A Short History of Music [antikvár]

PREFACE This concise History of Music, which has passed through three editions in Germany and one in Holland, was first produced some thirty years ago. It was written in a few weeks, at a time and place that precluded resort to any books of reference. Lists of names and dates, however, were not my object; my desire was to present a picture of the development of music as a whole, the historical form of that development, and the figures of a few of the great masters. The reader will, I venture to hope, appreciate a certain unity in this presentation, which a mass of details would have destroyed. The work was originally one of a popular educational series, and as such its scope was very limited. But it never really fitted its frame, for it is not exactly an educational book. It is addressed rather to the reader who has already made himself acquainted with some of the facts of musical history and has heard pre-classical, classical, romantic, and modem music performed— heard it attentively. Of what value to a reader is a history of music unless music is part of his experience? And music of the present as well as of the past. The music of the present explains that of the past, and not the other way round. Of what use to a blind man is a history of art? None of the later editions of the present book, either in German or in English, is like the first one. I tried to emend and to correct it in every case. Alfred Einstein