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Here is a list of essential books that deal with general music theory. Some of these books are used as textbooks in college courses. Some books deal with broad music theory and others with specific elements such as form or music analysis. Please contact me if you have written a review on any of these books and would like to share it as a guest blog post.
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Tonal Harmony by Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne, and Byron Almén.
Guidelines for Style Analysis by Jan LaRue.
Sonata Forms by Charles Rosen.
Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata by James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy.
Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven by William E. Caplin.
