Using the Guide
ARRANGEMENT OF ENTRIES
In the “Individual Composers” section, all composers are listed alphabetically. Sometimes biographies and/or stylistic comments follow the composer's name and dates of birth and death. Under each composer's name, individual compositions are listed by opus number, or by title, or by musical form, or by a combination of the three. The entries in the “Anthologies and Collections” section include the editor or compiler, the publisher, the composers, and sometimes the titles represented in the collection.
Descriptions have been limited to general style characteristic, form, particular and unusual qualities, interpretative suggestions, and pianistic problems inherent in the music. Editorial procedures found in a particular edition are mentioned. The term “large span” is used when a span larger than an octave is required in a piece, and that occurs in many works written after 1900. “Octotonic” refers to lines moving in the same direction one or more octaves apart. “Shifting meters” indicates that varied time signatures are used within the space mentioned (a few bars, a movement, the entire work). “Proportional rhythmic relationships,” e.g., 
, indicates five notes are to be played in the time space for four. “Three with two” means three notes in one voice are played with (against) two notes in another voice. “Chance music” (aleatory, aleatoric) is described or mentioned, not analyzed, since it has no definitely ordered sequence of events. “Synthetic scale(s)” are created by the composer whose work is being discussed; the range may be less than one octave. “Stochastic techniques” refers to “a probabilistic compositional method, introduced by Iannis Xenakis, in which the overall contours of sound are specified but the inner details are left to random or chance selection” (DCM, p. 708).
GRADING
An effort has been made to grade representative works of each composer. Four broad categories are used: Easy, Intermediate (Int.), Moderately Difficult (M-D), and Difficult (D). The following standard works will serve as a guide to the grading:
| Easy: | Bach, dance movements from the Anna Magdalena Notebook Leopold Mozart, Notebook for Wolfgang Schumann, easier pieces from Album for the Young Bartók, Mikrokosmos, Vols. I–II |
| Int.: | Bach, Twelve Little Preludes and Fugues Beethoven, Ecossaises Mendelssohn, Children's Pieces Op. 72 Bartók, Rumanian Folk Dances 1–5 |
| M-D: | Bach, French Suites, English Suites Mozart, Sonatas Brahms, Rhapsody Op. 79/2 Debussy, La Soirée dans Grenade |
| D: | Bach, Partitas Beethoven, Sonata Op. 57 Chopin, Etudes Barber, Sonata |
These categories must not be taken too strictly but are only given for general indications of technical and interpretative difficulties.
DETAILS OF ENTRIES
When known, the date of composition is given after the title of the work. Then, in parentheses, are as many of the following as apply to the particular work: the editor, the publisher, the publisher's edition number, and the copyright date. When more than one edition is available, the editions are generally listed in order of preference, the most desirable first. The number of pages and the performance time are frequently listed, the latter always being a relative figure. The compositions' spellings appear as they do on the music being described, though in a few instances these have been corrected when multiple editions of the same work appear. Specifically related books, dissertations or theses, and periodical articles are listed following individual compositions or at the conclusion of the discussion of a composer's works (a more extended bibliography appears at the end of the book).
SAMPLE ENTRIES AND EXPLANATIONS
C. P. E. Bach
Six Sonatas 1761 Wq 51 (J. Rose—TP 1973).
1761 is the year of composition; Wq 51 stands for Wotquenne (the catalogue of C. P. E. Bach's music) and the number he assigned the pieces. J. Rose is the editor. Theodore Presser is the publisher, and 1973 is the publication date.
Franz Schubert
Four Impromptus Op. 90 D.899 (Badura-Skoda—VU 50001, includes pencil sketch of No.1; Ferguson—ABRSM; Buonamici—K). M-D.
Op. 90 is the opus number. D.899 stands for Deutsch (the cataloguer of Schubert's music) and the number he has assigned the pieces. There are three separate publications of the collection: Badura-Skoda, Ferguson, and Buonamici are the editors for Vienna Urtext, the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, and Kalmus publications respectively. The Vienna Urtext edition includes a pencil sketch of Impromptu No.1, and 50001 is its edition number. M-D means Moderately Difficult.
Milton Babbitt
Playing for Time 1977 (in Twelve by Eleven, Alfred) 12pp. 22 min. D.
The date of composition is 1977; the publisher is Alfred. The piece is contained in the collection Twelve by Eleven; it is twelve pages long; it is approximately twenty-two minutes in duration; and it is classified as Difficult. Other pieces in the collection can be checked by looking in the American section of “Anthologies and Collections” under the title Twelve by Eleven.
OTHER ASSISTANCE
See “Abbreviations” for terms, publishers, books, and periodicals referred to in the text; and the directories “American Agent or Parent Companies of Music Publishers” and “Addresses of Music Publishers” to locate publishers. Three special indexes—“Alphabetical List of Composers under Nationality Designations,” “Compositions for Piano and Live or Recorded Electronics,” and “Compositions for Prepared Piano”—direct the user to entries in the text for music in these categories.