The Structure of Music: An Outline for Students Review

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(More customer reviews)R. O. (Reginald Owen) Morris was a brilliant teacher of music at the Royal College of Music until his death in 1948 at the age of 62. This book is old fashioned in the sense that it accepts the labels and terms that were then traditional in music and simply provided explanations of what the terms meant. He did not try to recalculate theories to cover all musical practice. In fact, such an effort is always doomed to failure since the terms come after the music is written. New music always thwarts the conceptions of the past. So what? Does that mean there are no terms that are useful? While it is true that the mere application of labels is not analysis and communicates precious little information, it is also true that we know what we mean by pepperoni when we order a pizza despite not knowing exactly what that version of pepperoni is going to be (unless we are familiar with pizza from that maker).
So, this is a handy and useful book, if a bit dated by today's academic standards. The explanations are concise (it does call itself an outline), clear and apt. This already makes it more useful than many of the newer books you might accidentally buy, not knowing any better.
The author divides the book into two parts: Harmonic Forms and Contrapuntal Forms.
After two chapters on elementary principles and how periods are built up, the Harmonic Forms he discusses are: the suite, the sonata as a whole, first movement form (sonata form), rondo form, the concerto, variation form, and the overture.
The Contrapuntal Forms are: antecedents of fugue, fugue, special types of fugue (canon, round, catch, chorale preludes).
Symphonic and vocal forms are dealt with in an appendix.

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