A Popular History of the Art of Music is W. S. B. Mathews’s accessible survey of music from antiquity to his own day, written for the general reader and the music student. Mathews traces the development of the art through its great periods, composers, and forms.
The book moves from ancient and church music through the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras to the Romantic masters, offering a clear narrative of how music grew in expression and complexity. Mathews combines historical fact with appreciative commentary on the principal works and figures. As a readable single-volume history from the height of nineteenth-century musical culture, it remains a useful general introduction.