Phaidon has published six volumes devoted to 20th-century composers, and lurking amid such expected names as Stravinsky and Bartok are the Beatles. The books are $19.95 apiece, well-bound and well-illustrated, and written by very good critics such as Alan Rich and Alan Kozinn. The series would seem to be grievously flawed by not including a separate volume for Charles Ives - he's lumped in with a bunch of mostly awful others in a volume titled "American Pioneers."
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One could also call into question the absence of Gershwin, although a future volume could take care of that problem. The summer of '96 will see additional volumes on jazz, minimalists and, in a very pleasant surprise, Erich Wolfgang Korngold.- Scott Eyman