George Frideric Handel was born and educated in Germany, flourished in Italy, and chose to become British. One of the most cosmopolitan of the great composers, much of Handel's music has remained in the popular repertory since his lifetime, and a broad variety of his music theatre works from Italian operas to English oratorios have experienced a dramatic renaissance since the late twentieth century. A large number of publications devoted to Handel's life and music have appeared from his own time to the present day, but The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia gathers the full range of present knowledge and leading scholarship into a single volume for convenient and illuminating reference. Packed with well over 700 informative and accessible entries, both long and short, this book is ideal for performers, scholars, students and music lovers who wish to explore the Handelian world.

"All practising musicians with an interest in the baroque owe it tothemselves to be exposed to the ideas contained in this book." --Continuo

"This is a book from an excellent musician in theearly field who turns out also to be a most persistent scholar... " -- EarlyMusic

..". the book offers a vast quantity of data from awide range of sources.... George Houle is to be congratulated for his honestpresentation of the entire spectrum." -- Music EducatorsJournal

The treatment of meter in performance has evolveddramatically since 1600. Here is a practical guide for the performer, with manyquotations from early manuals and treatises, and abundant examples.

This is the first study to recognize the wider picture of opera within early-modern French culture. Downing Thomas considers the place of music within a cultural environment--the employment of music by Louis XIV as a symbol of absolutism; the use of music as a statement against the monarchy; and the long-term development of opera as a reflection of humanism. Thomas examines key works by Lully, Rameau, and Charpentier, among others, and extends his reach from the late seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth.

This book offers new interpretations of many of Bach's late compositions which include complex musical techniques such as canon. These techniques held great significance for Bach and his contemporaries not only on account of the great skill they demanded but because of the meanings attached to them. Intricate musical devices were crucial to the Lutheran rituals of death and dying, to alchemy, to Enlightenment philosophies of stylistic change and musical progress, to musical representations of political power, and to the legacy of Bach into our own time.

Bach's spectacular Goldberg Variations represent a high point in the repertory of keyboard music, particularly for the harpsichord. This book takes a detailed look at how these variations originated, especially in relation to all Bach's ClavierÜbung volumes and late keyboard works, what their exceptionally intricate plan is, what kind of impact they have had, and how their mysterious beauty has been created. This guide to what was at the time the largest and most carefully conceived single work of keyboard music will appeal to students, performers and listeners.

Early Music History is devoted to the study of music from the early Middle Ages to the end of the seventeenth century. The scope is exceptionally broad and includes manuscript studies, textual criticism, iconography, studies of the relationship between words and music, and the relationship between music and society. Articles in volume 19 include: Ritual and Ceremony in the Spanish Royal Chapel, c. 1559-c. 1561; Urban Minstrels in Late Medieval Southern France; Mapping the Soundscapes: Church Music in English Towns 1450-1550; A New Look at Old-Roman Chant.

The life and career of George Frideric Handel, one of the most frequently performed composers from the Baroque period, are copiously and intricately documented through a huge variety of contemporary sources. This major multi-volume publication is the most up-to-date and comprehensive collection of these documents. Presented chronologically in their original languages with English translations and with commentaries incorporating the results of recent research, the documents provide an essential and accessible resource for anyone interested in Handel and his music. In charting his activities in Germany, Italy and Britain, the documents also offer a valuable insight into broader eighteenth-century topics, such as court life, theatrical history, public concerts and competition between music publishers. This volume covers the period of Handel's London opera career during which he achieved gradual independence from the Royal Academy opera company, but also introduced English theatre oratorios and wrote the music for the 1727 coronation.

The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is a magisterial five-volume survey of the traditions of Western music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time, Richard Taruskin.
Now this renowned work is available in paperback--both as a set and (for the first time) individually. This volume examines the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, examining the music of such classical giants as Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. Taking a critical perspective, Taruskin sets the details of music, the chronological sweep of figures, works, and musical ideas, within the larger context of world affairs and cultural history. He combines an emphasis on structure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in each age, to illustrate how the music itself works, and how contemporaries heard and understood it. He also describes how the context of each stylistic period--key cultural, historical, social, economic, and scientific events--influenced and directed compositional choices.
Attractively illustrated and laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this volume is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand classical music.

This new investigation of the Brandenburg Concertos explores musical, social, and religious implications of Bach's treatment of eighteenth-century musical hierarchies. By reference to contemporary music theory, to alternate notions of the meaning of "concerto," and to various eighteenth-century conventions of form and instrumentation, the book argues that the Brandenburg Concertos are better understood not as an arbitrary collection of unrelated examples of "pure" instrumental music, but rather as a carefully compiled and meaningfully organized set. It shows how Bach's concertos challenge (as opposed to reflect) existing musical and social hierarchies.

Careful consideration of Lutheran theology and Bach's documented understanding of it reveals, however, that his music should not be understood to call for progressive political action. One important message of Lutheranism, and, in this interpretation, of Bach's concertos, is that in the next world, the heavenly one, the hierarchies of the present world will no longer be necessary. Bach's music more likely instructs its listeners how to think about and spiritually cope with contemporary hierarchies than how to act upon them. In this sense, contrary to currently accepted views, Bach's concertos share with his extensive output of vocal music for the Lutheran liturgy an essentially religious character.

Rodney Trudgeon's Concert Notes is a collection of essays on famous classical, orchestral compositions. The pieces in this collection have appeared in concert programmes that have accompanied performances by the Cape Town and Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestras.

Rodney Trudgeon is a well-known radio host and presenter on Fine Music Radio. He is an expert on the range of musical genres that broadly fall under the category "classical music". The text that comprises Rodney Trudgeon's Concert Notes is structured alphabetically according to composer and gives a broad overview of the development of classical music, starting with the Baroque period and ending with modern, atonal music. Each piece is dedicated to a particular musical composition, describing its highlights, its history, and what makes it unique.

Broadly, the pieces are grouped together according to the following three broad categories: ouvertures, concertos, and symphonies, mimicking the structure of concert programmes. Each entry also includes a short biography of its composer. Trudgeon's style is easy to read and accessible to all readers: from those who listen to classical music regularly to those who are unfamiliar with it. Overall, this collection is a useful and informative musical guide, making a case for listening to orchestral music.

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

A renowned scholar and musician presents a new and innovative exploration of the beginnings of Western musical art. Beginning in the time of the New Testament, when Christians began to develop an art of ritual singing with an African and Asian background, Christopher Page traces the history of music in Europe through the development of Gregorian chant--a music that has profoundly influenced the way Westerners hear--to the invention of the musical staff, regarded as the fundamental technology of Western music. Page places the history of the singers who performed this music against the social, political and economic life of a Western Europe slowly being remade after the collapse of Roman power. His book will be of interest to historians, musicologists, performing musicians, and general readers who are keen to explore the beginnings of Western musical art.

Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale settings have been vital to the teaching of music ever since they were composed. His four-voiced harmonisations represent a Baroque composer's approach to melodies that are often centuries older. As musical styles continued to evolve, each succeeding generation of teachers and students brought their own viewpoint to bear on this small corpus of music. Consequently, during the three centuries since their composition and a quarter of a millennium since their first publication, a range of contrasting ideas and approaches has tended to obscure the fundamental nature of these short yet complex musical works. This Course provides a thorough re-appraisal of this inspiring music. Each Chapter builds on the work of previous ones, so that the student is taken from the simplest harmonisations of single phrases right through to the most complex settings of complete chorale melodies employing the full range of Bach's harmonic resources. All the exercises are based directly on Bach's own music. The two final Chapters take the most advanced student into more specialised areas of four-part harmony.

The life and career of George Frideric Handel, one of the most frequently performed composers from the Baroque period, are copiously and intricately documented through a huge variety of contemporary sources. This multi-volume major publication is the most up-to-date and comprehensive collection of these documents. Presented chronologically in their original languages with English translations and with commentaries incorporating the results of recent research, the documents provide an essential and accessible resource for anyone interested in Handel and his music. In charting Handel's activities and the performance and reception of his music during his lifetime, the documents also offer valuable insights into broader eighteenth-century topics such as court life, theatrical history, public concerts and music publishing. Volume Four begins with the re-establishment of Handel's career in London following his return from Dublin in 1742, and covers the period to 1750 which saw the composition of a succession of his greatest English works for his oratorio seasons, including Samson, Semele, Belshazzar, Juda Maccabaeus and Solomon.

Musical Creativity in Restoration England is the first comprehensive investigation of approaches to creating music in late seventeenth-century England. Understanding creativity during this period is particularly challenging because many of our basic assumptions about composition - such as concepts of originality, inspiration and genius - were not yet fully developed. In adopting a new methodology that takes into account the historical contexts in which sources were produced, Rebecca Herissone challenges current assumptions about compositional processes and offers new interpretations of the relationships between notation, performance, improvisation and musical memory. She uncovers a creative culture that was predominantly communal, and reveals several distinct approaches to composition, determined not by individuals, but by the practical function of the music. Herissone's new and original interpretations pose a fundamental challenge to our preconceptions about what it meant to be a composer in the seventeenth century and raise broader questions about the interpretation of early modern notation.

Revised and expanded, A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone-as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance. -- Indiana University Press

Simple songs or airs, in which a male poetic voice either seduces or excoriates a female object, were an influential vocal genre of the French Baroque era. In this comprehensive and interdisciplinary study, Catherine Gordon-Seifert analyzes the style of airs, which was based on rhetorical devices of lyric poetry, and explores the function and meaning of airs in French society, particularly the salons. She shows how airs deployed in both text and music an encoded language that was in sensuous contrast to polite society s cultivation of chaste love, strict gender roles, and restrained discourse."

'He was the greatest composer that ever lived,' said Beethoven of Handel. 'He is the father of us all,' wrote Haydn. This short, vivid biography of Handel reminds us of the composer's greatness. Separate chapters are devoted to the Messiah, the Harmonious Blacksmith, Handel's organ at Cannons, and his will and codicils. A few notes and an index have been added to this revised and reset edition. William Hayman Cummings (1831-1915) was a singer and music historian. He taught singing at the Royal Normal School and the School for the Blind before being appointed a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in 1879. In 1896 he was appointed principal of the Guildhall School of Music. His historical studies of music and musicians led to him being made a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1884.

Claudia R. Jensen presents the first unified study of musical culture in the court and church of Muscovite Russia. Spanning the period from the installation of Patriarch Iov in 1589 to the beginning of Peter the Great's reign in 1694, her book offers detailed accounts of the celebratory musical performances for Russia's first patriarch events that were important displays of Russian piety and power. Jensen emphasizes music's varied roles in Muscovite society and the equally varied opinions and influences surrounding it. In an attempt to demystify what has previously been an enigma to Western readers, she paints a clear picture of the dazzling splendor of musical performances and the ways in which 17th-century Muscovites employed music for spiritual enlightenment as well as entertainment."

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who seems so ordinary, so opaque - and occasionally so intemperate? In this remarkable book, John Eliot Gardiner distils the fruits of a lifetime's immersion as one of Bach's greatest living interpreters. Explaining in wonderful detail how Bach worked and how his music achieves its effects, he also takes us as deeply into Bach's works and mind as perhaps words can. The result is a unique book about one of the greatest of all creative artists.

Wilfrid Mellers Francois Couperin and die French Classical Tradition ROY PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK Frangois Couperin le Grand Copyright 1951, by Wilfrid Mellers PRINTED AND MANUFACTURED IN GREAT BRITAIN Contents PART I LIFE AND TIMES CHAPTER PAGE I The Life 17 II Values and Standards in the Grand Siecle 28 III Taste during the Grand Sicle 49 IV Music, the Court, and the Theatre 59 PART n THE WORK V The Organ Masses 83 VI The Two-violin Sonatas 97 VII The Secular Vocal Works 128 VIII The Church Music 146 IX The Clavecin Works 188 X The Concerts Royaux and Suites for Viols 234 XI Chronology, Influence, and Conclusions 272 PART in THEORY AND PRACTICE XII Couperins Theoretical Work, with Comments on Rhythm, Ornamentation, and Phrasing 291 XIII Couperins Resources and his use of them, with Comments on the Modern Performance of his Work 3 22 CONTENTS XIV Editions of Works by Couperin 337 Appendix A The Authorship of the Organ Masses 341 Appendix B The Organists of St Gervais 344 Appendix C Lord Fitzwilliam and the French Clavecin Composers 345 Appendix D On the Tempo of the Eighteenth-century Dance Movements 347 Appendix E Georg Muffat on Bowing, Phrasing and Ornamentation 350 Appendix F Notes on the titles of Couperins clavecin pieces 356 Appendix G Biographical Notes on the principal per sons mentioned in the text 363 Catalogue Raisonn 374 Gramophone Records of Works by Couperin 390 Bibliography 395 Index 401 Illustrations I Portrait of Francois Couperin le Grand by Andre Bouys, engraved by Filbert 1735 Frontispiece II The Church of St Gervais Topographia facing page Galliae Vol. I, 1655 2 4 HI Veue de la Grande et Petite Escurie et des deux Cours La Description de Versailles 48 IV Gardens ofthe Due dOrleans Topographia Galliae, 1655 74 V Dans le Gout Pastoral Cours de la Reine Mere Topographia Galliae, 1655 145 VI Dans le Gout burlesque Watteau, Portrait of Gilles Louvre 227 VII Watteau, Les Charmes de la Vie Wallace Collection 271 VIII The Organ of St Gervais 330 DC The Organ of the Chapelle Royale 330 The design on the tide page is Couperins coat-of-arms To and to the illustrious memory of Francois Couperin le Grand Preface So FAR AS I am aware, this is the first book on Couperin le Grand in English indeed it is possibly the first comprehensive study of his work in any language, for of die three French books on him known to me, that of Bouvet is purely biographical while those of Tessier and Tiersot do not claim to be more than introductory monographs. As such, they are both admirable. I have divided this study of Couperin into three sections. The first gives the facts of his life and some account of the nature, values, and standards of his community. Of the facts of his life, little is known, and I have not indulged in speculation. For most of the information contained in my introductory chapter I am indebted to the bio graphical sections of the previous books on Couperin referred to above, with the addition of some documentary evidence more recently published by M. Paul Brunold. The chapters on the values and standards of the grand siecle do not pretend to offer a revolutionary approach. My general attitude to the period is influenced by the miscellaneous writings of Mr Martin Turnell, published in Horizon, Scrutiny, and elsewhere 1 especially those on Racine, Moliere, Corneille, and La Princesse de Cleves, and by a most interesting essay by Mr R. C. Knight alsopublished in Scrutiny, which was in part a criticism of TurnelTs account of Racine. I have also found many hints worth following up, and much useful information, in Mr Arthur Tifleys two books, From Montaigne to Moliere and The Decline of the Age of Louis XIV. Most of the information in my chapter on the court theatre music is derived from the writings of the recognized authority on the period, M. Henri Prunieres. These books are listed in the bibliography...

This title includes a book and 4 CDs. A century in words, pictures and music - lucid, informative and entertaining. The earBOOKS "Masterpieces" series provides a compact overview of music and painting through the centuries. The "1600-1700" volume presents the most important artworks and musical compositions of the 17th century. Background detail and points of interest in relation to each painting or piece of music are conveyed through concise and illuminating commentaries. A comprehensive introduction sets the scene, expanding on the century's historical connection to the art of the period. Music CDs: A wealth of musical highlights from the 17th century can be enjoyed on the four CDs accompanying the book. Performers like Britta Schwarz, Christoph Genz, Ludwig Guttler, the Dresdner Kreuzchor, The Harp Consort with Andrew Lawrence King and the Schutz Akademie, directed by Howard Arman guarantee top-class performances.