This handbook, an entirely new work, is not simply another guide to the performance of music of the past; it is, rather, a book about the study of past performance. Each main section - Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Twentieth Century - contains an introduction dealing with contexts of performance as well as sources and theory. This is followed by detailed discussions of vocal and instrumental performance.
Listeners, performers, students and teachers will find here the analytical tools they need to understand and interpret musical evidence from the baroque era. Scores for eleven works, many reproduced in facsimile to illustrate the conventions of 17th and 18th century notation, are included for close study. Readers will find new material on continuo playing, as well as extensive treatment of singing and French music. The book is also a concise guide to reference materials in the field of baroque performance practice with extensive annotated bibliographies of modern and baroque sources that guide the reader toward further study. First published by Ashgate (at that time known as Scolar Press) in 1992 and having been out of print for some years, this title is now available as a print on demand title.
Analysing over 100 recordings from 1945-1975, this book examines twentieth-century baroque performance practice as evinced in all the commercially available recordings of J.S. Bach's Passions, Brandenburg Concertos and Goldberg Variations. Dorottya Fabian presents a qualitative, style-orientated history of the early music movement in its formative years through a comparison of the performance style heard in these recordings with the scholarly literature on Bach performance practice. Issues explored in the book include the availability of resources, balance, tempo, dynamics, ornamentation, rhythm and articulation. During the decades following the Second World War, the early music movement was more concerned with the revival of repertoire than with the revival of performance style which meant that its characteristics and achievements differed essentially from those of the later 1970s and 1980s. Period practice techniques were not practised even by ensembles using eighteenth-century instruments. Yet, as this survey reveals, several recordings of the period provide unexpectedly stylish interpretations using metre and pulse to punctuate the music. Such metric performance and appropriate articulation helped to clarify structure and texture and assisted in the creation of a musical discourse - the pre-eminent goal of baroque compositions.
Frontcover -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Preface -- 1 Dilettante and Amateur: Our Evolving Language -- 2 Bach's Lament about Leipzig's Professional Instrumentalists -- 3 Choral Singing Before the Era of Recordings -- 4 Why Most a cappella Music Could Not Have Been Sung Unaccompanied -- 5 Fasch and the Beginning of Modern Artistic Choral Singing -- 6 What Handel's Casting Reveals About Singers of the Time -- 7 Intonation Standards and Equal Temperament -- 8 Eighteenth-Century Stringed Keyboard Instruments from a Performance Perspective -- 9 The Tromba and Corno in Bach's Time -- 10 Maelzel's Role in Beethoven's Symphonic Metronome Marks -- 11 The French Time Devices Revisited -- 12 The Notable Significance of C and (in Bach's Era -- 13 Numbers and Tempo: 1630-1800 -- 14 Overdotting in Handel's Overtures Reconsidered -- 15 Notes inégales: A Definitive New Parameter -- 16 Distinguishing Between Artificial and Natural Vibrato in Premodern Music -- 17 A Solution for Simple (secco) Theater Recitative -- 18 How Composers Viewed Performers' Additions -- 19 The Varied Reprise in Eighteenth-Century Intrumental Music-A Reappraisal
This classic reference work, the best one-volume music dictionary available, has been brought completely up to date in this new edition. Combining authoritative scholarship and lucid, lively prose, the Fourth Edition of The Harvard Dictionary of Music is the essential guide for musicians, students, and everyone who appreciates music. The Harvard Dictionary of Music has long been admired for its wide range as well as its reliability. This treasure trove includes entries on all the styles and forms in Western music; comprehensive articles on the music of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Near East; descriptions of instruments enriched by historical background; and articles that reflect today’s beat, including popular music, jazz, and rock. Throughout this Fourth Edition, existing articles have been fine-tuned and new entries added so that the dictionary fully reflects current music scholarship and recent developments in musical culture. Encyclopedia-length articles by notable experts alternate with short entries for quick reference, including definitions and identifications of works and instruments. More than 220 drawings and 250 musical examples enhance the text. This is an invaluable book that no music lover can afford to be without.
Revised and expanded, A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone—as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance.
"All practising musicians with an interest in the baroque owe it to themselves to be exposed to the ideas contained in this book." —Continuo "This is a book from an excellent musician in the early field who turns out also to be a most persistent scholar . . . " —Early Music " . . . the book offers a vast quantity of data from a wide range of sources. . . . George Houle is to be congratulated for his honest presentation of the entire spectrum." —Music Educators Journal The treatment of meter in performance has evolved dramatically since 1600. Here is a practical guide for the performer, with many quotations from early manuals and treatises, and abundant examples.
