Rating: 
Summary: I think we need a new book on this subject.
Review: This much quoted (and somewhat overrated) book aims at a thorough exposition of the Viennese Classical era, mainly for the lay fan. The goal is obviously laudable, and there are no other similar volumes around, which perhaps partially explains the book's fame. (Rosen's framework does owe a major debt to Tovey's writing, now hard to find.) The book discusses the elements of classical forms and their partial history, and the prevailing cultural climate, but downplays the influence of other composers, and oversimplifies in its distillation of the essence of the style. Due to the ambitious breadth of material, the book's contents - with a few notable exceptions - remain shallow, at least in the view of someone fairly familiar with both the music and the basic theory as presented in this book. Rosen does sprinkle perceptive remarks throughout, but also too often engages in the typical ramblings of a fan (okay, of an exceptionally well educated fan): Rosen makes pronouncements rather than substantiates his points. Many are pretty much unsubtantiable or bafflingly meaningless anyway - e.g. "Mozart's music is the most sinful music ever composed." (An objective quantitative measure for tuneful sinfulness will hopefully never become anyone's thesis topic.) Since Rosen hardly ever offers serious evidence for his rather sweeping generalizations, a newcomer to the music may not be able to distinguish between more universally accepted assessments and those strongly based on the author's individual taste. (Hint: all the many superlatives in the book are in the latter category!) In addition, there are some dubious technical points, and Rosen engages in a certain amount of standard mythologizing about the composers. So actually, on closer inspection, there's a surprising amount of sloppy thinking in this book. The basic point of view is that of a unifying classicist's. Rosen ends up more or less equating classical style with 'music with a certain dramatic logic', a huge generalization. Rosen sounds perhaps superficially quite impressive, for instance in discussing the tension created by structural key changes in sonata form. But the book never progresses beyond these basics, readily obtainable from any decent course on the subject. So the reader is left with only a vague understanding of the real techniques used by these composers to produce their effects - whether dramatic in aim or not. (A plain tonic-dominant change in itself doesn't make for a particularly interesting composition.) Rosen also dismisses music not convenient for his definitions, thus somewhat shortchanging Haydn and Beethoven, compulsive innovators both. For example, Beethoven's early period, which contains a wide variety of original, characteristic, often humorous works, and includes some true masterpieces, is ignored as "classicizing" or purely imitative - a strangely tin-eared (and hackneyed) viewpoint. To me by far the finest sections are the relatively few pages devoted to extended analyses, notably late Beethoven piano sonatas. Here, Rosen avoids generalizations and gets deeper into the music, and these analyses can be quite valuable. (For example, Rosen discusses the true culmination point of the first movement of Op. 106, noticeably missed even by some great pianists.) This book can be read as an introduction to an era, though the limitations of its presentation make it an iffy choice for those who want a more complete picture. (I would also supplement the initial basic concepts sections.) A better version of this book, with fewer vague statements and opinions, and a steadier concentration on truly explaining the music, would be a great achievement.
Rating: 
Summary: inspiring
Review: After I read Mr. Rosen's book, I started to listen the Viennese Composers with greater insight. The word classical gained fuller meaning with the introduction of the literary, fine arts and the thinking style of the period. The study of this large scale point of view gave fuller directions to my interpretation of the Viennese Composers. It's a must for all performers who are to become interpreters rather than mere players.
Rating:
Summary: Tough sledding, but worth it
Review: As a music lover with a superficial knowledge of the technical aspects of music-making, I found this book to be a real challenge. It took me several attempts over the course of a couple of years to get through it. But having expended that effort, I can say that every minute was worth it. I now have a good understanding of what "classical" music (in the stricter definition of "classical") is about, and why its three great Viennese exponents were such masters. I now can listen classical music -- indeed, to any common-practice period music -- with much more insight, understanding, and enjoyment than I could heretofore.
Rating:
Summary: first rate!
Review: Charles Rosen at his best, discussing the music of Haydn, Mozart and the big B. I've read it twice and will continue to reread it for the rest of my life.
Rating:
Summary: Classic writing about Classical music
Review: Charles Rosen by now has attained a place among musical analysts on a par with the likes of Tovey and Grout, though his style is very different from either of these luminaries. Taking the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as the pinnacle of the musical style that developed in the late eighteenth-century, Rosen explains how around 1775 there was a decisive shift away from the High Baroque style of Bach and Handel, and why this new music was different. After his general introduction to the style most of the book explores different genres, symphony, opera, concerto and string quartet among them, to create a lucid and multi-faceted picture of how these three great composers approached and solved common musical and formal problems. The new edition adds a preface that addresses criticisms of the original book and an additional late chapter on Beethoven. Rosen's writing, though it can be dense and repetitive, at its best is unmatched in its ability to relate analysis to what actually is heard by a listener. To this end, an ability to read and understand the copious and detailed musical examples is essential to fully grasping his points--this book is not for the casual amateur. But to those willing to do the work, The Classical Style remains as richly rewarding after three-plus decades as when it first appeared. As another reviewer has mentioned, it is a book one returns to again and again simply for the sheer pleasure of reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Rosen's The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
Review: I am not a Classical Music Expert but I am slowly learning it (most of my book reviews are in mathematics and physics). One of the reviewers criticizes Rosen for some technical reasons that I cannot evaluate. However, I do know that many universities recommend Rosen's book, so the critic is not entirely without his own critics. I find this book endlessly engrossing, as some of the reviewers have. You cannnot come away from this book without understanding many of the main differences between and among Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and between Classical, Baroque, and Romance music. I was especially interested to find that Beethoven, widely touted as an immoral person in some of the popular media, was in fact a person of great moral character (and the popular impression of Mozart seems to be wrong too, although there is less information on this). Those who believe that creative genius is stimulated by severe suffering (Beethoven, Van Gogh in art, Godel in mathematical logic, Galileo in physics and astronomy, etc.) will find much material in this book that seems to indicate the accuracy of this theory more or less. This is also a book that tells you what Haydn learned from Mozart and Mozart from Haydn, what Beethoven thought of Mozart and Schubert, what classical music learned from Baroque music and so on.
Rating:
Summary: Rosen's The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
Review: I am not a Classical Music Expert but I am slowly learning it (most of my book reviews are in mathematics and physics). One of the reviewers criticizes Rosen for some technical reasons that I cannot evaluate. However, I do know that many universities recommend Rosen's book, so the critic is not entirely without his own critics. I find this book endlessly engrossing, as some of the reviewers have. You cannnot come away from this book without understanding many of the main differences between and among Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and between Classical, Baroque, and Romance music. I was especially interested to find that Beethoven, widely touted as an immoral person in some of the popular media, was in fact a person of great moral character (and the popular impression of Mozart seems to be wrong too, although there is less information on this). Those who believe that creative genius is stimulated by severe suffering (Beethoven, Van Gogh in art, Godel in mathematical logic, Galileo in physics and astronomy, etc.) will find much material in this book that seems to indicate the accuracy of this theory more or less. This is also a book that tells you what Haydn learned from Mozart and Mozart from Haydn, what Beethoven thought of Mozart and Schubert, what classical music learned from Baroque music and so on.
Rating: 
Summary: A good introduction into the evolution of the classical styl
Review: The author does an impressive job of showing how the classical style of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven evolved from the musical chaos following the high baroque period. Perhaps giving too little credit to transitional composers who blazed the trail for these three geniuses, Rosen intersperses analysis with superlatives that at times is useful but at other times seems more like hero worship.
I found some parts particularly fascinating, such as the comparison between a work by Haydn and C.P.E. Bach. Certainly when the analysis was complete, you could see why Haydn's art was more rational and complete, however Rosen's dismissal of C.P.E. Bach's work as incoherent was somewhat off base in my opinion because the styles and goals of the two composers were not synonymous.
Though I didn't always agree with the author's conclusions, this book is still the best out there that I have read on the subject and is well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Great Place to Start
Review: This book stimulated my interest in trying to figure out how music works more than anything else I have ever read. Sure, it is not the latest word, the most comprehensive or closely argued, but to get the interested amatuer started down the path of analysis of musical forms, why it sounds good, and what the big three Classical Era composers did to create a large chunk of our western musical heritage, this is the place to start. Rosen steered me toward many, many other books, cited in his bibliography and notes, on related topics, such as sonata form, how it works and does not. Sure, scholars can quibble and somebody else could and should write a followup to answer the complaints, but until then, Rosen is the place to start. His other books are just as good, but not as enjoyable. Dense, you bet, but worth it.
Rating:
Summary: If this is a three star book what's a five star book?
Review: This is a beautifully written and illustrated book on a noble subject. On the basis of that rarity alone it deserves five stars.
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