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Teaching Music History.

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Edited by Mary Natvig. Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2002. [xiii, 268 p. ISBN 0-7546-0129-3. $69.95.] Bibliography, index.

The aspiring musicologist, having completed a doctorate, faces the prospect--seemingly becoming grimmer from year to year--of finding full-time employment as a college instructor. The irony of the situation is that whereas graduate programs in musicology strive to produce world-class scholars, their dedication to pedagogy is typically negligible. This priority is misplaced to the extent that teachers just entering the field risk finding themselves woefully unprepared when confronted with the range of challenges incumbent upon developing and delivering their first actual course. And while a few useful pedagogical guides do exist, notably Gilbert Highet's The Art of Teaching (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950; reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1989) and The Art and Craft of Teaching, ed. Margaret Morganroth Gullette (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, 1982), they are not directed to any specific discipline. Given the prevailing conditions, then, the need for a monograph such as the one under consideration was manifest, and frankly I am surprised that it took so long for a book dedicated solely to this topic finally to appear.

According to the editor, Mary Natvig, the sixteen contributions were "written from a variety of perspectives" by a group of "traditionally...

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