The concise Oxford dictionary of music,

`The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music' by Percy A. Scholes comes from what is possibly the greatest single brand reputation in all of book publishing, The Oxford University Press. The Cambridge University Press is a close second, but no other publishing imprimatur comes even close (although an Alfred Knopf `Borzoi Book' still brings a bit of a mist to my eyes). And, while this reputation has been honestly earned by years of publishing scholarly reference works by distinguished authorities in their respective fields, I have found cases where titles were issued with a less than sterling quality about them. This is not the case with this particular volume. For it's size, it is a thoroughly reliable source for as far as it goes. There are at least three things in the `...for as far as it goes...' qualification. First, the book does assume you are not a complete dunce regarding music. It would not, for example, be a suitable source for a child, unless that child happened to be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or someone with a similar precocity. Many of the definitions use technical terms that may not be explained by entries in the dictionary. Second, a related situation is based on the fact that there is a lot of cross referencing from one term to the next, and not all cross references are diligently marked with the (q.v.) note indicating that the definition for the term can be found in another reference in the dictionary. Third, true to the work's title of `Dictionary', the entries under the names of the great composers, Mozart, for example, are very brief, taking no more than a column (half page) or a column and a half. And, for those who are familiar with Mozart, there is virtually no information in the article that I do not already know. But then, this is not a Biographical Dictionary and not an `Encyclopedia'. The only real fault I may find with the Mozart article is that it does not cite the name of the system by which Mozart's works are officially numbered (The concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A minor is, for example, KV 622). Oddly enough, there are biographical miniatures for people one would never connect with the history of music. My favorite example is the squib on Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort, who happened to be a composer of some note for church music, which explains the connection with the Royal Albert Hall in London. The other, and far more important side of the coin is that the work is simply excellent in giving definitions of musical terms. I worked my way through a series of definitions for terms relating to liturgical music, and found everything I needed. In fact, the book seems to give special attention to the definitions of musical terms connected with liturgical works. The book also has some surprisingly deep entries on the physics of music. If you are interested in music and can acquire a copy of this work cheaply, it will repay you handsomely.