Welcome Composers!

http://www.wwnorton.com/musichistory

The History of Western Music, 7th ed. is one of the most valuable tools a contemporary composer can have in his or her resource library. The colorful and informative WW Norton Music History text is an invaluable composer's manual, offering unique insight into stylistic traits of the various historically important time periods. Composers will find very clear labeling and explanations of musical building materials that other craftsmen have employed before us. Furthermore, important developments in the musical language are featured by geographic localities where appropriate.

The online listening library has many unique features; not only are important musical examples made readily availble for convenient listening online, there are also outstanding visual aid files in which formal design is pointed out while the audio file plays. Many of these files even list stylistic traits and cite lists of noteworthy observations regarding the composer's choice of building materials. The online glossary, http://www.wwnorton.com/college/music/grout7/home.htm is one of the most valuable tools a composer can have at his or her fingertips. The glossary is an amazingly comprehensive list of building materials for the contemporary composer's craft. The clear, concise definitions empower the modern composer with an endless supply of musical identities and entities from the vast heritage of Western Music History, and many of these concepts, style traits, and techniques can be readily deployed in new work.

The two volume companion Anthology of actual sheet music contains wonderfully chosen examples and excerpts of outstanding musical masterpieces. The modern composer can see exemplary usages of composing techniques and stylistic traits utilized in the best works from various time periods. If I could choose only one resource for my personal composing library, it would be the WW Norton History of Western Music, 7th ed. and all the accompanying companion materials.
For more information, please see: http://www.wwnorton.com/musichistory

Materials available for purchase at: http://www2.wwnorton.com/students/disciplines/music/history.php

I recently asked a composer freind of something truly beautiful to listen to, because I was working on a particularly energetic work with lots of harsh sounds, so I needed a break, and here are his suggestions!:

Vaughan Williams - Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
Janacek - Piano Sonata (especially 2nd movement)
Brahms - Alto Rhapsody
Faure - Piano Trio..
R. Strauss - 4 Last Songs

Recent Discoveries of Especially Beautiful Musical Moments.

Beethoven String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 esp. 3rd movement "Molto Adagio, Andante"

Beethoven String Quartet in Bflat Op. 130 5th Movement "Cavatina"