Robert O. Gjerdingen: Child Composers in the Old Conservatories: How Orphans Became Elite Musicians Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. ISBN 978–0–19–065359–0. 355 pp. €28.50.

Robert Gjerdingen scarcely needs any introduction. His 2007 book, Music in the Galant Style, has already become a classic, and his study of "schemas"—fixed, recognizable, and replicable musical patterns in the galant style—has had a profound influence on music-theoretical discourse. It has gained broad currency, and not just among music theorists and musicologists, for its holistic treatment of musical phrases attracts many non-specialists. The schemas discussed by Gjerdingen offer excellent tools for keyboard improvisation and are clearly recognizable from listening to eighteenth-century music in particular. […]