In this one value-priced Bundle you get all four volumes of the Percy Goetschius Serious Composer™ series. These PDF eBooks have been re-published and re-edited from the original editions so that they are laid out for easier reading of the material. These volumes represent four of Dr. Goetschius' major works.
The books in order of study are:
- Elementary 18th-19th Century Counterpoint
- The Homophonic Forms of Musical Composition
- Counterpoint Applied
- The Larger Forms of Musical Composition
All 4 volumes come to 1,345 pages of study!
All the Percy Goetschius books are designed for self-study. Much of the material covered here is beyond what is typically covered in a basic composition degree program. In fact, today, much of this material is graduate level work that you can do on your own!
Click on the links above for more information on each book included in this collection.
A good working knowledge of beginning harmony and counterpoint as covered in Applied Professional Harmony 101 and 102 is recommended to get the most out of the books in this series.
About Percy Goetshcius
Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers & Hammerstein) said that Percy Goetschius was to harmony what Gray was to anatomy. Rodgers should know, as Dr. Goetschius was Richard Rodgers' teacher at the school that later became Juilliard.
Dr. Goetschius' list of students was a true Who's Who of composers - and composers whose lives spanned into the early 21st Century. Included among them are: Richard Rodgers, Howard Hanson, Leo Ornstein, Wallingford Riegger, Samuel Gardner, Arthur Loesser, and more. Outside of Nadia Boulanger, it's doubtful that any other single music teacher has had such a profound impact on his students as Percy Goetschius did.
What we know of Dr. Goetschius was found online through the Passaic County Historical Society, Lambert Castle, in Paterson, NJ, USA.
Percy Goetschius is a native Patersonian who has won international fame in the teaching of the theory of composition. Born in this city in 1853, he was a piano pupil of Robert E. H. Gehring, a prominent teacher of that era. Mr. Goetschius was the organist of the Second Presbyterian Church 1868-1870 and of the First Presbyterian 1870-73, and pianist of Mr. Benson’s Paterson Choral Society. He went to Stuttgart, Wurtenberg, in 1873 to study in the conservatory, and soon advanced to the teaching ranks. The King conferred upon him the title of royal professor. He composed much, and reviewed performances for the press. In 1892 he took a like position in the New England Conservatory, Boston, and four years later opened a studio in that city. In 1905 he went to the staff of the New York Institute of Music and Art, headed by Dr. Frank Damrosch. Prof. Goetschius has published nine textbooks on theory, which are accepted as standards in the musical world.