A Dictionary of Musical Themes - Book Report (facsimile, PDF)

I had the Dictionary Of Musical Themes by Harold Barlow and Sam Morgenstern in my collection for a few years without actually using it too much. It presents more than 10,000 themes of instrumental music - symphonies, concertos, and chamber works. The themes are arranged in the book by composer, from Adam to Zimbalist, and there's an index which will lead you to the theme in question after you figure out the first few notes and transpose them to the key of C. In the authors' words: "The book should prove useful not only to those who are bothered by a theme and can't remember its source, but also for those who know the source but can't remember the theme."

The identification of an unknown theme can be very tricky, though. I remember my first effort. I have a shellac disc privately recorded in 1962 by George W. Mitchell, called Songs For Children, on which he sings nursery rhyme-like verses to tunes by Grieg, MacDowell, Offenbach, etc. His tune to The Friendly Cow was familiar, but I couldn't name it. So I turned to the Dictionary - without luck. I later found my answer while playing through some guitar arrangements by American guitarist Charles de Janon. The tune was Anton Rubinstein's Melody in F- which is in the Dictionary but which I didn't find for the simple reason that Mitchell had fit two eighth notes to Rubinstein's opening quarter note.

In fact, a reviewer in the April, 1949 edition of The Gramophone wrote, "I have tried this index out with friends of varying degrees of musicality (including professionals) with, I regret to say, no more than 20 percent success." So I let the Dictionary languish on the bookshelf, figuring it to be mainly a source of frustration. The themes themselves are teensy - only a few measures long (2.75" inches worth, to be precise) - so how useful could they be?

Well, surprise, surprise, the answer is very useful! I eventually discovered that it is an extraordinarily satisfying experience to follow along in the Dictionary while listening to a musical work. Just having a few measures of each of the main themes brings order to the whole shebang. The second half of a theme is sure to be much like the first, and then the whole thing gets repeated, so right there you got 16 measures of music for the price of 4. Same thing goes for the 2nd theme, and the 3rd... When the composer gets into "development" you can easily see which theme he's noodling around with. And you can't miss the recapitulations. What a book! Makes me feel like I know something about music! Honestly, in many ways, having just those few notes is far better than wrestling with a full score. (Imagine - holding the equivalent of thousands of scores in one scrawny hand!)

There are all kinds of fun discoveries to be made just browsing the Dictionary. It's also useful in that it gives the precise identification of a work. For instance, the Melody in F mentioned earlier is Rubinstein's Op. 3, No. 1. It gives the original instrumentation for the piece, and the composer's dates. What more could you ask? If it's not still in print, visit every used book sale until you find a copy.

Fine and dandy, you say, but what does all this have to do with the guitar? Not much, that's for sure, but maybe a guitar presence near absolute zero is itself interesting. The themes chosen for inclusion in the book were considered by the compilers to be the 10,000 most important themes in all of music up to 1948, so which, if any, guitar works are represented? Here's the complete list: Tema y Variaciones(on Guardame las Vacas) by Narvaez (actually composed for vihuela); Petite Suite in D Minor by de Visee; and Fandanguillo by Turina. See the extracts in the accompanying figure. Why just these, and no others which were important enough, say, to have been recorded by Segovia before 1948, I can't speculate.

Of course, we can find tons of themes in there which we know well in guitar arrangement - me more than you since I have a thing for well-aged guitar transcriptions. It's interesting to see such a theme placed naturally within its own family of important musical themes created by the same composer.

The Dictionary also includes two chamber works involving guitar: Entr'acte for flute and guitar by Ibert; and two sonatas for violin and guitar by Paganini. It lists 7 works for lute and strings by John Dowland. Finally, I'll round this off with two pieces naming the guitar in the title, but not written for guitar. These are: La Guitarrefor harpsichord by Louis Claude Daquin (d. 1772); and Guitarrefor piano by Moritz Moszkowski (d. 1925.)

-Donald Sauter

Top

home

news
calendar
downloads
articles
about the wgs
announcements
links