Books on Composers' style?

[konstantinos]

Hello. I'm new here and I'm seeking any help to something I'm searching.

Can anyone recommend what are the best musicological books on specific composers' overall style and composing techniques?
I mean a book which describes a composer's stylistic features in different aspects of his music, and that includeds many musical examples and analyses.
eg. in MELODY he does this and this and that.
in HARMONY his characteristics are these and those..
in RHYTHM and so on...

I'm interested in tonal composers from classical to early 20th century..
Thank you!

[vinteuil]

Sure, there are plenty. A good general history, BTW, would be Crocker's A History of Musical Style.

Oftentimes biography is paired with analysis of works. For stylistic analysis alone, one has to search a little harder. I know that this falls outside of your parameters, but Tomlinson's Monteverdi and the End of the Renaissance is mostly analytical, and a really wonderful job of it too.

I'm only going to recommend books that I've actually read. In general, these books will be called "The Music of -----"
Elliott Antokoletz' book The Music of Béla Bartók / A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music is a brilliant exposé of Bartók's style and composition. The level of analysis is rather in-depth, but not too intense.
Michael Musgrave's The Music of Brahms is a highly readable work that contains nice analyses of all of Brahms' major works.
David Schiff's The Music of Elliott Carter is a wonderful read (both editions, which differ completely from one another). The analysis isn't terribly difficult to understand, and the scope is almost all-encompassing (at least at the time of its writing).
Jim Samson's The Music of Chopin is an in-depth look at Chopin's style that I found enlightening.
Pieter van den Toorn's The Music of Igor Stravinsky is a very intense essay in Schenkerian analysis applied to post-tonal music. Well worth the effort.
Jonathan Bernard's The Music of Edgard Varèse is the most intense analytical work I've ever read, but extremely well-written and very very helpful in understanding the music. These last two are from a series from Yale that includes books on Berg, Gershwin, Ives, Scriabin, and Webern. The editorial board included Babbitt, Berry, Dahlhaus, Forte, Lewin, and Pousseur.

I've had Kyle Gan's book on Nancarrow recommended to me. Also, Cambridge has a brilliant series—Music in the 20th Century—encompassing such composers as Takemitsu and Andriessen.

Hope this helps!

[konstantinos]

Thank you very much for the recommendations.
I saw some preview of the books you mentioned; the Bela Bartok one seems along the lines I was interested in. (although is focusing on harmony from what I've understood?)
Some others (like the Brahms) are analysing specific works which isn't what I had in mind.

I'm interested in the general results that come from analysing one composer's overall work, and the description of those traits that characterize his style.
I found a few hours ago an article about Moussorgsky's Musical Style that is almost exactly what i'm looking for, but unfortunately it's just an article ( I mean I'm looking for something like this but to the extent of a book).
Here it is. there is a free pdf of it.

http://mq.oxfordjournals.org/search?sub ... mit=Search

[konstantinos]

I wonder how good is this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovskys-Musi ... 0835718069

has anyone read it? too bad I can't find a preview anywhere..