Wilfrid Mellers is a composer, musician and author. Honorary Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. This is his classic book on Bach.

Throughout Spanish colonial America, limpieza de sangre (literally, "purity of blood ") determined an individual's status within the complex system of social hierarchy called casta. Within this socially stratified culture, those individuals at the top were considered to have the highest calidad-an all-encompassing estimation of a person's social status. At the top of the social pyramid were the Peninsulares: Spaniards born in Spain, who controlled most of the positions of power within the colonial governments and institutions. Making up most of the middle-class were criollos, locally born people of Spanish ancestry. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Peninsulare intellectuals asserted their cultural superiority over criollos by claiming that American Spaniards had a generally lower calidad because of their "impure " racial lineage. Still, given their Spanish heritage, criollos were allowed employment at many Spanish institutions in New Spain, including the center of Spanish religious practice in colonial America: Mexico City Cathedral. Indeed, most of the cathedral employees-in particular, musicians-were middle-class criollos. In Playing in the Cathedral, author Jesus Ramos-Kittrell explores how liturgical musicians-choristers and instrumentalists, as well as teachers and directors-at Mexico City Cathedral in the mid-eighteenth century navigated changing discourses about social status and racial purity. He argues that criollos cathedral musicians, influenced by Enlightenment values of self-industry and autonomy, fought against the Peninsulare-dominated, racialized casta system. Drawing on extensive archival research, Ramos-Kittrell shows that these musicians held up their musical training and knowledge, as well as their institutional affiliation with the cathedral, as characteristics that legitimized their calidad and aided their social advancement. The cathedral musicians invoked claims of "decency " and erudition in asserting their social worth, arguing that their performance capabilities and theoretical knowledge of counterpoint bespoke their calidad and status as hombres decentes. Ultimately, Ramos-Kittrell argues that music, as a performative and theoretical activity, was a highly dynamic factor in the cultural and religious life of New Spain, and an active agent in the changing discourses of social status and "Spanishness " in colonial America. Offering unique and fascinating insights into the social, institutional, and artistic spheres in New Spain, this book is a welcome addition to scholars and graduate students with particular interests in Latin American colonial music and cultural history, as well as those interested in the intersections of music and religion.

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Collected Writings of the Orpheus Institute 6"We have developed a tremendous amount of what might best be referred to as journalistic knowledge concerning the ways that musicians of earlier periods thought about musical structures. Now that we have that knowledge, what might we do with it?" Joel LesterThe often complex connections and intersections between modal and tonal idioms and contrapuntal and harmonic organization during the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque era are considered from various perspectives in Towards Tonality. Prominent musicians and scholars from a wide range of fields testify here to their personal understanding of this significant time of shifts in musical taste. This collection of essays is based on lectures presented during the conference "Historical Theory, Performance, and Meaning in Baroque Music," organized by the International Orpheus Academy for Music and Theory in Ghent, Belgium."

Georg Philipp Telemann gave us one of the richest legacies of instrumental music from the eighteenth century. Though considered a definitive contribution to the genre during his lifetime, his concertos, sonatas, and suites were then virtually ignored for nearly two centuries following his death. Yet these works are now among the most popular in the baroque repertory. In Music for a Mixed Taste , Steven Zohn considers Telemann's music from stylistic, generic, and cultural perspectives. He investigates the composer's cosmopolitan "mixed taste"-a blending of the French, Italian, English, and Polish national styles-and his imaginative expansion of this concept to embrace mixtures of the old (late baroque) and new (galant) styles. Telemann had an equally remarkable penchant for generic amalgamation, exemplified by his pioneering role in developing hybrid types such as the sonata in concerto style ("Sonate auf Concertenart") and overture-suite with solo instrument ("Concert en ouverture"). Zohn examines the extramusical meanings of Telemann's "characteristic" overture-suites, which bear descriptive texts associating them with literature, medicine, politics, religion, and the natural world, and which acted as vehicles for the composer's keen sense of musical humor. Zohn then explores Telemann's unprecedented self-publishing enterprise at Hamburg, and sheds light on the previously unrecognized borrowing by J.S. Bach from a Telemann concerto. Music for a Mixed Taste further reveals how Telemann's style polonaise generates musical and social meanings through the timeless oppositions of Orient-Occident, urban-rural, and serious-comic.

Topics are musical signs developed and employed primarily during the long eighteenth century. Their significance relies on associations that are clearly recognizable to the listener with different genres, styles and types of music making. Topic theory, which is used to explain conventional subjects of musical composition in this period, is grounded in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism, while drawing also from music cognition and semiotics. The concept of topics was introduced into by Leonard Ratner in the 1980s to account for cross-references between eighteenth-century styles and genres. As the invention of a twentieth-century academic, topic theory as a field is comparatively new, and The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory provides a much-needed reconstruction of the field's aesthetic underpinnings.
The volume grounds the concept of topics in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism. Documenting the historical reality of individual topics on the basis of eighteenth-century sources, it traces the origins of topical mixtures to transformations of eighteenth-century musical life, and relates topical analysis to other methods of music analysis conducted from the perspectives of composers, performers, and listeners. Focusing its scope on eighteenth-century musical repertoire, The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory lays the foundation for further investigation of topics in music of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.

This is the first dedicated study of the musical patronage of Roman baronial families in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Patronage - the support of a person or institution and their work by a patron - in Renaissance society was the basis of a complex network of familial and political relationships between clients and patrons, whose ideas, values, and norms of behavior were shared with the collective. Bringing to light new archival documentation, this book examines the intricate network of patronage interrelationships in Rome. Unlike other Italian cities where political control was monocentric and exercised by single rulers, sources of patronage in Rome comprised a multiplicity of courts and potential patrons, which included the pope, high prelates, nobles and foreign diplomats. Morucci uses archival records, and the correspondence of the Orsini and Colonna families in particular, to investigate the local activity and circulation of musicians and the cultivation of music within the broader civic network of Roman aristocratic families over the period. The author also shows that the familial union of the Medici and Orsini families established a bidirectional network for artistic exchange outside of the Eternal City, and that the Orsini-Colonna circle represented a musical bridge between Naples, Rome, and Florence.

In Bewitching Russian Opera: The Tsarina from State to Stage, Inna Naroditskaya investigates the musical lives of four female monarchs who ruled Russia for most of the eighteenth century - Catherine I, Anna, Elizabeth, and Catherine the Great. Engaging with ethnomusicological, historical, and philological approaches, her study traces the tsarinas' deeply invested interest in musical drama, as each built theaters, established drama schools, commissioned operas and ballets, and themselves wrote and produced musical plays. Naroditskaya examines the creative output of the tsarinas across the contexts in which they worked and lived, revealing significant connections between their personal creative aspirations and contemporary musical-theatrical practices, and the political and state affairs conducted during their reigns. Bewitching Russian Opera ultimately demonstrates that the theater served as an experimental space for these imperial women, in which they rehearsed, probed, and formulated gender and class roles, and enacted on the musical stage political ambitions and international conquests which they would later carry out on the world stage itself.
Beginning with the eighteenth-century imperial court, Naroditskaya illustrates the increased theatricality of the court and the popularity of musical theater among nobles, which occurred alongside an appropriation of folk and court ceremonies into the theater. Through contemporary performance theory, she demonstrates how the opportunity for role-playing and costume-changing in performative spaces allowed individuals to cross otherwise rigid boundaries of class and gender. A close look at a series of operas and musical theater productions - from Catherine the Great's fairy tale operas to Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame - illuminates the transition of these royal women from powerful political and cultural figures during their own reigns, to a marginalized and unreal Other under the patriarchal dominance of the subsequent period. These tsarinas successfully fostered the concept of a modern nation and collective national identity, only to then have their power and influence undone in Russian cultural consciousness through the fairy-tales operas of the 19th century that positioned tsarinas as "magical" and dangerous figures rightfully displaced and conquered--by triumphant heroes on the stage, and by the new patriarchal rulers in the state.

The genius of Johann Sebastian Bach transcends the boundaries of time, geography, and discipline. This collection of essays, the outgrowth of a conference held at Hofstra University, celebrates the tercentenary of the composer's birth. The contributors contend that Bach's influence extends far beyond his own life time and art form. They show the often unanticipated impact of his works in such diverse areas as literature, film, religion, and psychology.

The wide-ranging articles offer theoretical analysis, biographical-musical interpretation, literary and religious explorations, and analyses of performance practice. They range from Howard Adams' discussion of how Bach contemporized scripture in his cantatas to Richard Spurgeon Hall's consideration of how Bach and Edwards viewed religious affections. Stephen Gottlieb assesses Bach's "Musical Offering" as an autobiographical work. Fritz Sammern-Frankenegg explores the expression of Bach's messages in the film work of Ingmar Bergman while the unlikely coupling of Bach and English author Aldous Huxley is reviewed by Sister Ann Edward Bennis. Charles M. Joseph suggests that the structure and pacing of selected Bach "Praeludia" reflect previously unseen architectural influences. The convergence of musical expression and musical rhetoric in Bach's keyboard works are the subject of David Schulenberg while Don L. Smithers reconstructs the circumstances surrounding a performance of Bach's "Leipzig Church CantataS." This unique appeal of this volume lies in its presentation of a wide range of new and provocative scholarship. The exploration of new aspects of the genius of Johann Sebastian Bach is certain to interest anyone interested in his life, work, and influence.

The tercentenary of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's death in 2004 stimulated a surge of activity on the part of performers and scholars, confirming the modern assessment of Charpentier (1643-1704) as one of the most important and inventive composers of the French Baroque. The present book provides a snapshot of Charpentier scholarship in the early years of the new century. Its 13 chapters illustrate not only the sheer variety of strands currently pursued, but also the way in which these strands frequently intertwine and generate the potential for future research. Between them, they examine facets of the composer's compositional language and process, aspects of his performance practice and notation, the contexts within which he worked, and the nature of his legacy. The appendix contains a transcription of the inventory of Charpentier's manuscripts prepared when their sale to the Royal Library was negotiated in 1726 - an invaluable research tool, as numerous chapters in the book demonstrate. The wide variety of topics covered here will appeal both to readers interested in Charpentier's music and to those with a broader interest in the music and culture of the French Baroque, including aspects of patronage, church and theatre. Far from treating his output in isolation, this book places it in the wider context alongside such composers as Lully, Lalande, Marais, FranAois Couperin and Rameau; it also views the composer in relation to his Italian training. In the process, the under-examined question of influence - who influenced Charpentier? whom did he influence? - repeatedly comes to the fore. The book's Foreword was written by H. Wiley Hitchcock shortly before he died. Hitchcock's own part in raising the profile of Charpentier and his music to the level of recognition which it now enjoys cannot be emphasized enough. Appropriately the volume is dedicated to his memory.

Synopsis of Vocal Musick, by the unidentified A.B., was published in London in 1680 and appears to have only ever had one edition. Its relatively short shelf-life belies its importance to the history of early British music theory. Unlike other English theoretical writings of the period, the Synopsis derives many of its aspects from the continental theoretical tradition, including the first references in English theory to the modern fractional time signatures that had been invented in Italy in the mid-seventeenth century, the first references in English to compound time and the first explanations of tempo terms such as Adagio and Presto. In these respects the treatise forms an important link between English and continental theoretical traditions and may have encouraged the adoption of Italian principles which became a common feature of English writings by the early eighteenth century. The treatise is essentially in two parts. The first section of the book comprises rudimentary instruction on understanding notation and intervals, descriptions of common vocal ornaments and instruction in the process of learning to sing. The second part consists of a selection of psalms, songs and catches which are provided as exercises for the singer, though several of them require a reasonably advanced degree of skill. These pieces provide valuable insight into the way both sacred and secular music might have been performed by amateur musicians in the Restoration period. They include 14 rare English madrigal settings by the Italian composer Gastoldi - further evidence of the Italian influence which pervades the text. This is the first modern edition of the Synopsis, and indeed the first edition to appear since its original publication.

This volume draws together a collection of Robin A. Leaver's essays on Bach's sacred music, exploring the religious aspects of this repertoire through consideration of three core themes: liturgy, hymnology, and theology. Rooted in a rich understanding of the historical sources, the book illuminates the varied ways in which Bach's sacred music was informed and shaped by the religious, ritual, and intellectual contexts of his time, placing these works in the wider history of Protestant church music during the Baroque era. Including research from across a span of forty years, the chapters in this volume have been significantly revised and expanded for this publication, with several pieces appearing in English for the first time. Together, they offer an essential compendium of the work of a leading scholar of theological Bach studies.

Many of the most famous composers in classical music spent considerable periods in spa towns, whether taking in the waters, or searching for patrons among the rich and influential clientele who frequented these pioneer resorts, or soaking up the relaxing and decadent ambience of these enchanted and magical places. At Baden bei Wein, Mozart wrote his Ave Verum Corpus, and Beethoven sketched out his Ninth Symphony. Johannes Brahms spent 17 summers in Baden-Baden, where he stayed in his own specially-built composing cavern and consorted with Clara Schumann. Berlioz came to conduct in Baden-Baden for nine seasons, writing his last major work, Beatrice and Benedict, for the town's casino manager. Chopin, Liszt, and Dvorak were each regular visitors to Carlsbad and Marienbad. And it was in Carlsbad that Beethoven met Goethe. Concerts, recitals, and resident orchestras have themselves played a major role in the therapeutic regimes and the social and cultural life of European and North American watering places since the late eighteenth century. To this day, these spa towns continue to host major music festivals of the highest caliber, drawing musicians and loyal audiences on both local and international levels.
This book explores the music making that went on in the spas and watering places in Europe and the United States during their heyday between the early-eighteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. Music was a hugely important part of the experience of taking a spa cure. Bands played during the early morning and late afternoon while people took the waters and bathed. Spa orchestras and ensembles entertained those gathering socially or resting in assembly rooms, pump rooms and in gardens and parks. In the evenings spa guests enjoyed concerts, visits to the theatre, balls, dances and gambling sessions at the casino, at all of which music played a major role.
Expert author Ian Bradley draws on original archival material and the diaries and letters of composers. His book ranges chronologically and geographically, beginning with Bath and Baden near Vienna, which both flourished in the eighteenth century, continuing through Baden-Baden, the Bohemian spas and Bad Ischl in the nineteenth century and on to Buxton and Saratoga Springs which saw their glory days in the early twentieth century. A concluding chapter brings the subject up to date with a review of the musical activities taking place in spa towns today and of the music that accompanies treatments in modern spas, now so ubiquitous and so important and growing a feature in the booming world of leisure, tourism, health and well-being.

One of the most fascinating figures of seventeenth-century music, composer and singer Antonia Padoani Bembo (c.1640 - c.1720) was active in both Venice and Paris. Her work provides a unique cross-cultural window into the rich musical cultures of these cities, yet owing to her clandestine existence in France, for almost three centuries Bembo's life was shrouded in mystery. In this first-ever biography, Clare Fontijn unveils the enthralling and surprising story of a remarkable woman who moved in the musical, literary, and artistic circles of these European cultural centers. Rebuffed in the attempt to divorce her abusive husband, Bembo fled to Paris, leaving her children in Venice. Joining ranks with composers glorifying Louis XIV, her song charmed the Sun King and won over his court's sympathy to the cause of women. She obtained his sponsorship to live in a semi-cloistered community in Paris, where she wrote music for the spiritual and worldly needs of the royal family. Offering fine examples of sacred and secular vocal repertory for chamber settings and large ensembles, Bembo's oeuvre reveals her preoccupation with female agency through dynamic portrayals of such powerful figures as the Virgin Mary and the Duchess of Burgundy. The genres in which she worked-love song, opera, motet, cantata, trio sonata, and air-testify to the magic of her voice and to her place alongside Strozzi, Jacquet de La Guerre, and other major women composers of her time. Expertly engaging with musicology, history, and gender studies, Claire Fontijn tells the story of a brave and daring woman while providing a valuable key to a long-hidden treasure trove of music. A groundbreaking biography, Desperate Measures details the compelling life and music of a woman with courage, determination, and talent who thrived within the dictates of society and culture.

In the last decades of the 17th century, the feast of Christmas in Lutheran Germany underwent a major transformation when theologians and local governments waged an early modern "war on Christmas," discouraging riotous pageants and carnivalesque rituals in favor of more personal and internalized expressions of piety. Christmas rituals, such as the "Heilig Christ" plays and the rocking of the child (Kindelwiegen) were abolished, and Christian devotion focused increasingly on the metaphor of a birth of Christ in the human heart. John Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio, composed in 1734, both reflects this new piety and conveys the composer's experience living through this tumult during his own childhood and early career. Markus Rathey's book is the first thorough study of this popular masterpiece in English. While giving a comprehensive overview of the Christmas Oratorio as a whole, the book focuses on two themes in particular: the cultural and theological understanding of Christmas in Bach's time and the compositional process that led Bach from the earliest concepts to the completed piece. The cultural and religious context of the oratorio provides the backdrop for Rathey's detailed analysis of the composition, in which he explores Bach's compositional practices, for example, his reuse and parodies of movements that had originally been composed for secular cantatas. The book analyzes Bach's original score and sheds new light on the way Bach wrote the piece, how he shaped musical themes, and how he revised his initial ideas into the final composition.

This deeply expressive arioso, which opens Handel's Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne (1713), was performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St George's Chapel, Windsor, on 19 May 2018. Originally scored in D major for counter-tenor, with trumpet and strings, the work is here arranged by John Rutter for performance by soprano and organ (or strings and organ continuo), with or without solo trumpet, in the slightly lower key of C major. This package contains (1) the orchestral score in C major, and (2) the instrumental parts (solo trumpet, 1st and 2nd violins, viola, cello, bass, organ continuo) in two versions, in C major and D flat major. The D flat version of the parts is to enable performance with modern strings but natural trumpet, the trumpet playing in Handel's original key of D major but at baroque pitch (A = 415).

These four splendid anthems were composed for the coronation of George II in October 1727 and have since retained a position at the heart of the English choral tradition. The popular anthem Zadok the priest has been performed at all subsequent coronations, and Handel's other contributions to the royal occasion - Let thy hand be strengthened, The King shall rejoice, and My heart is inditing - have the same majestic grandeur, with affecting contrasts between different sections of the sacred texts. The editor, Clifford Bartlett, has corrected various inconsistencies in Handel's score, and complete details of sources and editorial method, additional performance notes, and a critical commentary can be viewed in the companion full score available on hire. This continuo part is also available as part of the wind set.

An examination of the work and music of the Royalist composer William Lawes. William Lawes is arguably one of the finest English composers of the early seventeenth century. Born in Salisbury in 1602, he rose to prominence in the early 1630s; in 1635 he gained a prestigious post among the elite private musicians of Charles I (the "Lutes, Viols and Voices"). With the outbreak of civil war in 1642, Lawes took arms in support of the king; he died during the Siege of Chester in September 1645. This book is divided into three sections. The first is a contextual examination of music at the court of Charles I, with specific reference to the abovementioned arcane group of musicians; much of Lawes's surviving consort music appears to have been written to be performed by this group. The remainder of the book deals with William Lawes the composer. The second section is a detailed study of Lawes's autograph sources: the first of its kind. It includes 62 black and white facsimile images, and complete inventories of all the autographs, and presents ground-breaking new research into Lawes's scribal hand, the sources and their functions, and new evidence for their chronology. The third section comprises six chapters on Lawes's consort music; in these chapters various topics are examined, such as chronology, Lawes's compositional process, and the relationship between Lawes's music and the court context from which it arose. This book willbe of interest to scholars working on English music in the Early Modern period, but also to those interested in source studies, compositional process and the function of music in the Early Modern court. JOHN CUNNINGHAMis a Senior Lecturer in Music, at Bangor University.

In this groundbreaking study, D. R. M. Irving reconnects the Philippines to current musicological discourse on the early modern Hispanic world. For some two and a half centuries, the Philippine Islands were firmly interlinked to Latin America and Spain through transoceanic relationships of politics, religion, trade, and culture. The city of Manila, founded in 1571, represented a vital intercultural nexus and a significant conduit for the regional diffusion of Western music. Within its ethnically diverse society, imported and local musics played a crucial role in the establishment of ecclesiastical hierarchies in the Philippines and in propelling the work of Roman Catholic missionaries in neighboring territories. Manila's religious institutions resounded with sumptuous vocal and instrumental performances, while an annual calendar of festivities brought together many musical traditions of the indigenous and immigrant populations in complex forms of artistic interaction and opposition.
Multiple styles and genres coexisted according to strict regulations enforced by state and ecclesiastical authorities, and Irving uses the metaphors of European counterpoint and enharmony to critique musical practices within the colonial milieu. He argues that the introduction and institutionalization of counterpoint acted as a powerful agent of colonialism throughout the Philippine Archipelago, and that contrapuntal structures were reflected in the social and cultural reorganization of Filipino communities under Spanish rule. He also contends that the active appropriation of music and dance by the indigenous population constituted a significant contribution to the process of hispanization. Sustained "enharmonic engagement" between Filipinos and Spaniards led to the synthesis of hybrid, syncretic genres and the emergence of performance styles that could contest and subvert hegemony. Throwing new light on a virtually unknown area of music history, this book contributes to current understanding of the globalization of music, and repositions the Philippines at the frontiers of research into early modern intercultural exchange.

Music, Place, and Identity in Italian Urban Soundscapes circa 1550-1860 presents new perspectives on the role music played in the physical, cultural, and civic spaces of Italian cities from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Across thirteen chapters, contributors explore the complex connections between sound and space within these urban contexts, demonstrating how music and sound were intimately connected to changing social and political practices. The volume offers a critical redefinition of the core concept of soundscape, considering musical practices through the lenses of territory, space, representation, and identity, in five parts: Soundscape, Phonosphere, and Urban History Urban Soundscapes across Time Urban Soundscapes and Acoustic Communities Urban Soundscapes in Literary Sources Reconstructing Urban Soundscapes in the Digital Era Music, Place, and Identity in Italian Urban Soundscapes circa 1550-1860 reframes our understanding of Italian music history beyond models of patronage, investigating how sounds and musics have contributed to the construction of human identities and communities.

Kenneth Hamilton's book engagingly and lucidly dissects the oft-invoked myth of a Great Tradition, or Golden Age of Pianism. It is written both for players and for members of their audiences by a pianist who believes that scholarship and readability can go hand-in-hand. Hamilton discusses in meticulous yet lively detail the performance-style of great pianists from Liszt to Paderewski, and delves into the far-from-inevitable development of the piano recital. He entertainingly recounts how classical concerts evolved from exuberant, sometimes riotous events into the formal, funereal trotting out of predictable pieces they can be today, how an often unhistorical "respect for the score" began to replace pianists' improvisations and adaptations, and how the clinical custom arose that an audience should be seen and not heard. Pianists will find food for thought here on their repertoire and the traditions of its performance. Hamilton chronicles why pianists of the past did not always begin a piece with the first note of the score, nor end with the last. He emphasizes that anxiety over wrong notes is a relatively recent psychosis, and playing entirely from memory a relatively recent requirement. Audiences will encounter a vivid account of how drastically different are the recitals they attend compared to concerts of the past, and how their own role has diminished from noisily active participants in the concert experience to passive recipients of artistic benediction from the stage. They will discover when cowed listeners eventually stopped applauding between movements, and why they stopped talking loudly during them. The book's broad message proclaims that there is nothing divinely ordained about our own concert-practices, programming and piano-performance styles. Many aspects of the modern approach are unhistorical-some laudable, some merely ludicrous. They are also far removed from those fondly, if deceptively, remembered as constituting a Golden Age.

Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672) was the most important and influential German composer of the seventeenth century. Director of music at the electoral Saxon court in Dresden, he was lauded by his German contemporaries as "the father of our modern music," as "the Orpheus of our time." Yet despite the esteem in which his music is still held today, Schutz himself and the rich cultural environment in which he lived continue to be little known or understood beyond the linguistic borders of his native Germany.
Drawing on original manuscript and print sources, A Heinrich Schutz Reader brings the composer to life through more than 150 documents by or about Heinrich Schutz, from his earliest studies under Giovanni Gabrieli to accounts of his final hours. Editor and translator Gregory S. Johnston penetrates the archaic script, confronts the haphazard orthography and obsolete vocabulary, and untangles the knotted grammatical constructions and syntax to produce translations that allow English speakers, as never before, to engage the composer directly.
Most of the German, Latin and Italian documents included in this volume appear for the first time in English translation. A number of these texts have not even been printed in their original language. Dedications and prefaces of his printed music, letters and memoranda, poetry and petitions, travel passes and contracts, all offer immediate and unabridged access to the composer's life. To habituate the reader ever more in Schutz's world, the entries are richly annotated with biographical detail; clarifications of professional relationships and ancestral lines; information on geographic regions, domains, cities, courts and institutions; and references to biblical, classical and contemporary literary sources.
Johnston opens a door for researchers and scholars across a broad range of disciplines, and at the same time provides an historical complement and literary companion for anyone who has come to appreciate the beauty of Schutz's music."

In this companion volume to Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff contextualises his famous subject by delving deeply into the composer's rich collection of music. Emerging from this complex and massive oeuvre, Bach's Musical Universe is a focused discussion of a meaningful selection of compositions. Unlike any previous study, this book details Bach's creative process across the various instrumental and vocal genres, and centres on what the composer himself judiciously presented in carefully designed benchmark collections and individual works-all consequential to Bach's musical art. Tracing Bach's evolution as a composer, Wolff compellingly illuminates the ideals and legacy of this giant of classical music in a new, refreshing light for everyone, from the amateur to the virtuoso.

Dr Peter Martens provides the first complete edited English translation of, and commentary on, Isaac Vossius's De poematum cantu et viribus rythmi, a late seventeenth-century work of Continental musical humanism. plays an important but poorly understood role in the continued development of rhythmopoeia; A full translation and accompanying discussion of Vossius's own sources and musical influences allows English-language students and scholars to access and study this work in the depth and to the degree it deserves.