'This is a remarkable and important book: impeccably scholarly yet very readable, brimming with ideas and thoroughly engaging. It will be much enjoyed by musicians with any interest in the early violin or in English music of the 16th and 17th centuries.' Paul Doe in Early Music

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.

One evening, journalist Eric Siblin attended a recital of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Cello Suites" and began an epic quest that would unravel three centuries of intrigue, politics, and passion. Winner of the Mavis Gallant Prize for Nonfiction and the McAuslan First Book Prize, "The Cello Suites" weaves together three dramatic narratives: the disappearance of Bach's manuscript in the eighteenth century; Pablo Casals's discovery and popularization of the music in Spain in the late-nineteenth century; and Siblin's infatuation with the suites in the present day. The search led Siblin to Barcelona, where Casals, just thirteen and in possession of his first cello, roamed the backstreets with his father in search of sheet music and found Bach's lost suites tucked in a dark corner of a store. Casals played them every day for twelve years before finally performing them in public. Siblin pursues the mysteries that continue to haunt this music more than 250 years after its composer's death: Why did Bach compose the suites for the cello, then considered a lowly instrument? What happened to the original manuscript? A seamless blend of biography and music history, "The Cello Suites" is a true-life journey of discovery, fueled by the power of these musical masterpieces.

Demonstrates how the basso continuo line has an independent musical funxtion in ensemble music of the Italian Baroque period. Covers the Italian Baroque period (1600-1730). Borgir rejects the notion that the basso continuo line is doubled by bass instruments and shows how these have an independent musical function in ensemble music. He untangles their confusing terminology and also explores the unexpected uses of the large lutes. Italian continuo practice included elaborate training in improvisation described in detail here for the first time. Tharald Borgir is Professor Emeritus in the Music Department at Oregon State University. His principal performance activities have been on the harpsichord and the fortepiano.

The sublime - that elusive encounter with overwhelming height, power or limits - has been associated with music from the early-modern rise of interest in the Longinian sublime to its saturation of European culture in the later nineteenth century and beyond. This volume offers a historically situated study of the relationship between music, sound and the sublime. Together, the authors distinguish between the different aesthetics of production, representation and effect, while understanding these as often mutually reinforcing approaches. They demonstrate music's strength in playing out the sublime as transfer, transport and transmission of power, allied to the persistent theme of destruction, deaths and endings. The volume opens up two avenues for further research suggested by the adjective 'sonorous': a wider spectrum of sounds heard as sublime, and (especially for those outside musicology) a more multifaceted idea of music as a cultural practice that shares boundaries with other sounding phenomena.

This work includes a book and 4 CDs. This is the publication in the Handel festival year 2009! Georg Friedrich Handel is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished baroque composers. Over the centuries, his works have always ranked very highly in popularity ratings. Whether it is the "Water Music" or his "Messiah", Handel has set the benchmark in all categories of music. In this "earBOOK", author Detmar Huchting presents the biography of this great composer. Music CDs: This work contains four CDs that offer a representative cross-section of Handel's creative works. Renowned artists like Peter Schreier, Theo Adam or Reiner Susz and the orchestra as well as the chamber orchestra 'Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach' guarantee top-class performances.

Peter Philips (c.1560-1628) was an English organist, composer, priest and spy. He was embroiled in multifarious intersecting musical, social, religious and political networks linking him with some of the key international players in these spheres. Despite the undeniable quality of his music, Philips does not fit easily into an overarching, progressive view of music history in which developments taking place in centres judged by historians to be of importance are given precedence over developments elsewhere, which are dismissed as peripheral. These principal loci of musical development are given prominence over secondary ones because of their perceived significance in terms of later music. However, a consideration of the networks in which Philips was involved suggests that he was anything but at the periphery of the musical, cultural, religious and political life of his day. In this book, Philips's life and music serve as a touchstone for a discussion of various kinds of network in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The study of networks enriches our appreciation and understanding of musicians and the context in which they worked. The wider implication of this approach is a constructive challenge to orthodox historiographies of Western art music in the Early Modern Period.

Masque and Opera in England, 1656-1688 presents a comprehensive study of the development of court masque and through-composed opera in England from the mid-1650s to the Revolution of 1688-89. In seeking to address the problem of generic categorization within a highly fragmentary corpus for which a limited amount of documentation survives, Walkling argues that our understanding of the distinctions between masque and opera must be premised upon a thorough knowledge of theatrical context and performance circumstances. Using extensive archival and literary evidence, detailed textual readings, rigorous tabular analysis, and meticulous collation of bibliographical and musical sources, this interdisciplinary study offers a host of new insights into a body of work that has long been of interest to musicologists, theatre historians, literary scholars and historians of Restoration court and political culture, but which has hitherto been imperfectly understood. A companion volume will explore the phenomenon of "dramatick opera" and its precursors on London's public stages between the early 1660s and the first decade of the eighteenth century.

Through hundreds of letters, family papers, anecdotes, and records, the Bach Reader established a new approach to biography by offering original documents in impeccable translations. In The New Bach Reader, Christoph Wolff has incorporated numerous facsimiles and added many newly discovered items, reflecting the current state of scholarship about the composer's life and music. The readings in this volume provide an accurate and vivid picture of Bach's world and of his far-reaching influence.

Essays on musical performance practice by an acknowledged expert in the field. These selected essays by conductor Andrew Parrott reflect the thinking behind some four decades of his ground-breaking performances and recordings. Bringing together seminal writings on the performance expectations of, amongst others, Monteverdi, Purcell and J. S. Bach, this volume also includes the full version of a major new article calling into question the presumed historical place of the 'countertenor' voice. Focusing primarily on vocal and choral matters, the time span is broad (some five centuries) and the essays multifarious (from extensive scholarly articles to radio broadcasts). Authoritative, provocative and readable, Parrott's writing is packed with information of valueto scholars, performers, students and curious listeners alike. ANDREW PARROTT is the founder and director of the Taverner Consort, Choir and Players. His book The Essential Bach Choir (The Boydell Press, 2000) has been acclaimed as 'a brilliant piece of research' (BBC Radio 3); 'utterly fascinating' (Gramophone); and 'a document which will itself no doubt be a subject of study for years to come' (Times Literary Supplement).

The music of J.S.Bach has a unique power and attraction some 300 years after it was written. From annual performances of the great Passions and BBC Radio 3's hugely successful Bach Christmas, to its use in adverts, films and popular arrangements, the imaginative strength of Bach's music continues to draw listeners to explore its mysteries. This new Pocket Guide looks at all Bach's music, sacred and secular, and explores why he speaks so profoundly to our age about both the spiritual and the sensual in life. Among the features of this easy-to-use book: The Bach Top Ten Bach: The music work by work Performing Bach today Bach: The life year by year What people said about Bach

It brings together a substantial group of essays by an international team of scholars on a wide range of aspects of Rameau's operas. The individual essays are informed by a variety of disciplines or sub-disciplines - literature, archival studies, musical analysis, gender studies, ballet and choreography, dramaturgy and staging. The contents are addressed to a wide readership, including not only scholars but also practical musicians, stage directors, dancers and choreographers.

The fundamental changes that resulted in the development of the Baroque style around the turn of the seventeenth century also had a profound effect on music theory. Music Theory in Seventeenth-Century England explores these changes, concentrating specifically on English writings because of their emphasis on practical application and consequent ready rejection of the obsolete. This allows for a detailed and comprehensive commentary on how treatises reflect musical developments during the period.

An innovative study of the ways in which theological themes related to earthly and heavenly 'treasures' and Bach's own apparent attentiveness to the spiritual values related to money intertwined in his sacred music. In Johann Sebastian Bach's Lutheran church setting, various biblical ideas were communicated through sermons and songs to encourage parishioners to emulate Christian doctrine in their own lives. Such narratives are based on an understanding that one's lifetime on earth is a temporal passageway to eternity after death, where souls are sent either to heaven or hell based on one's belief or unbelief. Throughout J. S. Bach's Material and Spiritual Treasures, Bach scholar Noelle M. Heber explores theological themes related to earthly and heavenly 'treasures' in Bach's sacred music through an examination of selected texts from Bach's personal theological library. The book's storyline is organised around biblical concepts that are accented in Lutheran thought and in Bach's church compositions, such as the poverty and treasure of Christ and parables that contrast material and spiritual riches. While focused primarily on the greater theological framework, Heber presents an updated survey of Bach's own financial situation and considers his apparent attentiveness to spiritual values related to money. This multifaceted study investigates intertwining biblical ideologies and practical everyday matters in a way that features both Bach's religious context and his humanity. This book will appeal to musicologists, theologians, musicians, students, and Bach enthusiasts.

'How refreshing, to read a book about music written for a music lover and not a musicologist. In clear, lucid, entertaining prose, Jane Glover makes those of us who lack musical literacy better understand and appreciate Handel’s divinity.' - Donna Leon, author of Handel's Bestiary and the Inspector Brunetti mysteries.

Handel in London tells the story of a young German composer who in 1712, followed his princely master to London and would remain there for the rest of his life. That master would become King George II and the composer was George Frideric Handel.

Handel, then still only twenty-seven and largely self-taught, would be at the heart of musical activity in London for the next four decades, composing masterpiece after masterpiece, whether the glorious coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, operas such as Giulio Cesare, Rinaldo and Alcina or the great oratorios, culminating, of course, in Messiah.

Here, Jane Glover, who has conducted Handel’s work in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world, draws on her profound understanding of music and musicians to tell Handel’s story. It is a story of music-making and musicianship, of practices and practicalities, but also of courts and cabals, of theatrical rivalries and of eighteenth-century society. It is also, of course, the story of some of the most remarkable music ever written, music that has been played and sung, and loved, in this country – and throughout the world – for three hundred years.

Bach's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 is a fertile examination of this group of fourteen surviving liturgical works. Renowned Bach scholar Eric Chafe begins his investigation into Bach's theology with the composer's St. John Passion, concentrating on its first and last versions. Beyond providing a uniquely detailed assessment of the passion, Bach's Johannine Theology is the first work to take the work beyond the scope of an isolated study, considering its meaning from a variety of musical and historical standpoints. Chafe thereby uncovers a range of theological implications underlying Bach's creative approach itself.
Building considerably on his previous work, Chafe here expands his methodological approach to Bach's vocal music by arguing for a multi-layered approach to religion in Bach's compositional process. Chafe bases this approach primarily on two aspects of Bach's theology: first, the specific features of Johannine theology, which contrast with the more narrative approach found in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke); and second, contemporary homiletic and devotional writings - material that is not otherwise easily accessible, and less so in English translation. Bach's Johannine Theology provides an unprecedented, enlightening exploration of the theological and liturgical contexts within which this music was first heard.

Examines aspects of figured bass notation and continuo realization in the High Baroque, especially with respect to the operas and oratorios of G. F. Handel. This pioneering study examines aspects of figured bass notation and continuo realization in the High Baroque, especially with respect to the operas and oratorios of G. F. Handel. Contemporary treatises, Handel's manuscripts, original performance material, and other early sources provide clarification and guidance for the modern performer. Part one is an overview of figured bass in Handel source materials: autograph manuscripts, performing scores, original keyboard parts, 18th century scribal copies, and early editions. Part two treats in depth continuo realization problems that are often overlooked and can be troublesome in modern performances. The author defines the most common bass patterns, or formula-progressions, in Handel's music, together with the precise harmony the composer intended. The author attempts to show that continuo figuring can serve different functions depending oncontext. Much of the figuring that comes down to us in secondary sources may derive from the composer, or it may reflect valid contemporary practice. Modern editions, in the main, are too selective in this regard: they only include bass figuring from primary sources, leaving the modern performer frequently without sufficient guidance in the continuo part to improvise a stylistic accompaniment. Appendices include brief examples of continuo realization by Handel. Patrick J. Rogers is an active keyboard player and former Fulbright Scholar who studied Handel under Theodor Goellner, Roland Jackson, Terence Best, and the late J. Merrill Knapp.

The history of music is most often written as a sequence of composers and works. But a richer understanding of the music of the past may be obtained by also considering the afterlives of a composer's works. Genealogies of Music and Memory asks how the stage works of Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-87) were cultivated in nineteenth-century Paris, and concludes that although the composer was not represented formally on the stage until 1859, his music was known from a wide range of musical and literary environments. Received opinion has Hector Berlioz as the sole guardian of the Gluckian flame from the 1820s onwards, and responsible - together with the soprano Pauline Viardot - for the 'revival' of the composer's Orfeo in 1859. The picture is much clarified by looking at the concert performances of Gluck during the first two thirds of the nineteenth century, and the ways in which they were received and the literary discourses they engendered. Coupled to questions of music publication, pedagogy, and the institutional status of the composer, such a study reveals a wide range of individual agents active in the promotion of Gluck's music for the Parisian stage. The 'revival' of Orfeo is contextualised among other attempts at reviving Gluck's works in the 1860s, and the role of Berlioz, Viardot and a host of others re-examined.

In this penetrating study, Russell Stinson explores how four of the greatest composers of the nineteenth century--Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Johannes Brahms--responded to the model of Bach's organ music. The author shows that this quadrumvirate not only borrowed from Bach's organ works in creating their own masterpieces, whether for keyboard, voice, orchestra, or chamber ensemble, but that they also reacted significantly to the music as performers, editors, theorists, and teachers. Furthermore, the book reveals how these four titans influenced one another as "receptors" of this repertory and how their mutual acquaintances--especially Clara Schumann--contributed as well.
As the first comprehensive discussion of this topic ever attempted, Stinson's book represents a major step forward in the literature on the so-called Bach revival. He considers biographical as well as musical evidence to arrive at a host of new and sometimes startling conclusions. Filled with fascinating anecdotes, the study also includes detailed observations on how these composers annotated their personal copies of Bach's organ works.
Stinson's book is entirely up-to-date and offers much material previously unavailable in English. It is meticulously annotated and indexed, and it features numerous musical examples and facsimile plates as well as an exhaustive bibliography. Included in an appendix is Brahms's hitherto unpublished study score of the Fantasy in G Major, BWV 572. Engagingly written, this study should be read by anyone at all interested in the music of Bach or the music of the nineteenth century.

Dance music at the courts of seventeenth-century Germany is a genre that is still largely unknown. Dr Michael Robertson sets out to redress the balance and study the ensemble dance suites that were played at the German courts between the end of the Thirty Years War and the early years of the eighteenth century. At many German courts during this time, it was fashionable to emulate everything that was French. As part of this process, German musicians visited Paris throughout the second half of the seventeenth century, and brought French courtly music back with them on their return. For the last two decades of the century, this meant the works of Jean-Baptiste Lully, and his music and its influence spread rapidly through the courts of Europe. Extracts from Lully's dramatic stage works were circulated in both published editions and manuscript. These extracts are considered in some detail, especially in terms of their relationship to the suite. The nobility also played their part in this process: French musicians and German players with specialist knowledge were often hired to coach their German colleagues in the art of playing in the French manner, the franzAsischer Art. The book examines the dissemination of dance music, instrumentation and performance practice, and the differences between the French and Italian styles. It also studies the courtly suites before the advent of Lullism and the differences between the suites of court composers and town musicians. With the possible exception of Georg Muffat's two Florilegium collections of suites, much of the dance music of the German Lullists is largely unknown; court composers such as Cousser, Erlebach, Johann Fischer and Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer all wrote fine collections of ensemble suites, and these are examined in detail. Examples from these suites, some published for the first time, are given throughout the book in order to demonstrate the music's quality and show that its neglect is completely unjustified.

All 21 sets of Beethoven's variations, including the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, Thirty-Two Variations in C Minor, the Eroica Variations, Op. 35, plus variations on themes by Dressler, Salieri, Sussmayr, Righini, other composers. Reprinted from the authoritative Breitkopf & Härtel edition.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This handbook for flautists addresses all who wish to consider the issues raised when performing music of the past, and experiment with them on old or new instruments. Its aim is to provide an authoritative and practical guide with evidence drawn from a variety of primary sources directly and indirectly associated with the flute. The author provides sound advice on instruments and their care, historical techniques, stylistic issues and historically informed interpretation, with examples drawn from a wide range of case studies, including Bach, Handel, Mozart and Brahms.

for soprano solo and organ (or strings and organ continuo), with optional solo trumpet 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. The orchestral score and instrumental parts are available for purchase as a package containing (1) the orchestral score in C major, and (2) the instrumental parts (solo tpt, vln 1, vln 2, vla, vc, db, 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).

Kitty Clive (1711-1785) was a top London stage star. She dominated spoken as well as musical comedy. From the 1740s onwards, her reputation suffered a sharp decline. For anyone curious about star production in eighteenth-century Britain, her story is not to be missed. Kitty Clive (1711-1785) was a top London stage star. Singing powered her ascent and, for twenty years, was foundational to her success as she came to dominate spoken as well as musical comedy. Her protean powers transfixed audiences, whether in low-style productions or in works by masters like Purcell, Shakespeare, and Dryden. Celebrities such as Handel and Henry Fielding wrote vehicles for her. Clive's career was unique. Despite a sometimes awkward biography - her father was a disgraced Irish Catholic; she defied managers; her marriage was almost certainly a social ruse and her 'husband' a homosexual - her musical voice helped her to become the champion of British song, of patriotism, and of propriety. Yet in the 1740s, critical opinion turned against Clive and the financial power she wielded. Salvaging her career with David Garrick's help, Clive gutted her legacy. She quit serious song and took to caricaturing herself on stage, winning back audiences by disparaging her earlier achievements. Altering works mid-performance, creating and re-shaping stage genres, and leveraging press coverage while seeming not to, she was above all a shrewd manager and a fascinating stage artist. Clive's career reveals to us gorgeous song otherwise lost and perspectives previously unknown. For music historians, musicologists, theatre scholars, and anyone curious about performance history and star production in eighteenth-century Britain, her story is not to be missed. BERTA JONCUS is Senior Lecturer in Music at Goldsmiths, University of London.