Organ, Volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments, includes articles on the organ family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instrument builders, the construction of the instruments and related terminology. It is the first complete reference on this important family of keyboard instruments that predated the piano. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instruments from around the world.
Most books dealing with the history of the organ have confined themselves to a single period, area, or even country. This invaluable new work is the first complete survey of the organ ever to have been made in any language. The author firmly bases his interpretations and judgment on extant documents whenever possible, on his practical experience in playing organs all over Europe, and on his close examination of a great variety of instruments at different stages of restoration or transformation. Eight chapters are devoted to the early period and four to the Renaissance. Then individual chapters consider the French classical organ, the organ of Bach, the Spanish baroque organ, the Italian baroque organ, the English organ before 1800, and the northern European organ. The final eight chapters discuss developments in the 19th and 20th centuries. Supplementing the text are a glossary and plates illustrating a full range of organs that are typical of their kind. The eminent English musicologist, organist, and harpsichordist, Peter (Fredric) Williams ranks among the foremost authorities on the organ.
The Encyclopedia of Organ includes articles on the organ family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instrument builders, the construction of the instruments, and related terminology. It is the first complete A-Z reference on this important family of keyboard instruments. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instrument history from around the world.
This Companion is an essential guide to all aspects of the organ and its music. It examines in turn the instrument, the player and the repertoire. The early chapters tell of the instrument's history and construction, identify the scientific basis of its sounds and the development of its pitch and tuning, examine the history of the organ case, and consider the current trends and conflicts within the world of organ building. Central chapters investigate the practical art of learning and playing the organ, introduce the complex area of performance practice, and outline the relationship between organ playing and the liturgy of the church. The final section explores the vast repertoire of organ music, focusing on a selection of the most important traditions.
Examines Mendelssohn's relationship to the past, shedding light on the construction of historical legacies that, in some cases, served to assert German cultural supremacy only two decades after the composer's death.
Because it has always represented a rich collaboration of the music, art, architecture, handicraft and science of its day, the organ, more than any other instrument, continues to reflect the spirit of the age in which it was built. The Organ as a Mirror of its Time, the first book to consider this instrument's historical and cultural significance, reflects the efforts of twenty leading scholars of the organ. The book chronicles the history of six organs in Scandinavia and Northern Germany, at least one specimen for every century from 1600 to the present. By considering their original contexts and their histories since they were built, as well as the extraordinary coincidences that link them together, the book offers a unique perspective on the cultural history of northern Europe. A CD with appropriate repertoire played on each of the six instruments accompanies the book.
Bach's organ works--the best-known of all music ever written for the instrument--have been the subject of a great variety of interpretations, all too often based on subjective opinion and conjecture. What the author does in this piece-by-piece commentary is to combine a performer's insight and experience with the fruits of scholarly research. He is concerned throughout to reconstruct for the modern performer and listener the original context of the work: its sources and history; its place in the composer's development; the implications of contemporary instruments and performing practice, and of the musical and aesthetic theories of the time; and the background which shaped Bach's view of the original chorale melodies. Each of the collections of organ chorales is examined as an entity in a preliminary essay. Then for each piece the author discusses the important sources and their relationship; quotes the underlying chorale melody and one or more verses of the text (with a literal translation) and describes its importance in the life of Bach's church; and analyses the form and style of the organ setting, with many musical examples and frequent allusions to the views of other commentators.
Because it has always represented a rich collaboration of the music, art, architecture, handicraft and science of its day, the organ, more than any other instrument, continues to reflect the spirit of the age in which it was built. The Organ as a Mirror of its Time, the first book to consider this instrument's historical and cultural significance, reflects the efforts of twenty leading scholars of the organ. The book chronicles the history of six organs in Scandinavia and Northern Germany, at least one specimen for every century from 1600 to the present. By considering their original contexts and their histories since they were built, as well as the extraordinary coincidences that link them together, the book offers a unique perspective on the cultural history of northern Europe. A CD with appropriate repertoire played on each of the six instruments accompanies the book.
