Review of Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, Anthology for Analysis and Performance (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Mary H. Wennerstrom · Music Theory Online · 2013
1] Anthologies of musical scores for use in theory classes (as distinct from music history classes) have at least a fifty-year publishing history.One of the earliest, Charles Burkhart's Anthology for Musical Analysis, appeared first in 1964, and was arranged chronologically.It included works from the late seventeenth century (Purcell) to the middle of the twentieth century (Babbitt), and was soon integrated firmly into the undergraduate curricula of many schools.After a decade or more of use, instructors began to worry that music students would know only a prescribed canon of musical compositions: heavy on piano repertoire with sonata form best modeled by the piano sonatas of Beethoven (particularly the first movement of op.53, "Waldstein") and with the nineteenth-century character piece best represented by Brahms's Intermezzo in A major, op.118, no. 2.[2] Subsequent anthologies, and later editions of the Burkhart anthology, broadened the scope of repertoire to include music by women, examples from jazz and the popular music repertoire, and an expanded chronology: as far back as plainchant and as current as 2000 and beyond.Anthologies also grouped works by form and/or contrapuntal procedure, and arranged excerpts by harmonic content.Selected anthologies and editions published in the last ten years are listed at the end of this review.[3] One of the newest anthologies is Matthew Bribitzer-Stull's Anthology for Analysis and Performance (hereafter AAP), for use in the theory classroom.The author's purposes are made clear in a Preface for the Instructor: the compositions included broaden the types of medium and genre by including a wide range of instrumental music and deemphasizing piano, string quartets, and lieder.Bribitzer-Stull believes that the vast majority of his selections can be performed live in class, requiring "only the performing forces and technical abilities present among students in freshman and sophomore theory courses" (xiv).Such live musical experiences can facilitate reciprocal analytical and performance insights.[4] Bribitzer-Stull has assembled a huge number of examples, which are presented basically in chronological order.Example