Oxford History of Music

The Oxford History of Western Music is a narrative history from the "earliest notations" (taken to be around the eighth century) to the late twentieth century. It was written by the American musicologist Richard Taruskin. Published by Oxford University Press, it is a multi-volume work, but is shorter than the same publisher's The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which is written by multiple contributors.

The Oxford History of Western Music appeared in 2005. A paperback edition in five volumes followed in 2009. It is available online, but is not part of Oxford Music Online, the portal which gives electronic access to the New Grove Dictionary (Grove Music Online) and The Oxford Companion to Music.

OUP had previously published narrative histories of music, although Taruskin was more influenced by Donald Jay Grout's work A History of Western Music (New York, 1960).

The Oxford History of Music was first published in six volumes under the general editorship of Sir Henry Hadow between 1901 and 1905. The first two volumes, written by H. E. Woolridge, were entitled The Polyphonic Period, and began with the music of ancient Greece: these volumes dated quite quickly. Other volumes were reprinted as they stood, but Sir Percy Buck , who was also involved with the OUP's Tudor Church Music, revised the first two volumes (1929 and 1932), and edited a new introductory volume (1929).

The New Oxford History of Music, produced under the general editorship of Sir Jack Westrup, began to appear in 1954.

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