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

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."

In the 17th century, harmonious sounds were thought to represent the well-ordered body of the obedient subject, and, by extension, the well-ordered state; conversely, discordant, unpleasant music represented both those who caused disorder (murderers, drunkards, witches, traitors) and those who suffered from bodily disorders (melancholics, madmen, and madwomen). While these theoretical correspondences seem straightforward, in theatrical practice the musical portrayals of disorderly characters were multivalent and often ambiguous.

O Let Us Howle Some Heavy Note focuses on the various ways that theatrical music represented disorderly subjects those who presented either a direct or metaphorical threat to the health of the English kingdom in 17th-century England. Using theater music to examine narratives of social history, Winkler demonstrates how music reinscribed and often resisted conservative, political, religious, gender, and social ideologies."

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 interested in the music of Bach or the music of the nineteenth century.

An Introduction to Bach Studies is a comprehensive guide to the resources and materials of Bach scholarship, both for students beginning work in the enormous literature on J. S. Bach, and for the Bach specialist looking for a convenient and up-to-date survey of the field. Covering a broad range of both primary and secondary sources, well-known Bach scholars Daniel R. Melamed and Michael Marissen draw on their extensive research experience to describe the principal tools of Bach research and how to use them. With clear descriptions and explanations, the multiple bibliographies and tables help students and instructors quickly find the most appropriate sources on Bach's life, his repertory, approaches to his music, and many other topics. Additionally, this volume provides insights into potentially confusing sources and detailed information on the technical topics important to all Bach scholars.
Concise and comprehensive, this user-friendly guide brings together useful bibliographic resources in one place, and is an indispensable resource for all who conduct research on Bach.

A monumental accomplishment from the age of Enlightenment, the string quartets of Joseph Haydn hold a central place not only in the composer's oeuvre, but also in our modern conception of form, style, and expression in the instrumental music of his day. Here, renowned music historians Floyd and Margaret Grave present a fresh perspective on a comprehensive survey of the works. This thorough and unique analysis offers new insights into the creation of the quartets, the wealth of musical customs and conventions on which they draw, the scope of their innovations, and their significance as reflections of Haydn's artistic personality. Each set of quartets is characterized in terms of its particular mix of structural conventions and novelties, stylistic allusions, and its special points of connection with other opus groups in the series. Throughout the book, the authors draw attention to the boundless supply of compositional strategies by which Haydn appears to be continually rethinking, reevaluating, and refining the quartet's potentials. They also lucidly describe Haydn's famous penchant for wit, humor, and compositional artifice, illuminating the unexpected connections he draws between seemingly unrelated ideas, his irony, and his lightning bolts of surprise and thwarted expectation. Approaching the quartets from a variety of vantage points, the authors correct many prevailing assumptions about convention, innovation, and developing compositional technique in the music of Haydn and his contemporaries.
Going beyond traditional modes of study, The String Quartets of Joseph Haydn blends historical analysis and factual information with critical appraisal in a way that will engage all Haydnenthusiasts.

Originally published London, 1924. Contents Include: The Serenade at Caserta "Les Indes Galantes" The King and the Nightingale Biography etc. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

A History of Baroque Music is an exhaustive study of the music of the Baroque period, with particular focus on the 17th century. Individual chapters consider the work of significant composers, including Monteverdi, Corelli, Scarlatti, Schutz, Purcell, Handel, Bach, and Telemann, as well as specific countries and regions. Two contributed chapters examine composers and genres from Russia, the Ukraine, Slovenia, Croatia, and Latin America. The book also includes a wealth and variety of musical examples from all genres and instrumental combinations.

Contributors are Claudia Jensen, Metoda Kokole, Rui Vieira Nery, and Ennio Stipcevic."

On the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, this volume offers an in-depth look at the "Great Eighteen" organ chorales, among the most celebrated works for organ, and a milestone in the history of the chorale. Addressed to organists, scholars, and general listeners alike, this lucid and engaging book examines the music from a wide spectrum of historical and analytical perspectives.

Stinson examines the models used by Bach in conceiving the original pieces, his subsequent compilation of these works into a collection, and his compositional process as preserved by the autograph manuscript. Himself an accomplished organist, Stinson also considers various issues of performance practice and concludes with a discussion of the music's reception--its dissemination in manuscript and printed form, its performance history, and its influence on later composers. Completely up-to-date and presenting a wealth of new material, much of it translated into English for the first time, this study will open up fresh perspectives on some of the composer's greatest creations.

The Baroque Clarinet is a sourcebook for the historical study of the European clarinet during the first half of the eighteenth century. The book is based on a comprehensive study of the theoretical, musical, and iconographical evidence, and many conclusions are presented here for the first time.

In lucid and engaging style, Stinson explores Bach's 'Great Eighteen' Organ Chorales - among Bach's most celebrated works for organ - from a wide range of historical and analytical perspectives, including the models used by Bach in conceiving the individual pieces, his subsequent compilation of these works into a collection, and his compositional process as preserved by the autograph manuscript. Stinson also considers various issues of performance practice, and provides the first comprehensive examination of the music's reception, its dissemination in manuscript and printed form, and its influence on such composers as Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms.

This is the first book-length study of the Orgelbüchlein, the masterly collection of organ chorales by J. S. Bach. This 'Little Organ Book' is regarded by Bach scholars as one of the composer's most important achievements and by organ scholars as a milestone in the development of the chorale. Russell Stinson, himself an organist, examines the collection from a range of historical and analytical perspectives in a way that will resonate with not only organists and scholars but the average concert-goer or CD-buyer.

Baroque music, not long ago considered the province of the specialist, now occupies a central place in the interests of any music-lover. Not just Bach and Handel, but Vivaldi and Monteverdi, Couperin and Rameau, Purcell and Schutz are familiar and loved figures. There is place now for a survey that offers fresh perspectives on these men and the times in which they lived. That is what the Companion to Baroque Music is designed to offer, to all those who are attracted by the music of that crucial century and a half, 1600-1750, which we call 'the Baroque era'. Julie Anne Sadie, herself scholar, performer, and critic, brings to this survey two novel features. First, it is underpinned by a keen awareness of music as sound, intended to be played, heard, and relished by the listener-as witness the group of articles contributed by well-known specialists, such as Nigel Rogers and David Fuller, on the central issues of performance. Secondly it is concerned not only with what the music is like but why it is as it is: and the series of essays, again by specialists, such as Michael Talbot (on Italy) and Peter Holman (on England) which places each region's music in its social and cultural contexts helps to explain its character. The lexicographical part of the book, in which the life of every significant musician of the era is charted and his or her work outlined, is subdivided geographically so as to convey with particular sharpness the special character of music-making in each part of Europe-and a system of cross-references defines the ebb and flow of influences as composers travelled from city to city or court to court, disseminating their tastes, their styles, their ideas. A detailed chronology enables the reader to take in at a glance the sequence of musical events across the entire period. The Companion to Baroque Music, which contains a foreword by Christopher Hogwood, offers both reliable reference material and lively, enlightening reading to all those-amateur and professional, from the skilled practical musician to the person who has never played anything more demanding than a piece of stereo equipment-who love the music of the era that culminated in the great masterworks of Bach and Handel.

This annotated bibliography of J.S. Bach studies bring together in one place the most important and useful resources, describes the tools available for Bach research, and provides starting points for reading on many works and topics. Keeping the needs of the beginning Bach scholar firmly in mind, the authors provide concise explanations and summaries of important and potentially confusing topics in Bach research. Topics include bibliographic tools and sources; Bach's world; repertory and editions; vocal and instrumental music; performance; and approaches to Bach's music. The book concludes with detailed indexes of all topics, authors, and titles cited.

Dramma per musica-the most usual term for Italian serious opera from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century-was a modern, enlightened form of theater that presented a unified, artistically designed, dramatic enactment of human stories, expressed by the voice and underscored by the orchestra. This book by one of the world's most eminent musicologists illustrates the diversity of this baroque art form and explains how it has given us opera as we know it. Reinhard Strohm introduces the concept and history of dramma per musica and then examines the contemporary reception and environment of this operatic tradition, analyzing its social and repertorial patterns and comparing it to theories on the roles of French spoken drama and Italian libretto reform. In describing the principles observed by poets, composers, and performers, Strohm discusses such central concepts of theory and practice as verisimilitude, decorum, gesture, and rhetoric. He also decodes various works, including Handel's Ariodante, operas by Hasse, and stage works featuring the Earl of Essex. Throughout the book, Strohm surveys the traditions of the spoken theater and pays special attention to the subject matter of the librettos, as well as to drama theory, stage action, patronage, political history, and ideology. His account covers opera houses in Rome, Naples, Venice, Hamburg, Dresden, Vienna, Madrid, London, and Warsaw, as he follows one character of the dramatic tradition across the European stages for more than two centuries. Authoritative and enlightening, this book reveals how dramma per musica forms a vital part of our theatrical and musical heritage.

Vivaldi boasted that he could compose a concerto faster than a scribe could copy one. Despite his prolificacy, "The Four Seasons," and the majority of his already published work had fallen into obscurity by the time of his death in poverty in 1741. Most of his music-concertos, sonatas, operas, and sacral music-has been published only recently.
Very little has been written on Vivaldi for the nonspecialist, especially in English. Landon rediscovers the composer in this accessible and musically informed biography while presenting documentation of the musician's life discovered after the Baroque revival in the 1930s. This book includes illustrations of eighteenth-century Venice and several newly translated letters, thoroughly evoking the style of the time and revealing some of the more personal aspects of Vivaldi's life.
"Belongs on the shelf of every serious music student."--"Kirkus"
"Gives a good feel for Vivaldi's life and times . . . and describes particularly well how Vivaldi has been revived."--"Booklist"
"Robbins Landon is marvelously entertaining, extravagantly learned."--"The Independent"

'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

Joachim Burmeister's early seventeenth-century treatise on the making of music is generally acknowledged to be central to the understanding of Baroque musical practice: it was the first systematically to explore the connection between rhetoric and music that became a cornerstone of Baroque musical thought. But until now neither a reliable modern edition nor a full translation of this seminal work has existed. This much-needed edition by Benito V. Rivera contains a critical transcription of the Latin text and an annotated translation on facing pages. In a lengthy introduction to the book, Rivera reviews Burmeister's two earlier treatises on musical composition, analyzes Musical Poetics as a whole, and places it within its historical context. An appendix to the edition reproduces the passages of music cited by Burmeister, greatly facilitating the interpretation of Burmeister's explanations of the rhetorical figures. The book will be of interest to music historians and theorists as well as to scholars of rhetoric.

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.

Masterly works reprinted from authoritative Breitkopf & Härtel edition: Sonatas in D Major (K.381/123a), B-flat Major (K.358/186c), F Major (K.497), G Major (K.497a and 500a), and C Major (K.521) and Theme and Variations in G Major (K.501). Also for two pianos: Sonata in D Major (K.448/375a) and Fugue in C Minor (K.426). Now in one convenient volume for duet enthusiasts.

The chanson Doulce memoire, by Pierre Regnault, "dit Sandrin" (ca. 1490-1561), is a simple melody elegantly wedded to poetry that evokes nostalgia for something everyone has experienced a consuming, passionate love that exists only in bittersweet memory. This chanson was so popular that it was frequently reprinted and arranged in a variety of settings for singers and instrumentalists.

From 36 known arrangements, George Houle has selected 24 versions that require from one to six performers. Lutenists will find intabulations of varying difficulty, and the keyboard pieces range from teh very simple to an elaborate fantasy by Hernando de Cabezon. There are virtuosic arrangements for solo viola da gamba as well as duos and trios for many combinations of voices and instruments.

These settings, coupled with Houle's informative text, illustrate the ways Doulce memoire was performed by Renaissance musicians. Some versions show the players conforming to the ideas of the musical theorists of the day, while others demonstrate how much freedom an individual could exercise. For today's musicians, the anthology provides invaluable information on musica ficta and ornamentation.

Houle's performing edition in modern notation includes both scores and parts, the latter ingeniously laid out so that pages simulataneously required by two performers are never back to back. Thus this appealing music is immediately accessible and in a format that is convenient to use."

Music in the Galant Style is an authoritative and readily understandable study of the core compositional style of the eighteenth century. Gjerdingen adopts a unique approach, based on a massive but little-known corpus of pedagogical workbooks used by the most influential teachers of the century, the Italian partimenti. He has brought this vital repository of compositional methods into confrontation with a set of schemata distilled from an enormous body of eighteenth-century music, much of it known only to specialists, formative of the "galant style."

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This is the first ever book-length study of the a cappella masses which appeared in France in choirbook layout during the baroque era. Though the musical settings of the Ordinarium missae and of the Missa pro defunctis have been the subject of countless studies, the stylistic evolution of the polyphonic masses composed in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been neglected owing to the labor involved in creating scores from the surviving individual parts. Jean-Paul C. Montagnier has examined closely the printed, engraved and stenciled choirbooks containing this repertoire, and his book focuses mainly on the music as it stands in them. After tracing the choirbooks' publishing history, the author places these mass settings in their social, liturgical and musical context. He shows that their style did not all adhere strictly to the stile antico, but could also employ the most up-to-date musical language of the period.

At the height of the Enlightenment, four conservatories in Naples stood at the center of European composition. Maestros taught their students to compose with unprecedented swiftness and elegance using the partimento, an instructional tool derived from the basso continuo that encouraged improvisation as the path to musical fluency. Although the practice vanished in the early nineteenth century, its legacy lived on in the music of the next generation. In The Art of Partimento, performer and music-historian Giorgio Sanguinetti chronicles the history of this long-forgotten Neapolitan art. Sanguinetti has painstakingly reconstructed the oral tradition that accompanied these partimento manuscripts, now scattered throughout Europe. Beginning with the origins of the partimento in the circles of Corelli, Pasquini, and Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome and tracing it through the peak of the tradition in Naples, The Art of Partimento gives a glimpse into the daily life and work of an eighteenth century composer.
The Art of the Partimento is also a complete practical handbook to reviving the tradition today. Step by step, Sanguinetti guides the aspiring composer through elementary realization to more advanced exercises in diminution, imitation, and motivic coherence. Based on the teachings of the original masters, Sanguinetti challenges the reader to become a part of history, providing a variety of original partimenti in a range of genres, forms, styles, and difficulty levels along the way and allowing the student to learn the art of the partimento for themselves at their own pace.
As both history and practical guide, The Art of Partimento presents a new and innovative way of thinking about music theory. Sanguinetti's unique approach unites musicology and music theory with performance, which allows for a richer and deeper understanding than any one method alone, and offers students and scholars of composition and music theory the opportunity not only to understand the life of this fascinating tradition, but to participate in it as well.