Understanding Music by Antony Hopkins
The author shows how Western music has developed over the centuries by beginning with the basics - rhythm, melody and harmony. He explains how the key system works and discusses the principal musical forms such as preludes, fugues, sonata form, sonatas, symphonies and concertos. To illustrate differences in idiom and approaches to composition, he then analyzes movements by five composers, from the 18th century to the early 1990s.