Keyboard Instruments in Eighteenth-century Vienna
Keyboard Instruments in Eighteenth-century Vienna

Author: C. R. F. Maunder

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780198166375

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Although eighteenth-century Viennese keyboard music, especially by such composers as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, is among the most popular ever written, there has been surprisingly little serious research into the instruments for which it was composed. This book fills that gap. Based on evidence from primary source material, much of it previously undiscovered or neglected, Maunder traces the history and development of the various keyboard instruments available in Vienna throughout the eighteenth century--harpsichords, clavichords, and pianos--and their use by composers and performers.

German Music Criticism in the Late Eighteenth Century
German Music Criticism in the Late Eighteenth Century

Author: Mary Sue Morrow

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1997-09-18

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 052158227X

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Music aesthetics in late eighteenth-century Germany has always been problematic because there was no aesthetic theory to evaluate the enormous amount of high-quality instrumental music produced by composers like Haydn and Mozart. This book derives a practical aesthetic for German instrumental music during the late eighteenth century from a previously neglected source, reviews of printed instrumental works. At a time when the theory of mimesis dominated aesthetic thought, leaving sonatas and symphonies at the very bottom of the aesthetic hierarchy, a group of reviewers were quietly setting about the task of evaluating instrumental music on its own terms. The reviews document an intersection with trends in literature and philosophy, and reveal interest in criteria like genius, the expressive power of music, and the necessity of unity, several decades earlier than has previously been supposed.