Published by Oxford University Press in 2005, it is a six-volume work on the various significant periods of Western music and their characteristic qualities, events and composition styles.

Oxford University Press had previously published narrative histories of music, although Taruskin's was the first sole author work, spanning over 4000 pages.

"[9] The Oxford History of Music was first published in six volumes under the general editorship of Sir Henry Hadow between 1901 and 1905.

[10] The first two, written by H. E. Woolridge (who had been appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford in 1895), were entitled The Polyphonic Period and began with the music of ancient Greece.

The New Oxford History of Music, initially produced under the general editorship of Sir Jack Westrup, began to appear in 1954 and was finally completed (with Volume IX) in 1990.