I received this book as a Christmas gift approximately 30 years ago. I never read it from cover to cover. But by consistently reading sections of it over time, I estimate that I have probably covered 70% or 80% of the complete text.
The first thing that I noticed was a richness of illustrations that I had not seen when reading about the same composers in other books.
I also had only really learned about composers from jacket notes on LP covers. Nothing wrong with those, but the editing was different in ways I cannot precisely describe.

...

I just walked over to the book case and picked up my copy. I looked at the inscription I entered on the fly leaf. It was received by me in December 1978, from Dr. Donald Betts, former professor of physics at the University of Alberta, and later Dean of Arts and Sciences at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The binding is of superior quality as this heavy book is still in optimum condition after 32 years. And, believe me, it has had some rough handling over that length of time.

I see that the book is not designated as a translation of a French work, but rather that it is a new English work, "based on" the other French work.

Again, as you might see in my other reviews, I am reviewing a number of books from my collection that were read many years ago, as a preliminary activity to actually going back and reading them all (or some of them.) ( )