This first full-length study of Telemann's concertos, sonatas, and suites focuses on his imaginative mixing of styles and genres. Special attention is also devoted to the extra musical meanings and humor of his programmatic overture-suites, his unprecedented self-publishing enterprise, and the social resonances of his Polish-style works.
Teachers and flutists at all levels have praised Nancy Toff'sThe Flute Book, a unique one-stop guide to the flute and its music. Organized into four main parts--The Instrument, Performance, The Music, and Repertoire Catalog--the book begins with a description of the instrument and its making, offers information on choosing and caring for a flute, sketches a history of the flute, and discusses differences between members of the flute family. In the Performance section, readers learn about breathing, tone, vibrato, articulation, technique, style, performing, and recording. In the extensive analysis of flute literature that follows, Toff places individual pieces in historical context. The book ends with a comprehensive catalog of solo and chamber repertoire, and includes appendices with fingering charts as well as lists of current flute manufacturers, repair shops, sources for flute music and books, and flute clubs and related organizations worldwide. In this Third Edition, Toff has updated the book to reflect technology's advancements--like new digital recording technology and recordings' more prevalent online availability--over the last decade. She has also accounted for new scholarship on baroque literature; recent developments such as the contrabass flute, quarter-tone flute, and various manufacturing refinements and experiments; consumers' purchase prices for flutes; and a thoroughly updated repertoire catalog and appendices.
"Choral Repertoire is the definitive and comprehensive one-volume presentation of the most significant composers and compositions of choral music from the Western Hemisphere throughout recorded history. The book is designed for multiple uses-as a programming guide for practicing conductors, instructional resource for students and teachers of choral music, historic and stylistic reference for choral singers, and source of information about composers and compositions for choral enthusiasts-and as such, the book intends to further and make accessible important information relevant to the vast scope of choral music. Organized by era (Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Modern), Choral Repertoire covers general characteristics of each historical era, trends and styles unique to various countries, biographical sketches of more than six hundred composers, and performance annotations of more than five thousand individual works. Of the composers, there is substantive coverage of women and composers of color, and of the repertoire, there is inclusion of lesser-known works as well as those works that are considered standard"--
The first book to offer a complete introduction to the recorder includes basic reference material previously unavailable in one volume. A special feature is the rich collection of illustrations which in themselves provide a history of the instrument.
The concertos of Vivaldi, Bach, Handel and their contemporaries are some of the most popular, and the most frequently performed, pieces of classical music; and the assumption has always been they were full orchestral works. This book takes issue with this orthodox opinion to argue quite the reverse: that contemporaries regarded the concerto as chamber music. The author surveys the evidence, from surviving printed and manuscript performance material, from concerts throughout Europe between 1685 and 1750 (the heyday of the concerto), demonstrating that concertos were nearly always played one-to-a-part at that time. He makes a particularly close study of the scoring of the bass line, discussing the question of what instruments were most appropriate and what was used when. The late Dr RICHARD MAUNDER was Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.
A History of the Concerto may be read from cover to cover, but readers may also use the extensive index to focus on specific concertos and their composers. Numerous musical examples illuminate critical points. While some readers may want to study the more detailed analyses with scores in hand, this is not essential for an understanding of the text.