In this book, Michael Steinberg discusses over 120 works, ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1720s to John Adams in 1994. Readers will find here the heart of the standard repertory, among them Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, eighteen of Mozart's piano concertos, all the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, and major works by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Bruch, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Elgar, Sibelius, Strauss, and Rachmaninoff.

The book also provides luminous introductions to the achievement of twentieth-century masters such as Arnold Schoenberg, Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Sergei Prokofiev, Aaron Copland, and Elliott Carter.