Beskrivelse
The Oxford Companion to Music is a music reference book in the series of Oxford Companions produced by the Oxford University Press. It was conceived and written by Percy Scholes. Wherever possible, Scholes tried to use primary source material, rather than summarizing other people’s work. His preface to the First Edition describes how he played and read through thousands of sheets of music, as well as reading thousands of concert programs and studying “old literature and long-bygone musical journals”. From this research, he produced about fifty-five volumes of notes. Each of these was devoted to a separate branch of musical knowledge. He then sought peer review of each of these volumes with specialists in the particular branch of musical knowledge. Finally, these volumes were broken up and re-constituted in alphabetical order. Scholes’ intention was to produce a work relevant to a wide range of readers, from the professional musician to the concert-goer, “gramaphonist”, or radio-listener. His work was aimed at a reader for whom it “will neither be beyond the scope of his pocket nor embarrass him by a manner of expression so technical as to add new puzzles to the puzzle which sent him to the book”. The result was a work which was highly accessible to the general reader, as well as being useful for the specialist.
