• 8,000 entries, ranging from brief definitions to in-depth essays
• over 1,000 new entries
• almost all entries rewritten or updated
• the classic reference book for the amateur, the professional, and the student
• over 150 expert contributors, including the top authorities in their fields
• places music in its social and cultural context, with a range of new entries on topics such as politics, religion, psychology, and computers
• up to date with current research in and approaches to music, including analysis, theory, ethnomusicology, and performance practice
• includes jazz, popular music, and dance

The Oxford Companion to Music is one of the most famous music reference works of all time. This invaluable Companion now reappears in a completely new edition. Over a million words in length, it is the biggest, most authoritative, and most up to date single-volume music reference book available. The new edition draws on both the classic Oxford Companion to Music by Percy Scholes, first published in 1938, and the two-volume New Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Denis Arnold (1983), but is thoroughly revised and reimagined for the 21st century.

Alison Latham has assembled a distinguished team of over 120 international contributors, bringing their distinctive voices to an exceptionally broad sweep of musical subjects ranging from composers, performers, conductors, individual works, instruments and notation, and forms and genres, to music scholarship and aesthetics, music education, broadcasting and publishing, all aspects of music theory, and performance practice, as well as jazz, popular music, and dance. Entries range from brief definitions to in-depth essays on subjects such as politics, religion, psychology, and computers. This is a comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible source of information on all aspects of Western music.