He is best known for his editing of The New Oxford Companion to Music (1983, Oxford University Press), which under his editorship grew to a two-volume work of some 2000 pages, with a broader coverage than Percy Scholes' original; and for his work on the music of Monteverdi, Marenzio and Giovanni Gabrieli. A frequent broadcaster, he also reviewed a great many recordings (mostly in the field of Renaissance music) for Gramophone. The Denis Arnold Hall at the University of Oxford and the Denis Arnold Music Library at the University of Nottingham are both named after him.[citation needed]
Arnold died on 28 April 1986 in Budapest, Hungary.[1]