Guide to Chamber Music

The primary audience of this guide is the classical music fan who has limited musical knowledge but a keen interest in learning chamber music in more depth and following the form and details within each movement. For each work, Berger presents a brief but quite interesting historical prelude, followed by 'play-by-play' highlights of each movement as to its structure, harmony patterns and distinguishing features. While each description is not long, there is enough condensed information to give a definate sense to the flow of the piece and what makes it unique. I really admire Berger's writing style that is engaging, creative and says a lot in a few words. Also, his prose are not overly "flowery," intimidating or condesending. Also included is the brief but excellent glossary at the end which contains really clear definitions of key musical terms encountered in chamber music. Overall, this guide should be a staple in the library of the chamber enthusiast and it is inexpensive as well. It is my most used guide out of many. Musicians too can benefit from this book as an intro to some works but it will not likely satisfy them with enough details as to the score. While a healthy amount (or all) of each composer's chamber works are represented in this volume, the sonatas (for one or two instruments) are not. These are covered in a different book by Berger: "Guide to the Sonatas," which unfortunately is a very short book that tends to leave one wanting for more descriptions and details. But, what is here in this book is quite good. Berger gives wonderful, in-depth coverage of most major works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn and Schubert, but much less for "minor" composers like Dvorak, Faure, Ravel and others. Hard to fit too much into a small paperback I guess. What many of us would love to see who greatly enjoy Berger's skilled commentary is ONE DEFINITIVE BOOK on the entire (or at least most of) chamber-music repertoire - combining this book, his tiny, rather-superficial book on the Sonatas and expand it into a new major edition. Then, we would have a volume for the ages.

As far as we know, this is the best available book of commentary on standard repertoire of chamber music. It is also terrific - gives a little relevant biographical information on composers as well as notes on the works. Useful to look at before hearing a performance of a work, and great material (when combined with other sources) for writing program notes.

This book covers quite a vast output and describes each work movement by movement. A very useful reference.