The translation of the third volume of Syntagma musicum, a multi-volume work by German composer and theorist Michael Praetorius (1571-1621). Volume III deals with terminolgy and performance practice, and offers us the most detailed commentary available from the 17th century about the performance of particular pieces of music. Praetorius is the most often quoted and excerpted writer on performance practice. In his translation, Kite=Powell has worked with a notoriously difficult syntax to produce a definitive English edition of this important work.

In this book George B. Stauffer explores the music and complex history of Bach's last and possibly greatest masterpiece. Stauffer examines the B-Minor Mass in greater detail than ever before, demonstrating for the first time Bach's reliance on contemporary models from the Dresden Mass repertory and his brilliantly innovative methods of unifying his immense composition. Musicians, music scholars, students, and music lovers will find in this engagingly written book a wealth of information about Bach's extraordinary choral work. Stauffer surveys the roots of the Mass Ordinary text and its treatment in settings known to Bach. He looks at the events that led to the writing of the B-Minor Mass and places the work within the context of the composer's late style. In three deeply informed chapters, Stauffer considers the individual sections of the Mass--the Kyrie and Gloria, the Credo, and the Sanctus and Agnus Dei. The book also traces the history of the work after Bach's death, addresses specific issues of performance practice, and investigates the qualities that give the B-Minor Mass its universal appeal.

Holy Chord Within Sacred Walls examines musical culture both inside and outside seventeenth-century Sienese convents. In contrast to earlier studies of Italian convent music, this book draws upon archival sources to reconstruct an ecclesiastical culture that celebrated music internally and shared music freely with the community outside the convent walls. Colleen Reardon argues that cloistered women in Siena enjoyed a significant degree of freedom to engage in musical pursuits. The nuns produced a remarkable body of work including motets, lamentations, theatrical plays and even an opera. As a result, the convent became an important cultural centre in Siena that enjoyed the support and encouragement of its clergy and lay community.

This highly-praised study of Monteverdi and his works combines clear social and historical perspectives with critical insight into his music. In relating Monteverdi to the musical activity of his time, Denis Arnold reveals a forward-looking genius whose music is now receiving long-overdue appreciation. The text and appendices of this edition were fully revised by Tim Carter, who added a new chapter taking account of recent scholarship.

Designed for general readers and scholars, this study explores the Lutheran commentary in Bach's St. John Passion and suggests that fostering hostility to Jews is not its subject or purpose. Also included are a literal, annotated translation of the libretto and an appendix discussing anti-Judaism and Bach's other works.

This is the first study in modern times dealing exclusively with the flutes used in the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras. It details the history of the transverse flute from 1500 until the early nineteenth century. Advice is given on acquiring instruments, and their care and maintenance. Additional chapters guide the reader to sources about relevant technique and style, recommend repertoire, and give general advice to the modern player. The text is enhanced by numerous photographs of important historic flutes.

The ever-increasing number of performances of Bach's music is a sign of its enduring vitality. But perhaps no other composer is subject to such a wide diversity of interpretation--assessing the merits of these many interpretations and unravelling the sources and documents on which they are based can be extremely difficult for the modern performer. In this important book, Paul Badura-Skoda draws on forty years of studying and performing Bach to present startling new insights into many different aspects of Bach's music. He looks at rhythm, tempo, articulation, and dynamics; examines the instruments for which Bach's music was intended, and considers problems of sonority. He then discusses ornamentation in depth, analyzing each of the signs and symbols used by Bach, and argues that much of Bach's ornamentation in current performance is monotonous and fails to reflect the actual Baroque style. Sometimes contentious, always stimulating, Badura-Skoda's book conveys a passion for an informed interpretation of Bach's music based on a recognition and respect for Bach's actual intentions. Copiously illustrated with musical examples, the book will take its place as a standard work for all students and performers of Bach's ever-popular keyboard music.

Combining a close study of Monteverdi's secular works with recent research on late Renaissance history, Gary Tomlinson places the composer's creative career in its broad cultural context and illuminates the state of Italian music, poetry, and ideology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Michelangelo Rossi's two books of five-voice polyphonic madrigals are among the most expressive works of their kind ever composed. Showing the influence of Gesualdo, the madrigals were probably written in Rome between 1624 and 1629, when Rossi was in the service of Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy. They were apparently never published, and there is only one complete manuscript source, which once belonged to Queen Christina of Sweden and now forms the principal source for Brian Mann's critical edition.
In his extensive introduction, Mann considers in detail the biographical, cultural, and stylistic milieu in which the madrigals were written. The scholarly edition of the music, based on a thorough examination of all the known sources, includes a complete critical commentary.
Mann's work on Rossi's madrigals has already helped revive interest in them. In 1998 a CD recording of Book I appeared on the Virgin label, performed by Il Complesso Barocco under the direction of Alan Curtis, and based on this critical edition.

During the 17th and 18th century musicians' mobilities and migrations are essential for the European music history and the cultural exchange of music. Adopting viewpoints that reflect different methodological approaches and diversified research cultures, the book presents studies on central scopes, strategies and artistic outcomes of mobile and migratory musicians as well as on the transfer of music. By looking at elite and non-elite musicians and their everyday mobilities to major and minor centers of music production and practice, new biographical patterns and new stylistic paradigms in the European East, West and South emerge.

After their military defeat by the Florentines in the mid-sixteenth century, the citizens of Siena turned from politics to celebratory, social occasions to express their civic identity and show their capacity for collective action. In the first major work of its kind, Colleen Reardon opens a window on the ways in which the Sienese absorbed the new genre of opera into their own festive apparatus and challenges the prevailing view that operatic productions in the city were merely an extension of Medici power to the provinces. It was, rather, members of the expatriate Chigi family who exploited the festive impulse of their countrymen, coordinating operatic performances with their triumphant visits home by activating ties of friendship and family as well as connections to Sienese institutions, most notably the Assicurate, possibly the first all-female academy in Italy. If the Chigi proved successful at inserting opera into larger patterns of sociability that conveyed the very essence of what it meant to be Sienese (senesita), their successor, the flamboyant playwright and librettist Girolamo Gigli, struggled in his attempts to transform operatic performances into professional enterprises. Fluidly written and richly embellished with anecdotes from historical chronicles, A Sociable Moment offers insight into the Sienese experience with opera during the genre's rapid expansion throughout the Italian peninsula during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell provides a comprehensive and authoritative review of current research into Purcell and the environment of Restoration music, with contributions from leading experts in the field. Seen from the perspective of modern, interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship, the companion allows the reader to develop a rounded view of the environment in which Purcell lived, the people with whom he worked, the social conditions that influenced his activities, and the ways in which the modern perception of him has been affected by reception of his music after his death. In this sense the contributions do not privilege the individual over the environment: rather, they use the modern reader's familiarity with Purcell's music as a gateway into the broader Restoration world. Topics include a reassessment of our understanding of Purcell's sources and the transmission of his music; new ways of approaching the study of his creative methods; performance practice; the multi-faceted theatre environment in which his work was focused in the last five years of his life; the importance of the political and social contexts of late seventeenth-century England; and the ways in which the performance history and reception of his music have influenced modern appreciation of the composer. The book will be essential reading for anyone studying the music and culture of the seventeenth century.

For more than three decades Richard Charteris has researched European music, sources and collections, focusing particularly on late Renaissance England, Germany and Italy. This group of essays, many concerning previously unknown or unexplored works and materials, covers the 16th and early to mid 17th centuries. The studies involve variously 'new' compositions, music manuscripts and editions, and documents that relate to figures such as the Italians Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder, the Germans Hans Leo Hassler and Adam Gumpelzhaimer, as well as the Englishmen John Coprario, John Dowland, John Jenkins, Henry Lawes, William Lawes, Peter Philips, and the French composer Marin Marais. In addition, Charteris elucidates contemporary performance practice in relation to works by Gabrieli, investigates printed music editions that originated from the Church of St Anna, Augsburg, and evaluates materials in collections, inlcuding ones in Berlin, Hamburg, KrakA(3)w, London, Regensburg and Warsaw.

For nearly two centuries, Johann Sebastian Bach has been regarded as a cornerstone of Western musical culture. His music inspired subsequent generations of composers and philosophers alike, and continues to capture our imaginations in many ways. Bach studies is part of this picture, often seen as providing excellent examples of musicological scholarship. For The Baroque Masters: Bach, the editor has chosen thirty-three published articles which, in his view, not only represent a broad spectrum of the scholarly discussions on Bach's life and works, but will also facilitate the on-going study of Bach's creative genius. The articles have been selected to ensure that this volume will be considered useful for not only those students who are currently engaging in Bach studies at universities but also for more seasoned Bach scholars as they consider future direction of Bach studies.

Since 1978, the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi's death, there has been an explosion of serious writing about his music, life and times. Much of this has taken the form of articles published in academic journals or conference proceedings, some of which are not easy to obtain. The twenty-two articles selected by Michael Talbot for this volume form a representative selection of the best writing on Vivaldi from the last 30 years, featuring such major figures in Vivaldi research as Reinhard Strohm, Paul Everett, Gastone Vio and Federico Maria Sardelli. Aspects covered include biography, Venetian cultural history, manuscript studies, genre studies and musical analysis. The intention is to serve as a 'first port of call' for those wishing to learn more about Vivaldi or to refresh their existing knowledge. An introduction by Michael Talbot reviews the state of Vivaldi scholarship past and present and comments on the significance of the articles.

This anthology represents scholarly literature devoted to Handel over the last few decades, and contains different kinds of studies of the composer's biography, operatic career, singers, librettists, and his relationship with the music of other composers. Case studies range from recent research that transforms our knowledge of large-scale English works to an interdisciplinary exploration of an individual opera aria. Designed to bring easy and convenient access to students, performers and music lovers, the wide-ranging articles are selected by David Vickers (co-editor of the recent Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia) from diverse sources - not only familiar important journals, but also specialist yearbooks, festschrifts, not easily accessible newsletters, conference proceedings and exhibition catalogues. Many of these represent an up-to-date understanding of modern Handel studies, deal with fascinating biographical issues (such as the composer's art collection, his chronic health problems, and the nature of popular anecdotal evidence), and fill gaps in the mainstream Handelian literature.

The 300th anniversary of Henry Purcell's death in 1995 stimulated a good deal of new research into his music, its sources, performance, reception and cultural context. The 23 articles in this volume have been chosen by Peter Holman as a representative selection of the best scholarly writing over the last few decades, featuring most of the leading Purcell scholars, including Curtis Price, Robert Thompson, Robert Shay, Bruce Wood, Rebecca Herissone, and Christopher Hogwood, though it also includes some earlier classic articles, by Michael Tilmouth, Richard Luckett, Margaret Laurie and others. The four sections are 'Biography and Contexts', 'Sources, Editing and Publishing', 'Styles, Genres and Compositional Process', and 'Performance, Performance Practice and Reception'. Peter Holman's introduction explores the history of Purcell scholarship, reviews its present state, comments on the significance of the articles, and offers a prospect for the future.

The study of sacred music under Louis XIII (r.1610-43) has advanced little in the past hundred years. Despite some important recent contributions by the late Denise Launay and others, much of our current perception of the Latin sacred music of the period is still informed by the pioneering research undertaken by Henri Quittard in the early years of the twentieth century. Even with Quittard's work, however, the almost complete absence of surviving sources has severely limited our understanding of this era. But by re-examining one of the seventeenth-century 'treasures' of the Bibliotheque nationale (MS Vma res. 571), Sacred Repertories in Paris under Louis XIII reveals that, far from being a transitional period in which little music of any interest was produced, the reign of Louis XIII witnessed a flowering of musical activity and the development of musical techniques normally associated with the reign of Louis XIV. Based on an exhaustive and innovative manuscript study, Sacred Repertories shows that Vma res. 571 (a largely anonymous source of previously unknown provenance) was copied in Paris by the composer Andre Pechon, and that it preserves three previously unidentified repertories with connections to the court of Louis XIII. The repertoire of the musique de la chambre, until now considered a secular institution, shows it to have been an equal partner of the chapelle in the provision of sacred music at court. The repertoire of the royal parish church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, the only 'working' liturgical repertory surviving from the century, illustrates musical practices at this important collegiate church. And the repertoire of the Royal Benedictine Abbey of Montmartre testifies to the richness of musical tradition in Parisian convents during a period when no other comparable music from France survives. Sacred Repertories thus transforms our understanding of the musical landscape of seventeenth-century France and provides a springboard fo

The Faber Pocket Guide to Handel offers a detailed but accessible exploration of George Frederick Handel, his composition, and his legacy. A larger-than-life figure in his time, Handel's reputation has been less than steady since his death in 1759. Was he (in the words of Berlioz) just 'a great barrel of pork and beer', or (as Handel himself claimed) truly 'the master of us all'? Now, more than 250 years after his death, there is more interest in Handel than ever before, with his operas (such as Rinaldo and Agrippina) experiencing fantastic renewed popularity. This lively Pocket Guide goes in search of the composer who wrote the Messiah, Water Music - and much more. Handy for browsing and reference, key features include: - Handel's life: year by year - Handel's operas: a complete guide - Essential Handel - Picturing Handel - Handel on CD and DVD - Handel Online Edward Blakeman assesses how Handel's works have stood the test of time and why they can still speak thrillingly to us today. With recommendations throughout for listening, further reading, and web surfing, this is the ideal guide for music lovers who want to discover the great composer for themselves.

In this collection of essays Mary Cyr explores some of the written and unwritten performance conventions that applied to French and English music of the 17th and early 18th centuries. Using composers' own notations, marks added by 18th-century performers, historical treatises, and pictorial evidence, she investigates both vocal and instrumental genres, including opera, cantatas, instrumental chamber music, and solo music for the viol and violin. Some of the performance conventions remain controversial, such as the use of gesture by the French opera chorus, and others are still little-known, such as the use of the double bass for rhythmic and harmonic support in early 18th-century French opera. As many of these essays demonstrate, French Baroque music allowed performers a wider latitude of nuance and expression than is often assumed today. The essays in this volume will be of particular interest to scholars and performers who are interested in adopting a historically-informed approach to performing music by Henry Purcell, A0/00lisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and their contemporaries. Several studies also deal with attributions, sources, and the discovery of a cantata by Rameau.

The Monthly Mask is a fascinating series of 360 songs, of immensely varied interest, showing what the public bought month by month as songs to sing, play and teach. It ran from November 1702 to September 1711, and offered the 'newest Songs', with theatre songs often appearing within a week of their premieres. Political events were also quickly reflected. The Monthly Mask is an important resource for scholars of the musical, theatrical, political and social life of the early 18th century. There are songs by nearly 50 composers, including all the leading English figures between Purcell and Handel. One Purcell song is published for the first time and there are many songs not to be found elsewhere. Besides the theatres, there is music for the court, York Buildings, Stationers' Hall, Richmond Wells and May Fair, as well as for banquets for the Post Office and the Ordnance Board. The Monthly Mask covers the chief part of Queen Anne's reign and the triumphs and fall of the Duke of Marlborough. There are songs in celebration of all of Marlborough's victories, toasts to England's allies and satires mocking the French king and the Pretender. The appeal of the periodical to theatre historians is considerable. It not only gives details of songs and their singers for many plays, but also reflects the changes in the use of music in the theatre during this period. The emergence of female star singers, the advent of all-sung operas, the enormous success of the first English opera in the Italian style (Arsinoe), the marginalisation of incidental music in plays after the formation of the opera company, and the triumph of Italian opera are all clearly traceable. This complete facsimile is exceptionally useful for librarians and sellers of antiquarian music, not only for correctly dating any single monthly issues but, more importantly, for attributing dates to a huge number of otherwise undateable single songsheets run off from the Monthly Mask plates.

This is the first multi-disciplinary study of the dissemination of Italian culture in northern Europe during the "long eighteenth century" (1689-1815). The book covers a diverse range of important artists such as Amigoni, Canaletto and Rosalba Carriera, as well as opera singers, commedia dell'arte performers and librettists who left Italy to seek work beyond the Alps. It also considers key themes such as social networks, the relationships between court and market cultures, the importance of religion and politics to the reception of culture, and the evolution of taste.

This is the first general survey of Purcell's music for a generation, and is published to coincide with the 300th anniversary of Purcell's death.

Step into the classroom with Christoph Wolff

Johann Sebastian Bach holds a singular position in the history of music. A uniquely gifted musician, he combined outstanding performing virtuosity with supreme creative powers and remarkable intellectual discipline. More than two centuries after his lifetime, Bach's work continues to set musical standards.

The noted Bach scholar Christoph Wolff offers in this book new perspectives on the composer's life and remarkable career. Uncovering important historical evidence, the author demonstrates significant influences on Bach's artistic development and brings fresh insight on his work habits, compositional intent, and the musical traditions that shaped Bach's thought. Wolff reveals a composer devoted to an ambitious and highly individual creative approach, one characterized by constant self-criticism and self-challenge, the absorption of new skills and techniques, and the rethinking of riches from the musical past.

Readers will find illuminating analyses of some of Bach's greatest music, including the B Minor Mass, important cantatas, keyboard and chamber compositions, the Musical Offering, and the Art of Fugue. Discussion of how these pieces "work" will be helpful to performers--singers, players, conductors--and to everyone interested in exploring the conceptual and contextual aspects of Bach's music. All readers will find especially interesting those essays in which Wolff elaborates on his celebrated discoveries of previously unknown works: notably the fourteen "Goldberg" canons and a collection of thirty-three chorale preludes.

Representing twenty-five years of scholarship, these essays--half of which appear here in English forthe first time--have established Christoph Wolff as one of the world's preeminent authorities on J. S. Bach. All students, performers, and lovers of Bach's music will find this an engaging and enlightening book.

A unique and revelatory book of music history that examines in what is perhaps the best-known and most-popular symphony ever written and its four-note opening, which has fascinated musicians, historians, and philosophers for the last 200 years. Music critic Matthew Guerrieri reaches back before Beethoven's time to examine what might have influenced him in writing his Fifth Symphony, and forward into our own time to describe the ways in which the Fifth has, in turn, asserted its influence.