This book attempts to provide the reader with a comprehensive view of the musical system of the Mediterranean and the Near East.
It comparatively examines the art music of Arabs and Turks and the music of the Eastern Orthodox Church, known as Byzantine.
A large part of the treatise is dedicated to musical intervals, in an effort to provide a complete picture of views from antiquity to the present day, and to clarify the terms for a contemporary and definitive stance on the subject.
The most important part of the book deals with modal patterns and their function. Specifically, the sounds of Byzantine music and the maqams of Arabs and Turks.
The different systems are presented comparatively so that both their similarities and differences can be discerned.
The material is offered in a form that makes it accessible even to those lacking specialized knowledge, while the theoretical part is documented with an appendix of musical examples from established compositions in the various modal systems examined.