[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][excessive citations] Brook received his master's degree from Columbia University, where he studied with Paul Henry Lang, Erich Hertzmann (1902–1963), Hugh Ross, and Roger Sessions, in 1942; he received the doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1959.
In 1984, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique asked him to design a new doctoral program in musicology at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
He served as editor of a facsimile edition of the Breitkopf Thematic Catalogues (New York, 1966), an important source for the identification and dating of 18th-century compositions.
Although he was known principally for his work in classical music, in the later years of his life Brook became fascinated with ethnomusicology.
He also founded the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation in 1989, which was named after him upon his death.