This work serves as a comprehensive reference guide designed to catalog and analyze the historical development, composers, and specific compositions within the chamber music repertoire. Colin Mason, building upon the original foundation established by Walter Willson Cobbett, provides a systematic survey that organizes vast amounts of musical data into an accessible format. The text functions as a scholarly repository, documenting the evolution of chamber music forms and the contributions of various composers across international borders.

Experts and musicologists frequently cite this set as a foundational reference for historical chamber music research. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which remains a standard resource for those studying the development of the genre through the early twentieth century.