. Written while Rameau was still a relatively obscure organist and music master at Clermont-Ferrand, the book received but one printing during Rameau’s life, in 1722, shortly before he settled in Paris. The Traité was immediately recognized as a profound advance in musical theory, however, and it established Rameau’s reputation as a theorist. His book was the first to codify those principles of tonality that were to dominate the music of the West for almost two centuries. Even today the theories of Rameau remain the basis for the study of harmony.
15 .) What Makes It Great by Rob Kapilow
Lists It Appears On:
- WQXR
- About Great Books
This book, along with the music on the companion web site, is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in classical music, whether first-time listener, experienced concertgoer or performing musician, offering an entree into the world of eighteen great composers and a collection of individual masterpieces spanning almost two hundred years.
14 .) What to Listen for in Music by Aaron Copland
Lists It Appears On:
- Musical Toronto
- About Great Books
Whether they listen to Mozart or Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland invites readers to ask two basic questions: Are they hearing everything that is going on? Are they really being sensitive to it? With his provocative suggestions, Aaron Copland guides readers through a deeper appreciation of the most rewarding of all art forms.
13 .) Who Needs Classical Music? Cultural Choice and Musical Value by Julian Johnson
Lists It Appears On:
- Questia
- About Great Books
Who Needs Classical Music? offers a fresh and balanced defense of the value of classical music in contemporary culture. Challenging the many cultural critics who contend that the division between “high” and “low” art is an artificial one, that Beethoven’s Ninth and “Blue Suede Shoes” are equally valuable, Julian Johnson counters that music is more than just “a matter of taste.” Music can provide entertainment or simply serve as background noise. Classical music, he suggests, is shaped by its claim to function as art. It is distinguished by a self-conscious attention to its own materials and their formal patterning. Far from being irrelevant today, Johnson argues, classical music continues to offer rich and engaging insights into our experience of modern life. The paperback edition includes a new preface from the author, bringing his argument up to date. Who Needs Classical Music?will stimulate readers to reflect on their own investment (or lack of it) in music and art of all kinds.
12 .) Why Classical Music Still Matters by Lawrence Kramer
Lists It Appears On:
- Questia
- About Great Books
“n seven highly original chapters, Why Classical Music Still Matters affirms the value of classical music—defined as a body of nontheatrical music produced since the eighteenth century with the single aim of being listened to—by revealing what its values are: the specific beliefs, attitudes, and meanings that the music has supported in the past and which, Kramer believes, it can support in the future.
Why Classical Music Still Matters also clears the air of old prejudices. Unlike other apologists, whose defense of the music often depends on arguments about the corrupting influence of popular culture, Kramer admits that classical music needs a broader, more up-to-date rationale. He succeeds in engaging the reader by putting into words music’s complex relationship with individual human drives and larger social needs. In prose that is fresh, stimulating, and conversational, he explores the nature of subjectivity, the conquest of time and mortality, the harmonization of humanity and technology, the cultivation of attention, and the liberation of human energy.”
11 .) Music & Silence by Rose Tremain
Lists It Appears On:
- ABQ Journal
- Classical-Music
“Set in seventeenth-century Denmark, Rose Tremain’s dazzling, prize-winning tale is a pungently atmospheric, richly provocative, and masterfully orchestrated romance of point and counterpoint: loyalty and deception…tenderness and violence…community and alienation…peace and conflict…Music & Silence.
Peter Claire is an English lutenist summoned to Denmark to join King Christian IV’s royal orchestra. Designated the king’s “”Angel”” because of the purity of his physical beauty, Peter falls helplessly in love with the lovely companion of Queen Kirsten, the king’s adulterous wife. The young musician finds himself dangerously torn between loyalties, ensnared in the deep-seated unrest of a royal court where the forces of good and evil, of harmony and dissonance, are ensconced in a battle to the death.”
10 .) A History of Western Music by J. Peter Burkholder, Donald J. Grout, and Claude V. Palisca
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- Classical CD Guide
- Lib Guides
Combining current scholarship with cutting-edge pedagogy, the Ninth Edition of A History of Western Music is the text that students and professors have trusted for generations. Because listening is central to music history, the new Total Access program provides a full suite of media resources―including an ebook and premium streaming recordings of the entire Norton Anthology of Western Music repertoire―with every new text. Combining thoughtful revisions―particularly to chapters on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries―with exceptional media resources, A History of Western Music provides all the resources that students need in a text that will last a lifetime.
9 .) An Equal Music by Vikram Seth
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical-Music
- Classical Net
- ABQ Journal
Against the magical backdrop of Venice and Vienna, the two lovers confront the truth about themselves and their love, about the music that both unites and divides them, and about a devastating secret that Julia must finally reveal. With poetic, evocative writing and a brilliant portrait of the international music scene, An Equal Music confirms Vikram Seth as one of the world’s finest and most enticing writers.
8 .) Beethoven by Maynard Solomon
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical CD Guide
- Taruskin Challenge
- About Great Books
Hailed as a masterpiece for its original interpretations of Beethoven’s life and music. This edition takes into account the latest information and literature. Includes a 30-page bibliographical essay, numerous illustrations, and a full-color pictorial biography of the composer.
7 .) Music in the Western World by Piero and Richard Taruskin Weiss
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- Lib Guides
- Taruskin Challenge
This classic anthology assembles over 200 source readings, bringing to life the history of music through letters, reviews, biographical sketches, memoirs, and other documents. Writings by composers, critics, and educators touch on virtually every aspect of Western music from ancient Greece to the present day.
6 .) Roots of the Classical by Peter Van der Merwe
Lists It Appears On:
- The Guardian
- About Great Books
- Questia
Roots of the Classical identifies and traces to their source the patterns that make Western classical music unique, setting out the fundamental laws of melody and harmony, and sketching the development of tonality between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. The author then focuses on the years 1770-1910, treating the Western music of this period – folk, popular, and classical – as a single, organically developing, interconnected unit in which the popular idiom was constantly feeding into ‘serious’ music, showing how the same patterns underlay music of all kinds.
5 .) The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical-Music
- Musical Toronto
- ABQ Journal
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer who is considered to be one of the greatest authors in history. Tolstoy wrote many classics in different genres, such as War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and The Kingdom of God is Within You, and much of his work was based off of his life experiences in the Crimean War and his spiritual awakening. The Kreutzer Sonata is a classic novella that centers around a man named Pozdnyshev and his tumultuous relationship with his wife. Tolstoy made the book as an argument for sexual abstinence.
4 .) The Vintage Guide to Classical Music by Jan Swafford
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical Net
- About Great Books
- Classical Net
The most readable and comprehensive guide to enjoying over five hundred years of classical music — from Gregorian chants, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, and beyond.
3 .) The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross
Lists It Appears On:
- Taruskin Challenge
- Musical Toronto
- The Guardian
- About Great Books
In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century’s most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.
2 .) The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven by Charles Rosen
Lists It Appears On:
- Classical CD Guide
- Taruskin Challenge
- About Great Books
- Classical Net
This outstanding book treating the three most beloved composers of the Vienna School is basic to any study of Classical-era music. Drawing on his rich experience and intimate familiarity with the works of these giants, Charles Rosen presents his keen insights in clear and persuasive language. For this expanded edition, now available in paperback for the first time, Rosen has provided a new, 64-page chapter on the later years of Beethoven and the musical conventions he inherited from Haydn and Mozart. The author has also written an extensive new preface in which he responds to other writers who have commented on his ideas.
1 .) Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann
Lists It Appears On:
- ABQ Journal
- Classical Net
- Classical-Music
- Taruskin Challenge
“Thomas Mann’s last great novel, first published in 1947, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil. Mann’s protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility. In return for twenty-four years of unparalleled musical accomplishment, he bargains away his soul–and the ability to love his fellow man.
Leverkühn’s life story is a brilliant allegory of the rise of the Third Reich, of Germany’s renunciation of its own humanity and its embrace of ambition and nihilism. It is also Mann’s most profound meditation on the German genius–both national and individual–and the terrible responsibilities of the truly great artist.”
512 Additional Classical Music Books
| Books | Author | Sources |
| 88 Keys: The Making of a Steinway Piano | Miles Chapin | Classical Net |
| A Chord in Time: The Evolution of the Augmented Sixth from Monteverdi to Mahler | Mark Ellis | Taruskin Challenge |
| A Complete Guide to Brass: Instruments and Techniques | Scott Whitener | Classical Net |
| A Handbook of Literature for the Flute | James J | Classical Net |
| A Manual of Musical Copyright Law For the Use of Music-Publishers and Artists | Classical Net | |
| A Mixture of Frailties | Robertson Davies | ABQ Journal |
| A Natural History of the Piano: The History, the Music, the Musicians — from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between | Stuart Isacoff | WQXR |
| A Short, Easy Guide to the Great Classical Composers | R. D. Meyer | About Great Books |
| Abby Whiteside on Piano Playing : Indispensables of Piano Playing & Mastering the Chopin Études and Other Essays | Abby Whiteside | Classical Net |
| ABC of Music | Imogen Holst | Classical Net |
| Adorno’s Aesthetics of Music | Max Paddison | Classical Net |
| Æolian-Skinner Remembered | Charles Callahan | Classical Net |
| Alicia’s Gift | Jessica Duchen | ABQ Journal |
| All About Chords | Elvo D’Amante | Classical Net |
| All Area Access: Personal Management for Unsigned Musicians | Marc Davison | Classical Net |
| All You Need to Know About the Music Business | Donald S | Classical Net |
| America’s Musical Life: A History | Richard Crawford | Taruskin Challenge |
| American Music in the Twentieth Century | Kyle Gann | Classical Net |
| Amsterdam | Ian McEwen | ABQ Journal |
| An Encyclopedia of the Violin | Introduction by Eugène Ysaÿe | Classical Net |
| Analysis of Tonal Music: A Schenkerian Approach | Allen and David Gagne Cadwaller | Taruskin Challenge |
| And Do You Also Play The Violin? | Carl F | Classical Net |
| Appassionata | Jilly Cooper | Classical-Music |
| Aria | Brown Meggs | ABQ Journal |
| Arnold Jacobs: Song and Wind | Brian Frederikson | Classical Net |
| Artistic DNA: A five step guide to start creating a successful career in music | Music Branding | |
| Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America | Josh Kun | Taruskin Challenge |
| Authentic Singing | Classical Net | |
| Awakening your Business Brain: An iCadenza Guide to Launching your Music Career | Jennifer Rosenfeld and Julia Torgovitskaya | Music Branding |
| Axel | Bo Carpelan | ABQ Journal |
| Baroque Music Today: Music as Speech | Nikolaus Harnoncourt | Taruskin Challenge |
| Becoming an Orchestral Musician: A Guide for Aspiring Professionals | Richard Davis | Classical Net |
| Beethoven Hero | Scott Burnham | Taruskin Challenge |
| Beethoven in German Politics (1870-1889) | David B | Classical Net |
| Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph | Jan Swafford | About Great Books |
| Beethoven: The Sonatas for Piano and Violin | Max Rostal, with a Pianist’s Postscript by Günter Ludwig and a History of Performance Practice by Paul Rolland | Classical Net |
| Beethoven’s Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture | William L | Classical Net |
| Bel Canto | Ann Patchett | ABQ Journal |
| Bel Canto for the 20th Century | Weldon Whitlock | Classical Net |
| Bel Canto: A Theoretical and Practical Vocal Method | Mathilde Marchesi | Classical Net |
| Benjamin Britten | Neil Powell | The Telegraph |
| Benjamin Britten: a Life in the 20th Century | Paul Kildea | The Telegraph |
| Beyond Aesthetics: Art and the Technologies of Enchantment | Christopher Pinney; Nicholas Thomas | Questia |
| Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World | Timothy Taylor | Taruskin Challenge |
| Beyond The Baton: What Every Conductor Needs to Know | Diane Wittry | Classical Net |
| Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America | Tricia Rose | Taruskin Challenge |
| Blues People | LeRoi [Amiri Baraka] Jones | Taruskin Challenge |
| Boccherini’s Body: An Essay in Carnal Musicology | Elisabeth Le Guin | Taruskin Challenge |
| Body and Soul | Frank Conroy | ABQ Journal |
| Boult On Music – Words from a Lifetime’s Communication | Sir Adrian Boult, with foreword by Bernard Shore and introduction by Vernon Handley | Classical Net |
| Brass Instruments: Their History and Development | Anthony Baines | Classical Net |
| Breaking into the Music Business | Alan H | Classical Net |
| Callas: Portrait of a Prima Donna | George Jellinek | Classical Net |
| Capital, Vol | Karl Marx | Taruskin Challenge |
| Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music | Mark Katz | Taruskin Challenge |
| Career in C Major | James M. Cain | ABQ Journal |
| Caruso and the Art of Singing | Salvatore Fucito | Classical Net |
| Caruso’s Method of Voice Production | Classical Net | |
| Casals and the Art of Interpretation | David Blum | Classical Net |
| Catherine Hayes: The Hibernian Prima Donna | Basil Walsh | Classical Net |
| Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide | James Keller | About Great Books |
| Chamber Music: Research and Information Guidelines | John H | Classical Net |
| Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham | Carolyn Brown | Taruskin Challenge |
| Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer | Wesley Stace | ABQ Journal |
| Cities of the Dead | Joseph Roach | Taruskin Challenge |
| Clara | Janice Galloway | ABQ Journal |
| Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman | Nancy Reich | Taruskin Challenge |
| Clarinet Acoustics | Classical Net | |
| Classic Bel Canto Technique | Laure-Cinthie Damoreau | Classical Net |
| Classical Composers: A Home in Your Head for the Musical Masters | Desiree Bradford Scarambone and Bernardo Scarambone | About Great Books |
| Classical Guitar Making: A Modern Approach to Traditional Design | Gerald | Classical Net |
| Classical Music For Dummies | David Pogue and Scott Speck | About Great Books |
| Classical Music Insights: Understanding and Enjoying Great Music | Betsy Schwarm | About Great Books |
| Classical Music: A Beginner’s Guide | Julian Johnson | About Great Books |
| Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works | Phil G. Goulding | About Great Books |
| Classical Music: The Era of Haydn | Classical Net | |
| Cloud Atlas | David Mitchell | ABQ Journal |
| Coherence | Classical Net | |
| Compleat Violinist – Thoughts | Classical Net | |
| Composing Music: A New Approach | William Russo | Classical Net |
| Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century | Joel Lester | Taruskin Challenge |
| Conceptualizing Music | Lawrence Zbikowski | Taruskin Challenge |
| Concerning the principles of Voice Training During the A Cappella Period and Until the Beginning of Opera (1474-1640) | Bernhard Ulrich | Classical Net |
| Concise History of Western Music | Barbara Russano Hanning | Classical Net |
| Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology | Joseph Kerman | Taruskin Challenge |
| Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form | Susan McClary | Taruskin Challenge |
| Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide | Henry Jenkins | Taruskin Challenge |
| Conversations With Boulez: Thoughts on Conducting | Pierre Boulez, et al | Classical Net |
| Counterpoint | Kent Kennan | Classical Net |
| Crosby’s Opera House: Symbol of Chicago’s Cultural Awakening | Eugene H | Classical Net |
| Cry to Heaven | Anne Rice | ABQ Journal |
| Dance of the Happy Shades | Alice Munro | ABQ Journal |
| Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism, and the Focus of Place | George Lipsitz | Taruskin Challenge |
| Decentering Music: A Critique of Contemporary Research | Kevin Korsyn | Taruskin Challenge |
| Defining Russia Musically | Richard Taruskin | Taruskin Challenge |
| Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music | Rose Rosengard Subotnick | Taruskin Challenge |
| Dictionary of Composers and Their Music | Eric Gilder | Classical Net |
| Disciplining Music: Musicology and its Canons | Katherine and Philip Bohlman Bergeron | Taruskin Challenge |
| Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste | Pierre Bourdieu | Taruskin Challenge |
| Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera | Phillip Gossett | Taruskin Challenge |
| Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion | Mickey Hart | Taruskin Challenge |
| Dvorak in Love: A Light-Hearted Dream | Josef Skvorecky | ABQ Journal |
| Dvořák: His Life and Music | Neil Wenborn | About Great Books |
| Elements of Orchestration | Gordon Jacob | Classical Net |
| Elements of Sonata Theory | James and Warren Darcy Hepokoski | Taruskin Challenge |
| Elements of Vocal Science | Richard Mackenzie Bacon | Classical Net |
| Elgar’s Enigma Variations – A Centenary Celebration | Patrick Turner | Classical Net |
| Emotion and Meaning in Music | Leonard B | Classical Net |
| Encyclopedia of Contemporary British Culture | Peter Childs; Mike Storry | Questia |
| Enemy Way Music: A Study of Social and Esthetic Values as Seen in Navaho Music | David McAllester | Taruskin Challenge |
| English Keyboard Music Before the Nineteenth Century | John Caldwell | Classical Net |
| Ensemble: A Rehearsal Guide to Thirty Great Works of Chamber Music | Abraham Loft | Classical Net |
| Essay on the Origin of Languages | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Taruskin Challenge |
| Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments | Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach | Classical Net |
| Essays on Music | Theodor and Richard Leppert Adorno | Taruskin Challenge |
| Esthetics of Music | Carl Dahlhaus | Taruskin Challenge |
| Europe Central | William T. Vollmann | ABQ Journal |
| Experiencing Music | Vagn Holmboe | Classical Net |
| Feminist Waves and Classical Music: Pedagogy, Performance, Research | Citron, Marcia J | Questia |
| Five Centuries of Keyboard Music | John Gillespie | Classical Net |
| Five Graphic Music Analyses | Heinrich Schenker | Classical Net |
| Flãute Littâerature | Bernard Pierreuse | Classical Net |
| Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court: Music and the Circulation of Power | Suzanne Cusick | Taruskin Challenge |
| French Baroque Music: From Beaujoyeulx to Rameau | James R | Classical Net |
| French Music from the Enlightenment to Romanticism: 1789-1830 | Jean Mongredien | Classical Net |
| From Paris to Peoria: How European Piano Virtuosos Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland | R. Allen Lott | Questia |
| From Parry to Britten: British Music in Letters | Classical Net | |
| Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics | Arthur H | Classical Net |
| Fundamentals of Musical Composition | Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg (Editor), with Gerald Strang, Leonard Stein | Classical Net |
| Gerontius: | James Hamilton-Paterson | ABQ Journal |
| Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning an M | Robert Peters | Taruskin Challenge |
| Girl, 20 | Kingsley Amis | ABQ Journal |
| Giving an Account of Oneself | Judith Butler | Taruskin Challenge |
| Grace Notes | Bernard MacLaverty | Classical-Music |
| Gramophone, Film, Typewriter | Friedrich Kittler | Taruskin Challenge |
| Great Contemporary Pianists Speak for Themselves | Elyse Mach | Classical Net |
| Great Masters of the Violin from Corelli and Vivaldi to Stern | Classical Net | |
| Great Singers on the Art of Singing | Harriette Brower | Classical Net |
| Great Violinists in Performance: Critical Evaluations of over 100 20th-Century Virtuosi | Henry Roth | Classical Net |
| Greek Musical Writings Vol | Classical Net | |
| Guide to Chamber Music | Melvin Berger | Classical Net |
| Guitar and Vihuela: An Annotated Bibliography | Meredith McCutcheon | Classical Net |
| Guitars: Music | Classical Net | |
| Gustav Mahler | Jens Malte Fischer | WQXR |
| Hack the Music Business: Build Your Own Career | Dave Kusek | Music Branding |
| Handel’s Operas | Classical Net | |
| Harmonic Experience | Classical Net | |
| Harmony | Julian Barnes | ABQ Journal |
| Harmony: A Psychoacoustical Approach (Springer Series in Information Sciences, 19), Richard Parncutt | Springer-Verlag | Classical Net |
| Havergal Brian On Music, Volume One: British Music | Havergal Brian, with Malcolm MacDonald (Editor) | Classical Net |
| Hidden Harmonies: The Secret Life of Antonio Vivaldi | André Romijn | Classical Net |
| Hidden Voices: The Orphan Musicians of Venice | Pat Lowery Collins | Classical Net |
| Him With His Foot in His Mouth | Saul Bellow | ABQ Journal |
| Hints to Singers | Lillian Nordica | Classical Net |
| History of Opera (Norton/Grove Handbooks in Music) | Classical Net | |
| History of Orchestration | Adam Carse | Classical Net |
| History of Song | Denis Stevens | Classical Net |
| Hit Men: Power Brokers & Fast Money Inside the Music Business | Fredric Dannen | Classical Net |
| Horns, Strings, and Harmony | Arthur H | Classical Net |
| How the Beatles Destroyed Rock’n’Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music | Elijah Wald | Taruskin Challenge |
| How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to Its History, Culture, and Heart (Great Courses) | Robert Greenberg | About Great Books |
| How to Sing | Lili Lehmann | Classical Net |
| In Mozart’s Shadow: His Sister’s Story | Carolyn Meyer | Classical Net |
| Indivisible by Four | Arnold Steinhardt | Classical Net |
| Inside Early Music: Conversations with Performers | Bernard D. Sherman | Questia |
| Inside the Music Industry: Creativity | Classical Net | |
| Introduction to the Sociology of Music | Theodor Adorno | Taruskin Challenge |
| Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings | Jean Baudrillard | Taruskin Challenge |
| Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician | Christoph Wolff | Taruskin Challenge |
| Johannes Brahms: A Biography | Jan Swafford | About Great Books |
| Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters | Styra Avins | Taruskin Challenge |
| John Williams’s Film Music: Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Return of the Classical Hollywood Music Style | Emilio Audissino | About Great Books |
| Jùjú: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music | Christopher Alan Waterman | Taruskin Challenge |
| Klemperer On Music – Shavings from a Musician’s Workbench | Otto Klemperer, with Martin Anderson (Editor) and preface by Pierre Boulez | Classical Net |
| Kreisleriana | E. T. A. Hoffmann | ABQ Journal |
| L’Art du chant | Jean-Baptiste Berard | Classical Net |
| Landowska on Music | collected | Classical Net |
| Last Look at the Old Met | Judith Clancy | Classical Net |
| Lectionary of Music | Nicolas Slonimsky | Classical Net |
| Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts | Leonard Bernstein | Classical Net |
| Lily Pons: A Centennial Portrait | Jame A | Classical Net |
| Listening in Paris: A Cultural History | James Johnson | Taruskin Challenge |
| Liveliness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture | Philip Auslander | Taruskin Challenge |
| Living Underground | Ruth E | Classical Net |
| Longing | J. D. Landis | ABQ Journal |
| Loving Mozart | Mary Montanno | Classical Net |
| Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization for Improvisation | George Russell | Taruskin Challenge |
| Mahler (Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers) | Edward Seckerson | About Great Books |
| Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord 1440-1840 | Donald H | Classical Net |
| Making It in the Music Business: A Business and Legal Guide for Songwriters and Performers | Lee Wilson | Classical Net |
| Male Fantasies | Klaus Theweleit | Taruskin Challenge |
| Marxism and Literature | Raymond Williams | Taruskin Challenge |
| Maskerade | Terry Pratchett | ABQ Journal |
| Mastering Piano Technique: A Guide for Students | Classical Net | |
| Masterpieces of Music Before 1750: An Anthology of Musical Examples from Gregorian Chant to J | S | Classical Net |
| Mawrdew Czgowchwz | James McCourt | ABQ Journal |
| Memoirs: Sir Georg Solti | Harvey Sachs & Sir George Solti | Classical Net |
| Men | Classical Net | |
| Mendelssohn Is on the Roof | Jiri Weil | ABQ Journal |
| Meter as Rhythm | Christopher Hasty | Taruskin Challenge |
| Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Guide to the World of Opera | David Hamilton | Classical Net |
| Monteverdi and the End of the Renaissance | Gary Tomlinson | Taruskin Challenge |
| More Classical Music Insights: From Mozart to Muhly and More | Betsy Schwarm | About Great Books |
| Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music | Blair Tindall | About Great Books |
| Mozart’s Death – Mozart’s Requiem | Brendan Cormican | Classical Net |
| Music | Classical Net | |
| Music & Meaning | Jenefer Robinson (Editor) | Classical Net |
| Music and Cultural Theory | John and Peter Wicke Shepherd | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance, and Reception | Richard and Susan McClary Leppert | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music and the Historical Imagination | Leo Treitler | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music and the Mind | Anthony Storr | Classical Net |
| Music and the Mind Machine: The Psychophysiology and Psychopathology of the Sense of Music | Classical Net | |
| Music as Cultural Practice: 1800-1900 | Lawrence Kramer | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology | Thomas Clifton | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music for the Piano: A handbook of Concert and Teaching Material from 1580-1952 | James Friskin | Classical Net |
| Music Grooves: Essays and Dialogues | Charles and Steven Feld Keil | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music in Everyday Life | Tia DeNora | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music in Higher Education: An Annotated Bibliography | Edward Brookhart | Classical Net |
| Music in Late Renaissance & Early Baroque Italy | Amadeus Press | Classical Net |
| Music in the Castle of Heaven | John Eliot Gardiner | The Telegraph |
| Music in the New World | Charles Hamm | Questia |
| Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice | Gardner Read | Classical Net |
| Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography | Vincent Duckles | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music Sounded Out: Essays | Classical Net | |
| Music, the Arts, and Ideas | Leonard Meyer | Taruskin Challenge |
| Music: A very short introduction | Nicholas Cook | The Guardian |
| Music: An Appreciation | Roger Kamien | Classical Net |
| Musical Acoustics | Charles Aaron Culver | Classical Net |
| Musical Instruments of the World: An Illustrated Encyclopedia | Diagram Group | Classical Net |
| Musical Instruments Through the Ages | Anthony Baines | Classical Net |
| Musical Instruments: An Illustrated History | Alexander Buchner | Classical Net |
| Musical Instruments: History | Classical Net | |
| Musical Structure and Design | Cedric T | Classical Net |
| Musical Works and Performances: A Philosophical Exploration | Stephen Davies | Questia |
| Musicians’ Guide to Acoustics | Murray Campbell, Clive Greated | Classical Net |
| Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening | Christopher Small | Taruskin Challenge |
| Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship | Ruth Solie | Taruskin Challenge |
| Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ‘n’ Roll Music | Greil Marcus | Taruskin Challenge |
| Napoleon Symphony | Anthony Burgess | ABQ Journal |
| Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera from Rossini to Puccini | Daniele Pistone | Classical Net |
| Nocturnes | Kazuo Ishiguro | ABQ Journal |
| Noise: The Political Economy of Music | Jacques Attali | Taruskin Challenge |
| O, Paradiso | Conrad L. Osborne | ABQ Journal |
| Observations on the Florid Song | Classical Net | |
| Of Lena Geyer | Marcia Davenport | ABQ Journal |
| Of Music and Music-Making | Bruno Walter, with Paul Hamburger (translation) | Classical Net |
| On Chesil Beach | Ian McEwan | Classical-Music |
| On Playing the Flute | Johann Joachim Quantz | Classical Net |
| On Studying Singing | Sergius Kagen | Classical Net |
| On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music | Hermann von Helmholtz | Taruskin Challenge |
| On Wings of Song | Thomas M. Disch | ABQ Journal |
| Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera | Fred Plotkin | Classical CD Guide |
| Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in 18th Century Italy | Martha Feldman | Taruskin Challenge |
| Opera as Drama | Joseph Kerman | Taruskin Challenge |
| Opera in Italy Today: A Guide | Nick Rossi | Classical Net |
| Opera in Paris | Classical Net | |
| Opera, or the Undoing of Women | Catherine Clément | Taruskin Challenge |
| Ophelia’s Fan | Christine Balint | Classical Net |
| Orchestration | Cecil Forsyth | Classical Net |
| Orchestration | Walter Piston | Classical Net |
| Orchestration and Orchestral Style of Major Symphonic Works: Analytical Perspectives | Leonard Ott | Classical Net |
| Orfeo | Richard Powers | ABQ Journal |
| Origins of the Popular Style | Peter Van der Merwe | The Guardian |
| Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music | Classical Net | |
| Outliers: The Story of Success | Malcolm Gladwell | Taruskin Challenge |
| Oxford Dictionary of Opera | John Warrack | Classical Net |
| Oxford History of Western Music | Richard Taruskin | Classical Net |
| Pfitzner’s Palestrina | Owen Toller | Classical Net |
| Phaidon Book of the Opera – A Survey of 780 Operas from 1597 | Catherine Atthill | Classical Net |
| Philosophies of Music History: A Study of General Histories of Music 1600-1960 | Dwight Warren Allen | Taruskin Challenge |
| Piano Pieces | Russell Sherman | Classical Net |
| Piano Playing with Piano Questions Answered | Josef Hofmann | Classical Net |
| Piano Roles: A New History of the Piano | James Parakilas | Taruskin Challenge |
| Piano Technique | Walter Gieseking | Classical Net |
| Piano Technique: Tone | Classical Net | |
| Piano Tuning: A simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs | Jerry Cree Fischer | Classical Net |
| Pianos and Their Makers | Alfred Dolge | Classical Net |
| Principles of Orchestration | Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov | Classical Net |
| Principles of Violin Playing & Teaching | Ivan Galamian | Classical Net |
| Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock’n’Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock’n’Roll | Lester Bangs | Taruskin Challenge |
| Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology | Philip Brett | Taruskin Challenge |
| Rameau and Musical Thought in the Enlightenment | Thomas Christenson | Taruskin Challenge |
| Ravel: | Jean Echenoz | ABQ Journal |
| Re-Envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant | Peter Jeffery | Taruskin Challenge |
| Reason and Resonance: A History of Modern Aurality | Veit Earlmann | Taruskin Challenge |
| Reflections from the Keyboard: The World of the Concert Pianist | David Dubal | Classical Net |
| Reinventing Bach | Paul Elie | The Telegraph |
| Remaking the Song: Operatic Visions and Revisions from Handel to Berio | Roger Parker | Taruskin Challenge |
| Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice | Robert Fink | Taruskin Challenge |
| Rethinking Music | Nicholas and Mark Everist Cook | Taruskin Challenge |
| Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties | Ian Macdonald | The Guardian |
| Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart | Wye Allanbrook | Taruskin Challenge |
| Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music | Robert Walser | Taruskin Challenge |
| Sarrasine | Honore de Balzac | ABQ Journal |
| Saturday Afternoons at the Old Met: The Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts 1931-1950 | Classical Net | |
| Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction | Ingrid Monson | Taruskin Challenge |
| Schubert and the Symphony | Brian Newbould | Classical Net |
| Scots Musical Museum | Classical Net | |
| Secret Chromatic Art in the Netherlands Motet | Edward Lowinsky | Taruskin Challenge |
| Secret Lives of Great Composers: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the World’s Musical Masters | Elizabeth Lunday (Author), Mario Zucca (Illustrator) | About Great Books |
| Selected Writings of Luigi Dallapiccola | Classical Net | |
| Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture Through Japanese Dance | Tomie Hahn | Taruskin Challenge |
| Seventeenth-Century Music | Lorenzo Bianconi | Taruskin Challenge |
| Sign-Off for the Old Met: The Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts 1950-1966 | Classical Net | |
| Silence: Lectures and Writings | John Cage | Taruskin Challenge |
| Simple Composition | Charles Wuorinen | Classical Net |
| Since Records Began: EMI: The First 100 Years | Peter Martland | Classical Net |
| Six Lessons with Yehudi Menuhin | Yehuid Menuhin | Classical Net |
| Sonata Mulattica | Rita Dove | ABQ Journal |
| Songs of Triumphant Love | Jessica Duchen | Classical-Music |
| Sonic Design: The Nature of Sound and Music | Robert Cogan | Taruskin Challenge |
| Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression | Steven Feld | Taruskin Challenge |
| Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock ‘n’ Roll | Simon Frith | Taruskin Challenge |
| Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music | Anna Beer | About Great Books |
| Source Readings in Music History | Classical Net | |
| Source Readings in Music History from Classical Antiquity Through the Romantic Era | Classical Net | |
| Speak it Louder: Asian Americans Making Music | Deborah Wong | Taruskin Challenge |
| Stephen Fry’s Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music | Tim Lihoreau | About Great Books |
| Stomping the Blues | Albert Murray | Taruskin Challenge |
| Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music | Heinrich Schenker | Classical Net |
| Studies in Musicology I and II | Charles Seeger | Taruskin Challenge |
| Studies in the History of Italian Music and Music Theory | Claude Palisca | Taruskin Challenge |
| Study and Listening Guide | Burkholder, Grout, Palisca | Lib Guides |
| Style and Idea: Selected Writings | Arnold Schoenberg | Taruskin Challenge |
| Style and Orchestration | Gardner Read | Classical Net |
| Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 1 | Marcel Proust | Classical Net |
| Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation | David Huron | Taruskin Challenge |
| Swing Shift: “All-Girl” Bands of the 1940s | Sherrie Tucker | Taruskin Challenge |
| Szigeti on the Violin | Joseph Szigeti | Classical Net |
| Szymanowski on Music | Karol Szymanowski, with Alistair Wightman (Editor & translator) | Classical Net |
| Tango and the Political Economy of Passion | Marta Savigliano | Taruskin Challenge |
| Teaching the Mechanical Art of Song | Celeste Reese Watson | Classical Net |
| Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization | Stuart Isacoff | About Great Books |
| Terminology in the Field of Singing | American Academy of Teachers of Singing | Classical Net |
| Testimony of the Senses | Cory Oldweiler | ABQ Journal |
| Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance | Richard Taruskin | Taruskin Challenge |
| that may not feature music as their specific topic but apply in important ways): | anthropologists EXTRAMUSICAL GEMS (Works by cultural theorists | Taruskin Challenge |
| The “Death” of Classical Music | Eatock, Colin | Questia |
| The Acoustical Foundations of Music | John Backus | Classical Net |
| The Aerodynamics of Pork | Patrick Gale | Classical-Music |
| The Aesthetics of Music | Roger Scruton | Classical Net |
| The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity | Raymond Knapp | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Art of French Horn Playing | Philip Farkas | Classical Net |
| The Art of Organ Building | George Ashdown Audsley | Classical Net |
| The Art of Playing on the Violin | Classical Net | |
| The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart | Madeline Bruser | Music Branding |
| The Art of Singing | Enrico Caruso | Classical Net |
| The Art of the Piano: Its Performers | Classical Net | |
| The Art of the Violin | Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot | Classical Net |
| The Art of Violin Playing – Book One: Technique in General Applied Technique | Classical Net | |
| The Art of Violin Playing – Book Two: Artistic Realization and Instruction | Classical Net | |
| The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction | Jonathan Sterne | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Autobiography of Maria Callas, a Novel | Alma H | Classical Net |
| The Awakening | Kate Chopin | ABQ Journal |
| The Balanced Musician: Integrating Mind and Body for Peak Performance | Music Branding | |
| The Beethoven Quartet Companion | Robert Winter, with Robert Martin, Joseph Kerman, Leon Botstein & Michael Steinberg | Classical Net |
| The Beethoven Quartets | Joseph Kerman | Classical Net |
| The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini | Classical Net | |
| The Big Book of Classical Music: 1000 Years of Classical Music in 366 Days | Darren Henley, Sam Jackson, and Tim Lihoreau | About Great Books |
| The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness | Paul Gilroy | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Blood of the Walsungs | Thomas Mann | ABQ Journal |
| The Book of Musical Anecdotes | Norman Lebrecht (Editor) | Classical Net |
| The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory | Thomas Christensen | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Cellist of Sarajevo | Steven Galloway | ABQ Journal |
| The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method – Volume 1: Guitar Technique | Christopher Parkening | Classical Net |
| The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method – Volume 2: Guitar Technique | Christopher Parkening | Classical Net |
| The Clarinet (Yale Musical Instrument Series) | Eric Hoeprich | Classical Net |
| The Classical Music Experience | Julius Jacobson | Classical Net |
| The Cleveland Orchestra Story: “Second to None” | Donald Rosenberg | Classical Net |
| The Compleat Conductor | Gunther A | Classical Net |
| The Complete Conductor: A Comprehensive Resource for the Professional Conductor of the Twenty-First Century | Robert W | Classical Net |
| The Composer’s Voice | Edward T Cone | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Concerto: A Listener’s Guide | Michael Steinberg | About Great Books |
| The Conductor | Sarah Quigley | ABQ Journal |
| The Courage Consort | Michael Faber | Classical-Music |
| The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century | Michael Denning | Taruskin Challenge |
| The End of Early Music: A Period Performer’s History of Music for the Twenty-First Century | Bruce Haynes | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Enjoyment of Music | Joseph Machlis | Classical Net |
| The Essential Canon of Classical Music | David Dubal | About Great Books |
| The First Hundred Years | Nicolas Slonimsky | Classical Net |
| The Flute (Yale Musical Instrument Series) | Ardal Powell | Classical Net |
| The Fountain Overflows | Rebecca West | ABQ Journal |
| The Future of Modern Music: A Philosophical Exploration of Modernist Music in the 20th Century and Beyond | James McHard | Classical Net |
| The German Ideology | Karl and Frederick Engels Marx | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Glass Bead Game | Herrmann Hesse | ABQ Journal |
| The Glenn Gould Reader | Glenn Gould | Classical Net |
| The Glory of the Violin | Joseph Wechsberg | Classical Net |
| The Grammar of Conducting: A Comprehensive Guide to Baton Technique and Interpretation | Max Rudolph, with Michael Stern | Classical Net |
| The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present | Harold C | Classical Net |
| The Gustav Sonata | Rose Tremain | ABQ Journal |
| The History of Classical Music and the History of Opera | Richard Fawkes (Author) | Classical Net |
| The History of Classical Music For Beginners | R. Ryan Endris (Author), Joe Lee (Illustrator) | About Great Books |
| The History of Musical Instruments | Curt Sachs | Classical Net |
| The History of Violin Playing from its origins to 1761 and its Relationship to the Violin and Violin Music | David D | Classical Net |
| The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music | Lydia Goehr | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Inner Game of Music | Music Branding | |
| The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays | Clifford Geertz | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Jewels of Paradise | Donna Leon | ABQ Journal |
| The Johann Sebastian Bach Memorial Barbecue and Nervous Breakdown | Carter Scholz | ABQ Journal |
| The Leonard Bernstein Letters | Nigel Simeone | The Telegraph |
| The Leschetizky Method | Malwine Breé | Classical Net |
| The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr Together With a Fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper | E. T. A. Hoffmann | ABQ Journal |
| The Lives and Times of the Great Composers | Michael Steen | About Great Books |
| The Loser | Thomas Bernhard | ABQ Journal |
| The Lost Steps | Alejo Carpentier | ABQ Journal |
| The Lost Stradivarius | John Meade Falkner | Classical-Music |
| The Lyre of Orpheus | Robertson Davies | ABQ Journal |
| The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry | Barry Green | Music Branding |
| The Modern Invention of Medieval Music: Scholarship, Ideology, Performance | Daniel Leech-Wilkinson | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Muse and the Fashion: being a defence of the foundations of the art of music | Nikolai Medtner | The Guardian |
| The Music Business-A Legal Perspective | Peter Muller | Classical Net |
| The Music of E | Classical Net | |
| The Music of Franz Schmidt, Volume One: The Orchestral Music | Classical Net | |
| The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness | Gerald Klickstein | Music Branding |
| The New Kobbe’s Opera Book | Anthony Peattie | Classical Net |
| The New Langwill Index | William Waterhouse | Classical Net |
| The New Stereo Soundbook | Ronald D | Classical Net |
| The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven and Other Lost Songs | Carter Scholz | ABQ Journal |
| The Ninth: Beethoven and His World in 1824 | Harvey Sachs | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Noise of Time | Julian Barnes | ABQ Journal |
| The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Classical Music | Tim Smith | About Great Books |
| The Oboe (Yale Musical Instrument Series) | Geoffrey Burgess & Bruce Haynes | Classical Net |
| The Operas of Verdi | Julian Budden | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Origins of Music | Nils L. Wallin, Christina Wallin, Björn Merker and Steven Brown | Musical Toronto |
| The Oxford Companion to Music | Alison Latham | Classical Net |
| The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments | Anthony C | Classical Net |
| The Oxford History of Western Music | Richard Taruskin | About Great Books |
| The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music 2010 | Ivan March, Edward Greenfield, Robert Layton, and Paul Czajkowski | Classical CD Guide |
| The Perfect Wagnerite | George Bernard Shaw | Classical Net |
| The Physics and Psychophysics of Music: An Introduction | Juan G | Classical Net |
| The Physics of Musical Instruments | Neville H | Classical Net |
| The Piano Teacher’s Sourcebook | Maurice Hinson | Classical Net |
| The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism | Max Weber | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Queen’s Throat: Opera | Classical Net | |
| The Rebel Angels | Robertson Davies | ABQ Journal |
| The Recording Angel Explorations in Phonography | Evan Eisenberg | Classical Net |
| The Rhythm Book – Studies in Rhythmic Reading and Principles | Peter Hampton Phillips | Classical Net |
| The Romantic Generation | Charles Rosen | Classical Net |
| The Rosendorf Quartet | Nathan Shaham | ABQ Journal |
| The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music | Theodore and Andrew Kania Gracyk | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Savvy Musician: Building a Career, Earning a Living & Making a Difference | David Cutler | Music Branding |
| The Seven Symphonies – A Finnish Murder Mystery | Simon Boswell | Classical Net |
| The Shaping Forces in Music | Ernst Toch | Classical Net |
| The Sight of Sound: Music, Representation, and the History of the Body | Richard Leppert | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Singer of Tales | Albert Lord | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Soloist | Mark Salzman | Classical Net |
| The Song of Names | Norman Lebrecht | ABQ Journal |
| The Song of the Lark | Willa Cather | ABQ Journal |
| The Sorcerer of Bayreuth | Barry Millington | The Telegraph |
| The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 | Emily Thompson | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Spanish Guitar | Gerald | Classical Net |
| The Story of Music | The Telegraph | |
| The Structure of Scientific Revolutions | Thomas Kuhn | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Student Conductor | Robert Ford | ABQ Journal |
| The Study of Counterpoint | Johann Fux | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts | Bruno Nettl | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Study of Orchestration | Samuel Adler | Classical Net |
| The Study of the Fugue | Alfred Mann | Classical Net |
| The Style Hongrois in Western European Music | Jonathan Bellman | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance | Knud Jeppesen | Taruskin Challenge |
| The Symphony: A Listener’s Guide | Michael Steinberg | About Great Books |
| The Technique of Orchestration | Kent Kennan | Classical Net |
| The Time of Our Singing | Richard Powers | ABQ Journal |
| The Travelling Hornplayer | Barbara Trapido | Classical-Music |
| The Triumph of Music: Composers, Musicians and their Audiences | Tim Blanning | The Guardian |
| The Triumph of Music: The Rise of Composers, Musicians and Their Art | Tim Blanning | About Great Books |
| The Tuning of the World | R. Murray Schafer | Musical Toronto |
| The Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame: The Greatest Classical Music of All Time | Darren Henley, Sam Jackson, and Tim Lihoreau | About Great Books |
| The Uncle From Rome | Joseph Caldwell | ABQ Journal |
| The Unconsoled | Kazuo Ishiguro | ABQ Journal |
| The Viking Opera Guide | Amanda Holden | Classical Net |
| The Voice: A Spiritual Approach to Singing | Classical Net | |
| Theory and Practice in Piano Construction | William B | Classical Net |
| Thesaurus of Orchestral Devices | Gardner Read | Classical Net |
| This Business of Artist Management | Xavier M | Classical Net |
| Tonal Harmony | Stefan and Dorothy Payne Kostka | Taruskin Challenge |
| Transformative Voice | Edward V | Classical Net |
| Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story | Ruth Behar | Taruskin Challenge |
| Treatise on Instrumentation | Hector Berlioz | Classical Net |
| Treatise on the fundamental Principles of Violin Playing | Leopold Mozart | Classical Net |
| Treitler | Oliver and L Strunk | Taruskin Challenge |
| Tristan | Thomas Mann | ABQ Journal |
| Two-Part Inventions | Lynne Sharon Schwartz | ABQ Journal |
| Understanding the Women of Mozart’s Operas | Kristi Brown-Montesano | Classical Net |
| Understanding Toscanini | Joseph Horowitz | Taruskin Challenge |
| Universal Dictionary of Violin and Bow Makers | William Henley | Classical Net |
| Untwisting the Serpent: Modernism in Music, Literature, and Other Arts | Daniel Albright | Taruskin Challenge |
| Us Conductors | Sean Michaels | ABQ Journal |
| Verdi’s Theater: Creating Drama Through Music | Gilles De Van | Classical Net |
| Verdi’s Shakespeare: Men of the Theater | Garry Wills | WQXR |
| Vigilance | Julian Barnes | ABQ Journal |
| Violin & Viola | Yehudi Menuhin and William Primrose with Denis Stevens | Classical Net |
| Violin Playing As I Teach It | Leopold Auer | Classical Net |
| Violin Technique and Performance practice in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries | Robin Stowell | Classical Net |
| Violin Virtuosos: From Paganini to the 21st Century | Henry Roth | Classical Net |
| Voice Without Technique | Edward V | Classical Net |
| Voices in the Dark | Lindsay Townsend | Classical Net |
| Wagner Without Fear: Learning to Love – And Even Enjoy – Opera’s Most Demanding Genius | William Berger | Classical Net |
| Wagner’s Ring: A Listener’s Companion & Concordance | Classical Net | |
| White Swan, Black Swan | Adrienne Sharp | Classical Net |
| Whose Music? A Sociology of Musical Languages | John Shepherd | Taruskin Challenge |
| Why Beethoven Threw the Stew: And Lots More Stories About the Lives of Great Composers | Steven Isserlis | About Great Books |
| Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People | Anthony Seeger | Taruskin Challenge |
| Winnie and Wolf | A.N. Wilson | ABQ Journal |
| With the Artists | Samuel and Sada Applebaum | Classical Net |
| Woodwind Instruments and Their History | Anthony Baines | Classical Net |
| Would You Care To Say Something? | N Keith Scott | Classical Net |
| Writing for the Orchestra: An Introduction to Orchestration | Merton Shatzkin | Classical Net |
| Wunderkind | Nikolai Grozni | ABQ Journal |
| You’ve Got Rhythm: Read Music Better by Feeling the Beat | Anna and Joan Harkness Dembska | Classical Net |
| Your Introduction to Music-Record Copyright Contracts | Classical Net |
13 Best Classical Music Book Sources
| Source | Article |
| Classical CD Guide | Top 10 Books About Classical Music and Classical Music Recordings |
| Classical Net | Recommended Books & Scores |
| Classical-Music | Twelve of the best: books featuring classical music |
| Music Branding | 10 Books for Classical Musicans |
| Musical Toronto | LISZTS | Top 6 Books About Classical Music |
| Questia | Classical Music |
| The Guardian | Howard Goodall’s top 10 music books |
| The Telegraph | Christmas 2013: the best classical music books of the year |
| WQXR | Top Five New Nonfiction Books About Classical Music |
| ABQ Journal | The classical music lover’s summer reading list |
| Lib Guides | Music Research – General: Books – Music History Texts |
| Taruskin Challenge | Musicology Must Reads |
| About Great Books | 50 Great Books About Classical Music |
