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Michael Thomas Roeder. A History of the Concerto. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1994. 480 pp. ISBN 0-931340-61-6 (hardcover). This book constitutes the first full-length study in English of the history of the concerto since Abraham Veinus's book, The Concerto, appeared in 1948. It goes without saying that Veinus's book has needed replacing for a very long time and so the present publication is most welcome. Two related questions confront any author who undertakes to chart the development of a genre from its inception to the present day. The first, "For whom is the book intended?", will determine the depth of coverage. The second, "What works will be included/excluded?", will determine its scope. The answers to these questions are, with respect to the present volume, not easy to ascertain. Roeder feels it is necessary to define terms like homophonic and hemiola, to explain the use of Roman numerals to denote scale degrees, and to explain that a clarinet is a single-reed instrument. On the same page that hemiola is defined, it is taken for granted that the reader knows what "chains of 2-3 suspensions" and "Phrygian cadences" are. It is further assumed that such observations as "the final chord, the dominant, is approached by the subdominant chord in first inversion, resulting in the characteristic bass movement of a descending semitone from the minor sixth scale degree to the dominant" will be understood (p. 30). A few pages later, it is assumed that the reader is aware of the distinction between diatonic and chromatic sequences. It seems to me that the reader able to cope with suspensions, modal and tonal cadences, and diatonic and chromatic sequences, should know what homophony and hemiola are. Conversely, if homophony is a new concept, then probably so are suspensions, minor sixth scale degrees, and chromatic sequences. And here in a nutshell is the problem; when things are kept interesting for the music student or professional musician, more casual readers will be hopelessly left behind. When terms and concepts are explained for the casual reader, students and others are apt to become bored. In trying to be all things to all people, the book ends up satisfying no one completely. To be told on page 103 that the term "dynamics" refer to "the relative volume of sound" is downright silly. No one is going to make it through 100 pages into this sort of book without knowing what "dynamics" means. The emphasis in the early parts of the book on relatively obscure composers is gratifying, except that the same kind of attention is not given to parallel composers from the nineteenth century. Minor composers, such as Leonardo Leo (1694-1744), who Roeder admits "is unlikely [to have] exerted any influence on contemporary or succeeding composers" (p. 30), and who is inexplicably omitted from the index, Pietro Nardini (1722-1793), Pierre Gavinies (1728-1800) and G. M. Giornovichi (c. 1740-1804) each receive their own little sections in the chapter on the early Classical concerto. Even still lesser lights, like Ludwig A. Lebrun (1752-1790) and Jean-Baptiste Sebastien Brevai (1753-1823) rate a mention. In the early Romantic era, Roeder manages to mention Weber's Six Variations on a Folksong for Viola, the Grand Potpourri for Cello and Andante e Rondo Ungaresefor Viola (and later arranged for bassoon), which he characterizes as "in the main, shallow in substance and lacking in any significant redeeming musical qualities" (p. 217). This assessment seems rather harsh, but so be it. What is disconcerting is that, in finding room to mention these pieces, and in devoting an entire page to Schumann's Violin Concerto (although its last movement only gets one sentence) or three pages to Dvorak's Violin Concerto, Roeder overlooks some important works of enduring value; Dohnânyi's Variations on a Nursery Song, for example, is not mentioned. Moreover, to mention the Serenade melancolique and ValseScherzo of Tchaikovsky is fine, but not at the expense of the structurally fascinating Concert Fantasy for piano and orchestra, which is not even listed, let alone discussed. …