Piano Music by Women Composers, vol. 2.(Book Review)

Piano Music by Women Composers, Volume II: Women Born After 1900, by Pamela Foungdahl Dees. Praeger Publishers (88 Post Rd., W., Westport, CT 06881), 2004. 306 pp. $94.95.

Piano music by women composers is an all-too-often neglected segment of the repertoire, with innumberable well-crafted, effective works still to be discovered. This volume is an invaluable source for every pianist's reference shelf: Organized in the manner of Maurice Hinson's familiar guides, this book contains information about more than 850 women composers from around the world, born after 1900. In this rather compact, 300-page volume, Pamela Dees has packed brief biographical information, lists of genres for each composer, short style descriptions and lists of works for piano--including harpsichord, piano and tape and 4-hand works. She also provides information about publishers, duration, difficulty and sometimes even websites and e-mail addresses.

Dees personally examined thousands of scores and gives her own description of these works. She also lists additional works by each composer that she did not examine.

As with Hinson's book, the ancilliary information is invaluable. This includes a helpful set of standard abbreviations and source acronyms; contact information of music publishers and agents with addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and websites; a list of 114 bibliographic resources about women composers; ...