Gordon Cox and Robin Stevens state in their editorial introduction that this collection of historical accounts aims to ‘enrich our understanding of the ways in which music can act as a powerful educational force and also question our taken-for-granted pedagogies and our assumptions about the place of music in compulsory schooling’ (p. 1). All too often, they assert, music educators are bound in their thinking by national boundaries, assuming that the aims and practices of music in schools are universal, when this is far from the case. Music education has a wide variety of meanings in contemporary practice, and still more in its historical incarnations, and this book goes a long way towards enabling researchers around the world to understand one another's perspectives and so engage in more effective global debate.

The task of assembling historical accounts of music education around the world is fraught with political and cultural sensitivities, and the authors have handled these with care. From their positions in England and Australia respectively, Cox and Stevens acknowledge ‘the influence of the political ideologies of colonialism and nationalism on the aims and content of the music curriculum’ (p. 4). Throughout the book, the tension between national identity and colonial influences is a recurring theme, with choice of song repertoire, particularly, often being a vehicle for cultural and religious values in education. In their chapter on music in Norway, for instance, Bjørntad and Espeland attribute the slow development of music education before 1960 to ‘the prevailing notion of music and singing as scaffolding activities for the building of identity and the support of religious education rather than as an intrinsically valuable subject in its own right’ (p. 88). Marie McCarthy illustrates a similar appropriation of music in Ireland after political independence in 1921, as a subject ‘vital to the core agenda of reviving the Irish language and promoting a Catholic ethos’ (p. 72). Her observation that ‘music rides the waves with the values that dominate schooling and society’ (p. 73) is a useful premise for interpreting many of the other chapters in the book.

Another theme identified in the introductory chapter is the status of music, both within the school curriculum and in the provision of teacher education. Across centuries and countries, there have been sometimes limited ambitions for music in the curriculum, with an early emphasis on singing and notation being common to all the countries represented here. Indeed, the interesting divergences between countries emerge most clearly at the point where they began to build upon or deviate from the centrality of singing in the music curriculum, embracing the new technology of the gramophone and radio, and incorporating to varying degrees a new focus on playing or creating music. Some descriptions transcend time and place and will seem worryingly familiar to many readers, such as this account of France in the 1920s: ‘Music education in schools had survived major political and social changes but despite recognition of [its] extra-musical benefits, its status in the curriculum remained tenuous and its methods and practices lacked universal acceptance’ (p. 32). The concluding sentences of chapters offer differing levels of optimism about an improvement to this situation: Nancy Voglan celebrates the diversity of Canadian music education (p. 119), while Wilfried Gruhn fears the reduction of music provision in German elementary schools as it becomes subsumed within ‘aesthetic education’ (p. 57). The snapshots of contemporary practice with which the chapters close are inevitably brief, and not the main purpose of the book, but they are another useful reminder of the many different practices which are meant by the term ‘music education’, and that can sometimes lead to researchers talking at cross purposes with international colleagues.

While many chapter authors express concerns about inadequate levels of teacher education, particularly for primary school generalists, the commitment and imagination of teachers is a strong feature in the development of music education across countries and generations. Gabriel Rusinek and Susan Sarfson present Spain's history as ‘a journey from a nominal towards a universally implemented curriculum’ (p. 91), showing that revisions to curriculum documents were largely ineffective until the employment status of teachers was improved in the 1980s. The editors point out (p. 9) that making such distinctions between the documented curriculum and the realities of classroom life becomes harder when discussing 19th century practices; the chapter on Australian education by Robin Stevens and Jane Southcott is highlighted as providing insightful source material – and the photographs and archive material of this chapter are indeed fascinating, as is the assertion that music was viewed as an antidote to the decadence of the convict-populated goldfields. School inspectors in 1860s New South Wales considered that ‘school music preserved morals, offered innocent amusement and had a cheerful effect on all endeavours’ (p. 177). Even Stevens’ and Southcott's meticulous archive research cannot uncover what the children of the time thought of such educational aims – or their effect on the stabilising of the goldfield population – though the school band photographed in white hats and jackets certainly look the model of propriety.

This book is a dense read, with inevitable repetition of themes between chapters, and variation in the extent to which the historical accounts are closely referenced or engagingly narrated. Extensive reference lists are provided for each chapter, and there is a useful index which allows for the tracing of common ideas across different countries. The collection is therefore an invaluable tool for the researcher, offering insight on historical developments, most obviously, but also on philosophical questions of the nature and purpose of music education, and political and sociological debates about the wider social contexts of institutional learning. I hope that the book will also be read not just by those who already know that they have an interest in the historical foundations of music education, but by anyone with a commitment to providing high quality music in schools. The insight provided by the book's authors and editors on how and why music has been taught in many different places and times has much to say to contemporary researchers and practitioners, and makes a real contribution to increasing international understanding of what it means to teach and learn music.