In 1714, the 29 year-old Johann Sebastian Bach was promoted to the position of concertmaster at the ducal court of Weimar. This post required him for the first time in his already established career to produce a regular stream of church cantatas-one cantata every four weeks. Among the most significant works of this period is Ich hatte viel Bekummernis in meinem Herzen (Cantata 21). Generally known in English as "I had much affliction," Cantata 21 draws from several psalms and the Book of Revelations and offers a depiction of the spiritual ascent of the soul from intense tribulation to joy and exaltation. Although widely performed and loved by musicians, Cantata 21 has endured much criticism from scholars and critics who claim that the piece lacks organizational clarity and stylistic coherence. In Tears into Wine, renowned Bach scholar Eric Chafe challenges the scholarly consensus, arguing that Cantata 21 is an exceptionally carefully designed work, and that it displays a convergence of musical structure and theological purpose that is paradigmatic of Bach's sacred work as a whole. Drawing on a wide range of Lutheran theological writing, Chafe shows that Cantata 21 reaches beyond the scope of the individual liturgical occasion to voice a breadth of meaning that encompasses much of the core of Lutheran thought. Chafe artfully demonstrates that instead of simply presenting a musical depiction of the soul's journey from sorrow to bliss, Cantata 21 expresses the various stages of God's revelation and their impact on the believing soul. As a result, Chafe reveals that Cantata 21 has a formal design that mirrors Lutheran belief in unfolding revelation, with the final movement representing the work's "crown"-the goal toward which all of the earlier movements are directed. Complete with full text translations of the cantata and the liturgical readings that would have accompanied it at the first performance, Tears into Wine is a monumental book that is ideally suited for Bach scholars and students, as well as those generally interested in the relationship between theology and music.

This catalogue completes the bibliographic survey of French harpsichord music begun in Bruce Gustafson's French Harpsichord Music of the Seventeenth Century: A Thematic Catalogue of Sources with Commentary (Ann Arbor, 1979). It has entries for all of the printed music known to have existed, over 230 volumes, and 150 manuscripts. It offers precise transcriptions of the title pages, full contents, dating, locations, editions, facsimiles, evaluations in the contemporary press, identifications of dedicatees, and stylistic comments. The eighteenth-century French harpsichord repertory is shown to extend from 1699 to about 1780, from Louis Marchand's Pieces de clavecin to the four Symphonies concertantes by Jean-Francois Tapray that juxtapose the harpsichord and piano as solo instruments. All original keyboard music is included. Since the introduction of the piano into France occurred during the twenty years preceding 1780, this Catalogue includes some music that may have been intended for that instrument rather than for the harpsichord. This period of transition is discussed in full in the Introduction.

This book (published in German by Bärenreiter in 1988 and now available in English translation for the first time) is a comprehensive guide to the genesis, transmission, structure, meaning, and performance considerations of Bach's St John Passion. One of Bach's most fascinating works, its text demonstrates a profound understanding of St John's Gospel. The musical design of the choruses with their numerous interrelationships is quite unique and demands some explanation. The fact that the Passion exists in four different versions leads Dürr to ask which changes were intentional and which were the result of practical constraints or of orders issued by church authorities.

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."

The first edition of this book is the classic study of one of the most popular musical forms in early eighteenth-century France, not only because it documents and examines its considerable repertoire for the first time, but also because it places the genre in the wider context of both French and Italian baroque music styles. In uniting the two national styles the cantata was one of the major influences in transforming the seventeenth-century French classical tradition in music into a style that owed much to the Italian baroque, yet retained a distinctive gallic expression. As well as its musical interest, the French cantata provides an arresting example of the influence of society upon music, and the book commences with a chapter that views the emergence of the form in its social setting. Cantata texts enjoyed a vogue as poetry and this literary aspect is also dealt with in a separate chapter. This new edition incorporates research by the author and other scholars over the twenty years since the first edition, reflecting today's growing interest in French baroque music. It also features a new chapter dealing with the French cantata in performance.

Composer, diplomat, bishop: Agostino Steffani (1654-1728) was one of the most remarkable figures in late-17th and early-18th century Europe. Steffani began his life as a composer, musician, and courtier, but his accomplishments brought him high-level positions in the courts of Germany and in the Catholic Church. This book is the first to discuss all the periods and facets of Agostino Steffani's extraordinary career and to examine his entire output of musical works.

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.

In the seventeenth century Bologna developed a rich and diverse musical culture through the enterprise of musicians attached to the Basilica of S. Petronio and affiliated to the Accademia de'Filarmonici. Their achievements in the field of instrumental music (sonata, concerto) and festive church music (concerted mass) are well documented, but little of their output in the fields of oratorio, amounting to 300 performances in the period 1659-1730, has been subjected to critical scrutiny. This book relates the genesis and development of oratorio in Bologna to the city's religious, political, and cultural aspirations. The oratorio repertory is surveyed in three historical phases: under Cazzati (1657-74), Colonna (1675-95), and Perti (1696-1730), and eight oratorios by the city's leading composers are analysed in detail. A chronological list of performances is given in the Appendix.

Johann Sebastian Bach dominates the field of organ music like no other composer dominates any other repertory. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Bach's organ works have long attracted scholarly attention. Still, the subject has by no means been exhausted. The sheer number of Bach's surviving organ compositions will always prevent anyone from having the "last word" on the subjects, either the music's stylistic diversity, or its complexity. In addition, Bach's organ works have exerted a profound and lasting influence on later generations, including many of the greatest composers, performers, conductors, critics, and scholars in the whole history of music. In J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument, author Russell Stinson delves into various unexplored aspects of these masterpieces. Drawing on previous research and new archival sources, he sheds light on many of the most mysterious aspects of this music and its reception. Beginning with a critique of the literature, Stinson questions recent hypotheses regarding authorship and provenance of several of Bach's most famous pieces. From there he discusses the music itself, revealing compositional procedures that not only illuminate key aspects of the chorales, but those of the composer's contemporaries and predecessors as well. From there, Stinson turns to reception. From Mendelssohn and Schumann to Emerson, Lake, & Palmer, Stinson shows how Bach's music has remained a part of Western culture for nearly three hundred years. J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument casts new light on these foundational pieces of Western music, and is essential reading for students, scholars and fans of Bach, and "the king of instruments."

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.

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.

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.

How have Handel's 'lives' in biographies and histories moulded our understanding of the musician, the man and the icon? To evaluate the familiar, even over-familiar, story of Handel's life could be seen as a quixotic endeavour. How can there be anything new to say? This book seeks to distinguish fact from fiction, not only to produce a new biography but also to explore the concepts of biography and dissemination by using Handel's life and lives as a case study. By examining the images of Handel to be found in biographies and music histories - the genius, the religious profound, the master of musical styles, the distiller into music of English sentiment, the glorifier of the Hanoverians, the hymner of the middle class, the independent, the prodigious, the generous, the sexless, the successful, the wealthy, the bankrupt, the pious, the crude, the heroic, the devious, the battler of ill-fortune, the moral exemplar - and by adding new factual information, David Hunter shows how events are manipulated into stories and tropes. Onesuch trope has been employed to portray numerous persons as Handel's enemies regardless of whether Handel considered them as such. Picking apart the writing of Handel's biographers and other reporters, Hunter exposes the narrative underpinnings - the lies, confusions, presumptions, and conclusions, whether direct and inferred or assumed - to show how Handel's 'lives' in biographies and histories have moulded our understanding of the musician, the man andthe icon. DAVID HUNTER is Music Librarian at the University of Texas at Austin.

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.

This pathbreaking study reveals Purcell's extensive use of symmetry and reversal in his much-loved trio sonatas, and shows how these hidden structural processes make his music multilayered and appealing. Purcell's trio sonatas are among the cornerstones of Baroque chamber music. The composer himself unassumingly described them as "a just imitation of the most famed Italian masters." However, analysis of their underlying structuresreveals that Purcell's modesty hides a highly original blend of Italian models, complex English traditional compositional devices, and his own near obsession with compositional and contrapuntal technique. Alon Schab'spathbreaking Sonatas of Henry Purcell: Rhetoric and Reversal begins with an overview of the two sets of sonatas and their sources, their movement types, and some of the basic compositional and rhetorical procedures they demonstrate. The book's main part highlights several covert structures that are not necessarily heard but are consistent and played an important part in the compositional process. Symmetry, both temporal and spatial, governs much ofthese underlying structures. Beneath the surface of his studies in Italian style, Purcell created intricate correspondences between the micro and macro levels of the works, as well as unities of proportions and, above all, impressive mirrorlike structures. Schab's book opens an important window to seventeenth-century compositional technique and offers further evidence of Purcell's use of advanced compositional techniques in works that aimed to be pleasurable for the amateur and excitingly thought-provoking for the professional. Alon Schab is a lecturer at the University of Haifa.

During a period of tumultuous change in English political, religious and cultural life, music signified the unspeakable presence of the divine in the world for many. What was the role of music in the early modern subject's sensory experience of divinity? While the English intellectuals Peter Sterry (1613-72), Richard Roach (1662-1730), William Stukeley (1687-1765) and David Hartley (1705-57), have not been remembered for their 'musicking', this book explores how the musical reflections of these individuals expressed alternative and often uncustomary conceptions of God, the world, and the human psyche. Music is always potentially present in their discourse, emerging as a crucial form of mediation between states: exoteric and esoteric, material and spiritual, outer and inner, public and private, rational and mystical. Dixon shows how Sterry, Roach, Stukeley and Hartley's shared belief in truly universal salvation was articulated through a language of music, implying a feminising influence that set these male individuals apart from contemporaries who often strictly emphasised the rational-i.e. the supposedly masculine-aspects of religion. Musical discourse, instead, provided a link to a spiritual plane that brought these intellectuals closer to 'ultimate reality'. Theirs was a discourse firmly rooted in the real existence of contemporary musical practices, both in terms of the forms and styles implied in the writings under discussion and the physical circumstances in which these musical genres were created and performed. Through exploring ways in which the idea of music was employed in written transmission of elite ideas, this book challenges conventional classifications of a seventeenth-century 'Scientific Revolution' and an eighteenth-century 'Enlightenment', defending an alternative narrative of continuity and change across a number of scholarly disciplines, from seventeenth-century English intellectual history and theology, to musicology and the social history of music.

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).

Purcell's Dido and Aeneas stands as the greatest operatic achievement of seventeenth-century England, and yet, despite its global renown, it remains cloaked in mystery. The date and place of its first performance cannot be fixed with precision, and the absolute accuracy of the surviving scores, which date from almost 100 years after the work was written, cannot be assumed. In this thirtieth-anniversary new edition of her book, Ellen Harris closely examines the many theories that have been proposed for the opera's origin and chronology, considering the opera both as political allegory and as a positive exemplar for young women. Her study explores the work's historical position in the Restoration theater, revealing its roots in seventeenth-century English theatrical and musical traditions, and carefully evaluates the surviving sources for the various readings they offer-of line designations in the text (who sings what), the vocal ranges of the soloists, the use of dance and chorus, and overall layout. It goes on to provide substantive analysis of Purcell's musical declamation and use of ground bass. In tracing the performance history of Dido and Aeneas, Harris presents an in-depth examination of the adaptations made by the Academy of Ancient Music at the end of the eighteenth century based on the surviving manuscripts. She then follows the growing interest in the creation of an "authentic" version in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through published editions and performance reviews, and considers the opera as an important factor in the so-called English Musical Renaissance. To a significant degree, the continuing fascination with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas rests on its apparent mutability, and Harris shows this has been inherent in the opera effectively from its origin.

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.

Following methods known to have been adopted by Bach himself, the exercises provided in chorale harmonization are graded in such a way as to encourage the student to develop both technique and imagination within a closely-defined framework. The instrumental counterpoint section is based on Bach's two-and three-part Inventions. By close analysis the author helps the reader to recognize the procedures Bach adopted in various musical situations. The exercises are taken largely from Bach's keyboard works.

Bach's Changing World is a study of popular culture in the community in which Bach spent the last, the longest, and the most productive part of his life: the Leipzig middle-class. The Leipzig middle-class evolved with the cooperation and gratitude of an extravagant, greedy, and disinterested absolutist ruler. Bach's Changing World documents how this community and other German communities responded toa variety of religious, social, and political demands that emerged during the years of the composer's lifetime. An accepted, admired, and trusted member of this community, as evidenced by the commissions he received for secular celebrations from royalty and members of the middle-class alike -- in addition to functioning as church composer -- Bach shared its values. Contributors: Carol K. Baron, Susan H. Gillespie, Katherine Goodman, Joyce L. Irwin, Tanya Kevorkian, Ulrich Siegele, John Van Cleve, and Ruben Weltsch. Carol K. Baron is Fellow for Life in the Department of Music at Stony Brook University, where she was co-founder and administrator of the Bach Aria Festival and Institute.

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.

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.

This collection presents a selection of varied repertoire by J. S. Bach in new arrangements for the organ. Bringing a wealth of popular pieces under the fingers and feet of intermediate players, the volume caters for all parts of a church service, as well as providing recital repertoire and popular encores. Taking its cue from the Baroque practice of transcription, and with the needs of modern players in mind, this volume presents a set of pieces with wide and varied use and makes a valuable addition to any organist's repertoire.