This four-volume anthology contains a sparkling selection of pieces and represents all the major composers of the period. It includes pieces in all the main genres, with Cornet and Trumpet Voluntaries, Echo Voluntaries, fugal works with slow introductions, and Full Voluntaries; as such, the collection offers a wide range of attractive music suitable for both church and recital use. Each volume contains an extended Introduction, with information on instruments of the period, registration, ornamentation, and notes on the composers. An important feature of the collection is an editorial realization of the cadenzas which occur at key points in some of the pieces; these complete the works and demonstrate how they would have been performed at the time. With extended historical information and a wonderful array of pieces carefully edited from original sources, this is a major collection that will be of interest to organists of all abilities.

for SATB unaccompanied This edition of the Salve Regina by Portuguese composer Diogo Dias Melgas (1638-1700) is the first published version of the work, which has previously only been available in a library edition. Suitable for liturgical or concert performance, this setting is in four equally active parts throughout, each of which takes the initial plainsong motif at the opening. The effectiveness of this moving work lies in the skilful manipulation of simple motivic material, through the use of devices such as parallel writing, sequences, repetition, suspensions, and hocket. The vocal score is presented alongside detailed performance and editorial notes, and an optional basso continuo part appears as an appendix. Salve Regina is featured on The Sixteen's CD 'A Golden Age of Portuguese Music', conducted by Harry Christophers (COR16020).

for SATB soloists, SATB chorus, and string ensemble Composed during the early 1700s, Emanuele d'Astorga's nine-movement Stabat Mater was to become one of the most frequently performed choral works of the eighteenth century. Tinged with melancholy, it features ornate solos, duets, and trios interspersed between beautiful imitative moments for full chorus. Robert King has consulted eighteenth-century sources for this edition, which includes an organ reduction for rehearsal purposes. The orchestral score and parts are available on hire/rental.

The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is the eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin's provocative, erudite telling of the story of Western music from its earliest days to the present. Each book in this superlative five-volume set illuminates-through a representative sampling of masterworks-the themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to a significant period in the history of Western music.
Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, the second volume Richard Taruskin's monumental history, illuminates the explosion of musical creativity that occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Examining a wealth of topics, Taruskin looks at the elegant masques and consort music of Jacobean England, the Italian concerto style of Corelli and Vivaldi, and the progression from Baroque to Rococo to romantic style. Perhaps most important, he offers a fascinating account of the giants of this period: Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse period.

Discussion of original performance conventions of Bach's sacred works - cantatas, Passions, masses - by practising musician and director of Taverner choir. What type of choir did Bach have in mind as he created his cantatas, Passions and Masses? How many singers were at his disposal in Leipzig, and in what ways did he deploy them in his own music? Seeking to understand the verymedium of Bach's incomparable choral output, Andrew Parrott investigates a wide range of sources: Bach's own writings, and the scores and parts he used in performance, but also a variety of theoretical, pictorial and archival documents, together with the musical testimony of the composer's forerunners and contemporaries. Many of the findings shed a surprising, even disturbing, light on conventions we have long taken for granted. A whole world away from, say, the typical oratorio choir of Handel's London with which we are reasonably familiar, the essential Bach choir was in fact an expert vocal quartet (or quintet), whose members were also responsible for all solos and duets. (In a mere handful of Bach's works, this solo team was selectively supported by a second rank of singers - also one per part - whose contribution was all but optional). Parrott shows that this use of aone-per-part choir was mainstream practice in the Lutheran Germany of Bach's time: Bach chose to use single voices not because a larger group was unavailable, but because they were the natural vehicle of elaborate concerted music. As one of several valuable appendices, this book includes the text of Joshua Rifkin's explosive 1981 lecture, never before published, which first set out this line of thinking and launched a controversy that is long overduefor resolution. ANDREW PARROTT has made a close study of historical performing practices in the music of six centuries, and for over twenty-five years he has been putting research into practice with his own professional ensembles, the Taverner Consort, Taverner Players and Taverner Choir.

for organ
This is a marvellous collection of pieces by Henry Purcell newly arranged for the organ by concert organist Martin Setchell. Purcell's music works perfectly on the organ, and a number of his pieces have long been popular with players. This volume brings together all those must-have pieces - the trumpet tunes, rondeau from Abdelazer, and so on - and combines these with a wonderful selection of lesser-known pieces from across Purcell's work. There are sprightly curtain tunes and hornpipes from the stage pieces, lovely reflective songs and airs, and a wide range of dances and chaconnes. The result is a set of pieces with wide and varied church and concert use, perfectly accessible to intermediate players. Publication in 2009 coincides with the 350th anniversary of the composer's birth, and the volume makes a valuable addition to any organist's repertoire.

The major choral works by Johann Sebastian Bach-the Christmas, Easter, and Ascension Oratorios, and the St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. John Passions-stand as the most frequently-performed and penetratingly discussed of the genre. Renowned Bach scholar Michael Marissen has assembled a compact, well-designed and ideally useful treatment of Bach's oratorios, providing the full German texts with literal English translations and copious annotations. He provides strict literal translations of these texts, with citations from the Luther Bible as it was known in Bach's day, along side extensive footnotes that provide information addressing the interests and concerns of today's Bach community. These are the first translations of the librettos from Bach's oratorios to accommodate the many sense-clarifying allusions to the readings of the Luther Bibles in Bach's day, to explore from historical dictionaries the meanings of previously unnoticed archaic usages, and to contrast relevant findings from modern biblical scholarship. Marissen's insights are particularly helpful, his thoroughness is impressive, and the book will be a longstanding, definitive, and essential reference for choral directors, performers, audience members, and Bach scholars alike.

Following on from James Tyler's The Early Guitar: A History and Handbook(OUP 1980) tthis collaboration with Paul Sparks (their previous book for OUP, The Early Mandolin, appeared in 1989), presents new ideas and research on the history and development of the guitar and its music from the Renaissance to the dawn of the Classical era. Tyler's systematic study of the two main guitar types found between about 1550 and 1750 focuses principally on what the sources of the music (published and manuscript) and the writings of contemporary theorists reveal about the nature of the instruments and their roles in the music making of the period. The annotated lists of primary sources, previously published in The Early Guitar but now revised and expanded, constitute the most comprehensive bibliography of Baroque guitar music to date. His appendices of performance practice information should also prove indispensable to performers and scholars alike. Paul Sparks also breaks new ground, offering an extensive study of a period in the guitar's history-notably c.1759-c.1800-which the standard histories usually dismiss in a few short paragraphs. Far from being a dormant instrument at this time, the guitar is shown to have been central to music-making in France, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and South America. Sparks provides a wealth of information about players, composers, instruments, and surviving compositions from this neglected but important period, and he examines how the five-course guitar gradually gave way to the six-string instrument, a process that occurred in very different ways (and at different times) in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Britain.

This book gives an account of the individual works of one of the greatest composers. The first volume of a two-volume study of the music of J. S. Bach covers the earlier part of his composing career, 1695-1717. By studying the music chronologically a coherent picture of the composer's creative development emerges, drawing together all the strands of the individual repertoires (e.g. the cantatas, the organ music, the keyboard music). The volume is divided into two parts, covering the early works and the mature Weimar compositions respectively. Each part deals with four categories of composition in turn: large-scale keyboard works; preludes, fantasias, and fugues; organ chorales; and cantatas. Within each category, the discussion is prefaced by a list of the works to be considered, together with details of their original titles, catalogue numbers, and earliest sources. The study is thus usable as a handbook on Bach's works as well as a connected study of his creative development. As indicated by the subtitle Music to Delight the Spirit,, borrowed from Bach's own title-pages, Richard Jones draws attention to another important aspect of the book: not only is it a study of style and technique but a work of criticism, an analytical evaluation of Bach's music and an appreciation of its extraordinary qualities. It also takes account of the remarkable advances in Bach scholarship that have been made over the last 50 years, including the many studies that have appeared relating to various aspects of Bach's early music, such as the varied influences to which he was subjected and the problematic issues of dating and authenticity that arise. In doing so, it attempts to build up a coherent picture of his development as a creative artist, helping us to understand what distinguishes Bach's mature music from his early works and from the music of his predecessors and contemporaries. Hence we learn why it is that his later works are instantly recognizable as 'Bachian'.

Shortly after assuming the Saxon throne in 1656, Lutheran Elector Johann Georg II (r. 1656-80) replaced the elder Kapellmeister Heinrich Schutz with younger Italian Catholic composers. Seemingly overnight, sacred music in the most modern Italian style, first by Vincenzo Albrici (1631-90/96) and later by Giuseppe Peranda (ca. 1625-75) supplanted the more traditional Schutzian sacred concerto and Spruchmotette, effecting a change in musical and spiritual life both within the walls of the Dresden court and beyond.
Drawing on extensive research in primary source materials, Frandsen explores the elector's "Italianization" of the Hofkapelle with castrati and other Italian virtuosi, and examines the larger confessional conflict that gripped the city of Dresden and its implications for the Catholic-leaning elector's musical agenda. She then examines the Latin texts set by Albrici and Peranda, a body of works dominated by expressions of mystical devotion typical of the repertoire then heard in Italy. However, drawing upon recent studies of the phenomenon of "new piety" in seventeenth-century Lutheranism, Frandsen locates these texts squarely within the realm of contemporary Lutheran spirituality, and demonstrates their congruity with devotional materials used by Lutherans since the mid-sixteenth century. In her discussion of the sacred concertos of Albrici and Peranda, she takes the concept of musica pathetica as a point of departure, and also explores the formal and stylistic relationships between the Roman motet and the new sacred concerto in Dresden. Finally, with the help of liturgies recorded in court diaries, she reintegrates this music into its original performance environment, anddemonstrates how tightly the works of these Italians were woven into the Gospel-determined thematic fabric of the services celebrated during the church year.
A fascinating account of the uneasy alliance of two confessions at the prominent seventeenth-century court of Dresden, this book provides fresh insights into a neglected but influential repertoire. Frandsen's research will be of interest to scholars and students interested in Baroque music, the intellectual and cultural history of European courts, the history of liturgy and church history, and the Early Modern era in general.

In 1947 the theologian and musicologist Friedrich Smend published a study which claimed that J. S. Bach regularly employed the natural-order number alphabet (A=1 to Z=24) in his works. Smend provided historical evidence and music examples to support his theory which demonstrated that by this means Bach incorporated significant words into his music, and provided himself with a symbolic compositional scheme. Since then many people have taken up Smend's theory, interpreting numbers of bars and notes in Bach scores according to the natural-order alphabet. By presenting a thorough survey of different number alphabets and their uses in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Germany, Dr Tatlow investigates the plausibility of Smend's claims. Her new evidence fundamentally challenges Smend's conclusions and the book sounds a note of caution to all who continue to use his number-alphabet theory. Dr Tatlow's painstaking research will fascinate all those with an interest in the music of J. S. Bach and German Baroque culture, and will be of particular importance for music historians and analysts.

This is the story of the orchestra, from 16th-century string bands to the "classical" orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Spitzer and Zaslaw document orchestral organization, instrumentation, social roles, repertories, and performance practices in Europe and the American colonies, concluding around 1800 with the widespread awareness of the orchestra as a central institution in European life.

This is the story of the orchestra, from 16th-century string bands to the "classical" orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Spitzer and Zaslaw document orchestral organization, instrumentation, social roles, repertories, and performance practices in Europe and the American colonies, concluding around 1800 with the widespread awareness of the orchestra as a central institution in European life.

"Boland's clear, accessible text reflects years of professional experience as a performer and teacher of the one-key flute. Her book answers all the practical needs of beginners and offers advanced flutists a wealth of useful information. Even players wedded to the Boehm flute will gain fresh musical insights from Boland's comprehensive method."--Laurence Libin, Department of Musical Instruments, Metropolitan Museum of Art

"This is the best introduction to the one-key (baroque) flute for Boehm system flute players available today. With her comprehensive knowledge of the numerous historical treatises and tutors and her extensive practical experience as a player and teacher, Jan Boland has fashioned a guide that is at the same time informative and enjoyable. I only wish it had been available when I set out to learn the one-key flute. It would have saved me much time and led me directly to the most important sources."--John Thow, composer and Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley

"An easy-to-read format, clear prose, attractive graphics, and well chosen and very legible music make it an ideal beginner's tutor."--Betty Bang Mather, Professor Emeritus, University of Iowa School of Music

Taking account of Bach scholarship of the past twenty-five years, the first two volumes of Peter Williams's classic study of Bach's organ works are fully revised. This work is a piece-by-piece commentary on this ever-popular repertoire, demonstrating the music's unique qualities and how we might hear and play it today. The book follows the order of the Bach catalog (BWV): beginning with the sonatas, followed by the "free works" and the chorales, and ending with the doubtful works, including the "newly discovered chorales" of 1985.

This volume focuses on the core composers of the 18th-century repertoire. It begins with an overview of the keyboard instruments that were in use during the 18th century and a chapter on performance practice. The book proceeds through each major composer, beginning with Bach, and then progressing through the French masters, Scarlatti, C.P.E. and J.C. Bach, Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven. Each chapter is written by a well-known scholar in the field and includes history, musical examples and analysis.

Following James Tyler's earlier introduction to the history, repertory, and playing techniques of the four- and five-course guitar (The Early Guitar, OUP 1980), which performers and scholars of Renaissance and Baroque guitar and lute music and classical guitarists found valuable and enlightening, this new book, written in collaboration with Paul Sparks and incorporating the latest ideas and research, is an authoritative guide to the history and repertory of the guitar from the Renaissance to the dawn of the Classical era.

Jan Dismas Zelenka, the brilliant but elusive contemporary of Bach, musically served the Catholic chapel of the dazzling Dresden court during the first half of the eighteenth century. Research has uncovered biographical information, and reveals the remarkable music of a major figure of the Baroque era.

Vivaldi has emerged during the last decades as a truly major composer of the early eighteenth-century. Taking account of recent research, to which he himself has made important contributions-including the discovery in 1973 of an unknown set of violin sonatas-Michael Talbot examines the life and works of this remarkable musician in their Venetian, Italian, and international settings.

This volume is the first ever collection of Henry Purcell's opera texts. The much neglected `dramatick operas' or `semi-operas' are here edited in entirety, alongside Purcell's famous all-sung work, Dido and Aeneas, in both its 1689 form and its 1700 adaptation as a series of masques in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Each opera has a short introduction explaining the circumstances of the composition of the work, and the sources of the opera text.

Although we have heard of the music of J.S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. As we mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, author and leading Bach scholar, here Christoph Wolff presents a new picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era. This engaging new biography portrays Bach as the living, breathing, and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship. Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between the composer's life and his music, showing how Bach's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as a musician, composer, performer, scholar, and teacher. And throughout, we see Bach in the broader context of his time: its institutions, traditions, and influences. With this highly readable book, Wolff sets a new standard for Bach biography.

Arcangelo Corelli presents a much-needed reappraisal of the life and works of this phenomenally successful composer set against the lavish setting of seventeenth-century Rome, and exploring the paths by which his music became established as `models of perfection' for generations to come.

In the early eighteenth century, the benefit performance became an essential component of commercial music-making in Britain. Benefits, adapted from the spoken theatre, provided a new model from which instrumentalists, singers, and composers could reap financial and professional rewards. Benefits could be given as theatre pieces, concerts, or opera performances for the benefit of individual performers; or in aid of specific organizations. The benefit changed Britain's musico-theatrical landscape during this time and these special performances became a prototype for similar types of events in other European and American cities. Indeed, the charity benefit became a musical phenomenon in its own right, leading, for example, to the lasting success of Handel's Messiah. By examining benefits from a musical perspective - including performers, audiences, and institutions - the twelve chapters in this collection present the first study of the various ways in which music became associated with the benefit system in eighteenth-century Britain.

This book uncovers the connections between the invisible network of political and economic dependence among Italy's church and state elite and the formation of the Baroque musical style in Rome. The author rediscovers music for Battista Guarini's last stage work and the first Roman opera, and offers a new explanation for the rise of the Italian chamber cantata.

The Letters of C.P.E. Bach is a complete edition of the correspondence of the most famous of J.S. Bach's sons. Very few of these letters have appeared previously in English translation. They provide a fascinating picture of an eighteenth-century composer hard at work publishing his own music, debating aesthetic matters, and championing the music and teachings of his father. The readable translation, detailed index, extensive cross referencing, and glossary of names make this an accessible and useful volume.