By using different kinds of materials and links between various disciplines and subject areas, this book aims to both explain certain features of Italian historical development and provoke further discussion. Designed as a teaching text around broad thematic chapters - the nation, the state, economy and society, politics - it introduces the reader to historical debates, themes, controversies and arguments. Boxes at the end of each chapter provide useful further information for students.

Based on the autograph manuscript and earliest editions, editor Nancy Bricard addresses the sources and discrepancies between the various publications of Moussorgsky's most important contribution to piano literatureaPictures at an Exhibition. This well-researched edition describes the close relationship between the composer and Russian artist Victor Hartmann, whose paintings and sketches inspired the creation of this collection of musical works. Bricard offers fascinating insight into the composer's compositional process by including music passages in her footnotes that Moussorgsky had discarded from the autograph. Also discussed are matters of tempo, fingering, pedaling and interpretation, as well as background on the historical, cultural and social environment that influenced the composer's music.

In 1759 the court of the Italian Duchy of Parma adopted the inspiration of cultural creators who recommended a reform of Italian opera along French lines. These writers favored combining Italian-style music with the wider range of musical genres and scenic variety of French opera. As the prize-winning music critic and commentator George W. Loomis shows in this groundbreaking volume, the young composer Tommaso Traetta was engaged to create new operas responding to these demands. As Loomis deftly demonstrates, Traetta's operas were largely oriented toward the formal aria, a byproduct of making Italian music an essential component of this cross-cultural fusion. Nevertheless, they were strikingly innovative in their use of chorus, integrated dance, and accompanied recitative. Structurally, the operas reflect the French distinction between scenes of action and divertissements. After a brief flowering in the 1760s, the project was abandoned, primarily for lack of interest, but Traetta's Parma operas deserve a previously unrecognized place in the history of Western music for their stimulation of opera seria in Italy and beyond. This included the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose genre-defining Idomeneo (1781) proved a turning point in the development of opera.

Finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Biography.

A landmark biography of Bach on the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, written by the leading Bach scholar of our age.

Although we have heard 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 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 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. 42 b/w illustrations.

"A monumental work that must find its way into the library of every musician and every dedicated lover of music."—Isaac Stern

"It's unlikely that anyone will fashion a finer tribute to [Bach's] genius."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A magisterial biographical portrait...necessarily learned, but also user-friendly, helpful and entertainingly informative."—Chicago Tribune

"Likely to be the standard one-volume Bach biography for some time to come."—New York Review of Books

"A work of clarity worthy of its subject and his music."—Wall Street Journal

"Undoubtedly the most important Bach biography since Phillipp Spitta's life written over a century ago."—The New Republic

Why is Mozart the best known and most popular of all the great Western classical composers? More than 250 years after his birth, his reputation stands higher than ever before. It also provides all you need to listen to and enjoy Mozart's music, and will also introduce a new generation of concert-goers and record-listeners to his life and key works, from opera to symphony, concerto to song. In a crisp, sharp style, with recommendations of good recordings, Nicholas Kenyon shows how Mozart's music has communicated with unique power across many generations.

In this book on Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E, Op. 109, Nicholas Marston combines source studies and a Schenkerian analytical approach to produce one of the most extensive and detailed studies of a Beethoven piano sonata ever published. The study is based on a complete transcription of all the surviving autograph musical sources: the sketches, a fragmentary Urschrift, and the autograph score. Early printed editions and manuscript copies are also discussed and the text is handsomely supported by extensive transcription from the sources. After an introductory chapter in which previous work - notably that of Heinrich Schenker himself - on this sonata is reviewed, chapter 2 draws upon Beethoven's letters, conversation books, sketchbooks, and other sources to build up a detailed 'biography' of Op. 109. The middle chapters form the core of the analytical study: the sketches for each of the three movements are analysed both to reveal aspects of the genesis of the movement and to build up a particular analytical approach to the final version. The discussion embraces all levels of detail; even Beethoven's previously misunderstood notation of final barlines in the autograph score is shown to be musically significant. In the concluding chapter the notion of 'sketch' is extended beyond Op. 109 and the results of the whole study are summarized. The book might be read as a study in the extension of conventional Schenkerian analysis. Marston argues that individual movements of Op. 109 are structurally incomplete and that satisfactory closure is achieved only at the level of the entire work. The concluding theme-and-variation movement is crucial, and Marston offers a rare Schenkerian perspective onlarge-scale coherence in this genre. But in combining these analytical perceptions with an understanding of Beethoven's sketches more as valid proto-compositions in their own right than as wrong turnings en route to a 'perfect' finished work, Marston also offers a unique and compelling interpretation of this profound and beautiful masterpiece of late Beethoven.

Rolland's biography attempts to provide an overview of Handel's life and works from his early lessons in music to the classical context in which he is commonly placed. Originally published in English in 1916, Hull's translation gives an insight into biographical facts and the musical pieces composed by Handel including his operas, oratorios and chamber music. This title will be of interest to students of music and musical history.

Established by musicians in 1813, the Philharmonic is the world's second oldest concert society; only Leipzig is senior. Weber and Mendelssohn were active honorary members; Joachim and Clara Schumann lifelong friends. The list of gold medalists runs from Elgar and Beecham to Sibelius, Rachmaninov, and Tippett. Most instrumentalists and many singers of international repute mounted its platforms. Berlioz, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Dvorak and Strauss came to preside over their music. Celebrating a venerable institution, this history, based upon exhaustive research in the Society's archives, also addresses wider themes, which continue to bear upon concert life: the evolution of repertoire and performance, audience, agent and conductor; networks of recruitment; patronage and the market place; the collective biography and proliferation of London orchestras; the economics of fees and rehearsals. Shaw once claimed that the Philharmonic's generosity towards Beethoven was the only creditable incident in English history, and never mentioned by historians. A leading authority on the economic and social history of music now attempts to repair that omission.

Schenkerian Analysis: Perspectives on Phrase Rhythm, Motive and Form, Second Edition is a textbook directed at all those-whether beginners or more advanced students-interested in gaining understanding of and facility at applying Schenker's ideas on musical structure. It begins with an overview of Schenker's approach to music, and then progresses systematically from the phrase and its various combinations to longer and more complex works. Unlike other texts on this subject, Schenkerian Analysis combines the study of multi-level pitch organization with that of phrase rhythm (the interaction of phrase and hypermeter), motivic repetition at different structural levels, and form. It also contains analytic graphs of several extended movements, separate works, and songs. A separate instructor's manual provides additional advice and solutions (graphs) of all recommended assignments. This second edition has been revised to make the early chapters more accessible and to improve the pedagogical effectiveness of the book as a whole. Changes in musical examples have been carefully made to ensure that each example fully supports student learning. Informed by decades of teaching experience, this book provides a clear and comprehensive guide to Schenker's theories and their applications.

It brings together a substantial group of essays by an international team of scholars on a wide range of aspects of Rameau's operas. The individual essays are informed by a variety of disciplines or sub-disciplines - literature, archival studies, musical analysis, gender studies, ballet and choreography, dramaturgy and staging. The contents are addressed to a wide readership, including not only scholars but also practical musicians, stage directors, dancers and choreographers.

Interest in the authentic performance of early music has grown dramatically in recent years, and scholarly investigation has particularly benefited the study of keyboard music of the classical period. In this landmark publication, the most comprehensive study written on Haydn's keyboard sonatas, a leading Haydn scholar presents novel ideas, corrects misconceptions, and offers new hypotheses on long-debated issues of early music research.
Laszlo Somfai begins with a thorough study of Haydn's keyboard instruments and their development. After recommending instruments appropriate for modern use, he discusses performance practice and style, explains the peculiarities of Haydn's manuscripts in the context of eighteenth-century notation, and provides specific suggestions for playing ornaments, improvising, slurring, and dynamics. He also investigates Haydn's sonata genres within their historical context and discusses the problems of establishing a chronology of their composition. Finally, Somfai analyzes the organization and style of each musical form. The book includes an index listing the sonatas by date of first publication, and an extensive bibliography.

Mozart is perhaps the greatest composer who ever lived. His music, like Shakespeare's prose, expresses every facet of the human condition, and transcends time and place. This new title in the blockbuster "Treasures" series pays tribute to Mozart's musical brilliance, covering his entire life and major works in a series of lavish spreads. Follow Mozart as he takes his first steps as a composer, tours Europe as a child genius, struggles to reconcile his artistic vision with his patrons' demands, and achieves fame but not fortune--tragically dying at only 35 years of age in abject poverty. Learn, also, about his encounter with Haydn, connection with the Masons, and marvelous operas: "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," " Cosi fan tutte," and "The Magic Flute."Boxed sidebars and facsimile documents complete the exquisite slipcased package, which comes complete with a CD of Mozart's most enchanting pieces. FACSIMILE DOCUMENTS INCLUDE: - Original scores - Letters to friends and family, including those from Mozart telling his father and sister of his mother's death- Concert posters- Concert programs- Reviews and criticisms

One of the most admired qualities of Claude Debussy's music has been its seemingly effortless evocation and assimilation of exotic musical strains. He was the first great European composer to discern the possibilities inherent in the gamelan, the ensemble consisting mainly of tuned percussion instruments that originated in Java. Echoes from the East: The Javanese Gamelan and its Influence on the Music of Claude Debussy argues Debussy's encounter with the gamelan in 1889 at the Paris Exposition Universelle had a far more profound effect on his work and style than can be grasped by simply looking for passages and pieces in his output that sound "Asian" or "like a gamelan." Kiyoshi Tamagawa recounts Debussy's individual experience with the music of Java and traces its echoes through his entire compositional career. Echoes from the East adds a commentary on the modern-day issue of cultural appropriation and a survey of Debussy's contemporaries and successors who have also attempted to merge the sounds of the gamelan with their own distinctive musical styles.

This comprehensive survey shows how the larger scale works relate to Beethoven's chamber music and how the composer evolved an increasing freedom of form. Beethoven's Chamber Music in Context provides professional and amateur musicians, and music lovers generally, with a complete survey of Beethoven's chamber music and the background to each individual work - the loyalty of patrons, musicians and friends on the one hand; increasing deafness and uncertain health on the other. Attention is paid to the influence of such large-scale compositions as the Eroica Symphony and Fidelio on the chamber music of his middle years and the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony on his late quartets. The author also lays stress on Beethoven's ever-increasing freedom of form - largely a result of his mastery of improvisationand a powerful symbol of the fusion of classical discipline with the subversive spirit of romantic adventure which characterises his mature music. Beethoven's friends were not shy about asking him what his music meant, orwhat inspired him, and it is clear that he attached the greatest importance to the words he used when describing the character of his compositions. 'The tempo is more like the body,' he wrote when commending Malzel's invention ofthe metronome, 'but these indications of character certainly refer to the spirit.' Angus Watson, a violinist and conductor, has been Director of Music at Stowe School, Winchester College and Wells Cathedral School, one of Britain's specialist music schools. From 1984-1989 he was Dean of Music at the newly founded Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

In this first full-scale study of performance practice in Haydn's keyboard music, Bernard Harrison confronts the important issues facing any performer of Haydn's keyboard music, and at the same time develops some of the recurring controversial questions in broader research on Haydn's oeuvre. 'a major contribution to Haydn scholarship. Potential performers of the composer's keyboard music will find a commanding and well-documented exposition of the problems facing him or her; at the same time the volume will be of fundamental value to those interested in Haydn's music who are not primarily practitioners ... comprehensive and authoritative.' David Wyn Jones

Employs an innovative approach by "stages" to offer a unified vision of European Romanticism over the half-century of its growth and decline. Romanticism was a truly European phenomenon, extending roughly from the French Revolution to the 1848 revolutions and embracing not only literature and drama but also music and visual arts. Because of Romanticism's vast scope, most treatments have restricted themselves to single countries or to specific forms, notably literature, art, or music. This book takes a wider view by considering in each of six chapters representative examples of works - from across Europe and across a range of the arts - that were created in a single year. For instance, in the first chapter, focusing on the year 1798, Beethoven's Pathetique sonata, Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads,Tieck's novel Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen, and Goya's painting El sueno de la razon. The following chapters treat works from the years 1808, 1818, 1828, 1838, and 1848. This approach by "stages" makes it possible to determine characteristics of six stages of Romanticism in its historical and intellectual context and to note the conspicuous differences between these stages as European Romanticism developed-for example, the waxing and waning of religious themes, the shifting visions of landscape, the gradual ironic detachment from early Romanticism. In sum, the volume offers a unified vision of European Romanticism in all its aesthetic forms over the half-centuryof its growth and decline. Theodore Ziolkowski is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, Princeton University.

An outstanding anthology in which notable musicians, artists, scientists, thinkers, poets, and more-from Gustavo Dudamel and Carrie Mae Weems to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Paul Muldoon-explore the influence of music on their lives and work Contributors include: Laurie Anderson Jamie Barton Daphne A. Brooks Edgar Choueiri Jeff Dolven Gustavo Dudamel Edward Dusinberre Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim Frank Gehry James Ginsburg Ruth Bader Ginsburg Jane Hirshfield Pico Iyer Alexander Kluge Nathaniel Mackey Maureen N. McLane Alicia Hall Moran Jason Moran Paul Muldoon Elaine Pagels Robert Pinsky Richard Powers Brian Seibert Arnold Steinhardt Susan Stewart Abigail Washburn Carrie Mae Weems Susan Wheeler C. K. Williams Wu Fei What happens when extraordinary creative spirits-musicians, poets, critics, and scholars, as well as an architect, a visual artist, a filmmaker, a scientist, and a legendary Supreme Court justice-are asked to reflect on their favorite music? The result is Ways of Hearing, a diverse collection that explores the ways music shapes us and our shared culture. These acts of musical witness bear fruit through personal essays, conversations and interviews, improvisatory meditations, poetry, and visual art. They sound the depths of a remarkable range of musical genres, including opera, jazz, bluegrass, and concert music both classical and contemporary. This expansive volume spans styles and subjects, including Pico Iyer's meditations on Handel, Arnold Steinhardt's thoughts on Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, and Laurie Anderson and Edgar Choueiri's manifesto for spatial music. Richard Powers discusses the one thing about music he's never told anyone, Daphne Brooks draws sonic connections between Toni Morrison and Cecile McLorin Salvant, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg reveals what she thinks is the sexiest duet in opera. Poems interspersed throughout further expand how we can imagine and respond to music. Ways of Hearing is a book for our times that celebrates the infinite ways music enhances our lives.

The first book devoted to the composers, instrument makers and amateur players who advanced the great guitar vouge throughout Western Europe during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Contemporary critics viewed the fashion for the guitar with sheer hostility, seeing in it a rejection of true musical value. After all, such trends advanced against the grain of mainstream musical developments of ground-breaking (often Austro-German) repertoire for standard instruments. Yet amateur musicians throughout Europe persisted; many instruments were built to meet the demand, a substantial volume of music was published for amateurs to play, and soloist-composers moved freely between European cities. This book follows these lines of travel venturing as far as Moscow, and visiting all the great musical cities of the period, from London to Vienna, Madrid to Naples. The first section of the book looks at eighteenth-century precedents, the instrument - its makers and owners, amateur and professional musicians, printing and publishing, pedagogy, as well as aspects of repertoire. The second section explores the extensive repertoire for accompanied song and chamber music. A final substantive section assembles chapters on a wide array of the most significant soloist-composers of the time. The chapters evoke the guitar milieu in the various cities where each composer-player worked and offer a discussion of some representative works. This book, bringing together an international tally of contributors and never before examined sources, will be of interest to devotees of the guitar, as well as music historians of the Romantic period.

For this beloved Cantata, the classic vocal score arranged by Bernhard Todt as a companion to the renowned Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe was re-engraved by G. Schirmer in the early part of the 20th century with Henry Drinker's English translation added beneath the original German text. Now available in an easy-to-use, convenient size designed to fit comfortably in choral folders.

Sociability may be a key term of reference for eighteenth-century studies as a whole, but it has not yet developed an especially strong profile in music scholarship. Many of the associations that it brings do not fit comfortably with a later imperative of individual expression. W. Dean Sutcliffe invites us to face up to the challenge of re-evaluating the communicative rationales that lie behind later eighteenth-century instrumental style. Taking a behavioural perspective, he divides sociability into 'technical' and 'affective' realms, involving close attention both to particular recurring musical patterns as well as to some of the style's most salient expressive attributes. The book addresses a broad span of the instrumental production of the era, with Haydn as the pivotal figure. Close readings of a variety of works are embedded in an encompassing consideration of the reception of this music.

**WINNER of Presto Books' Best Composer Biography** NINE WORKS OF BEETHOVEN, NINE WINDOWS INTO THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF A MUSICAL GENIUS. 'We are doubly blessed that Beethoven should have led such an extraordinary life. Laura has combined the two - the genius of his music and the richness of his experiences - to shine a revealing light on our greatest composer' John Humphrys _________________________ Ludwig van Beethoven: to some, simply the greatest ever composer of Western classical music. Yet his life remains shrouded in myths. In Beethoven, Oxford professor Laura Tunbridge cuts through the noise. With each chapter focusing on a period of his life, piece of music and revealing theme - from family to friends, from heroism to liberty - she provides a rich insight into the man and the music. Revealing a wealth of never-before-seen material, this tour de force is a compelling, accessible portrayal of one of the world's most creative minds and it will transform how you listen for ever. _________________________ 'Tunbridge has come up with the seemingly impossible: a new way of approaching Beethoven's life and music . . . profoundly original and hugely readable' John Suchet, author Beethoven: The Man Revealed 'This well researched and accessible book is a must read for all who seek to know more about the flesh and blood tangible Beethoven.' John Clubbe, author of Beethoven: The Relentless Revolutionary 'This book is really wonderful! ... However many books on Beethoven you own, find the space for one more. This one' Stephen Hough, pianist, composer, writer 'In a year when everyone's looking for a new take on Beethoven, Laura Tunbridge has found nine. Fresh and engaging' Norman Lebrecht, author of Genius and Anxiety 'Remarkable . . . she captures the essence of his genius and character. I'll always want to keep it in easy reach' Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the third Reich

For the past four decades, the concept of hypermeter has been routinely applied to eighteenth-century music. But was this concept familiar in the eighteenth century? If so, how is it reflected in writings of eighteenth-century music theorists? And how does it relate to their discussion of phrase structure? In this book, a follow-up to the award-winning Metric Manipulations in Haydn and Mozart, author Danuta Mirka unearthes a number of cues that point to eighteenth-century recognition of what today is called hypermeter, and retraces the line of tradition that led from eighteenth-century music theory to the emergence of the modern concept of hypermeter in the twentieth century. Mirka describes the proto-theory of hypermeter developed by German music theorists, recounts the recent history of this concept in American music theory, evaluates contributions made to it by authors working within different theoretical traditions, and introduces a dynamic model of hypermeter which allows the analyst to trace the effect of hypermetric manipulations in real time. This model is applied in analyses of Haydn's and Mozart's chamber music for strings, which shed a new light upon this celebrated repertoire, but the aim of this book goes far beyond an analytical survey of specific compositions. Rather, it is to offer a systematic classification of hypermetrical irregularities in relation to phrase structure and to give a comprehensive account of the ways in which phrase structure and hypermeter were described by eighteenth-century music theorists, conceived by eighteenth-century composers, and perceived by eighteenth-century listeners.

Beethoven's Cello is the ideal companion for cellists, pianists, musicologists and chamber-music devotees desiring a comprehensive understanding of this beloved repertoire. Winner of the 2018 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award In 1796 the young Beethoven presented his first two cello sonatas, Op. 5, at the court of Frederick William II, an avid cellist and the reigning Prussian monarch. Released in print the next year, these revolutionary sonatas forever altered the cello repertoire by fundamentally redefining the relationship between the cello and the piano and promoting their parity. Beethoven continued to develop the potential of the duo partnership in his three other cello sonatas - the lyrical and heroic Op. 69 and the two experimental sonatas Op. 102, No. 1 and No. 2, transcendent compositions conceived on the threshold of the composer's late style. In Beethoven's Cello, Marc D. Moskovitz and R. Larry Todd examine these seminal cornerstones of the cello repertoire and place them within their historical and cultural contexts. Also addressed arethe three variation sets and, in a series of interludes, the cellos owned by Beethoven, the changing nature of his pianos, the cello-centric 'Triple' Concerto and the arrangements for cello and piano of other works. Featuring a preface by renowned cellist Steven Isserlis and concluding with the reviews of the composer's cello music published during his lifetime, Beethoven's Cello is the ideal companion for cellists, pianists, musicologists and chamber-music devotees desiring a comprehensive understanding of this beloved repertoire. MARC D. MOSKOVITZ is principal cellist of the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra. He has recorded the music of virtuoso cellists David Popperand Alfredo Piatti for the VAI label, and his American premiere of Zemlinsky's Cello Sonata was heralded by the Washington Post as 'an impassioned performance'. Moskovitz has contributed to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians; and his biography, Alexander Zemlinsky: A Lyric Symphony, was published by Boydell & Brewer in 2010. Recognized as 'Mendelssohn's most authoritative biographer' (The New Yorker), R. LARRY TODD is Arts and Sciences Professor at Duke University. He is the author of Mendelssohn: A Life in Music, named Best Biography in 2003 by the Association of American Publishers, and Fanny Hensel: The Other Mendelssohn, awarded the ASCAP Nicholas Slonimsky Award for outstanding biography in music. As a pianist, he has recorded with Nancy Green the complete cello works of Mendelssohn and Fanny Hensel for JRI Recordings.

This book charts the piano's accession from musical curiosity to cultural icon, examining the instrument itself in its various guises as well as the music written for it. Both the piano and piano music were very much the product of the intellectual, cultural and social environments of the period and both were subject to many influences, directly and indirectly. These included character (individualism), the vernacular ('folk/popular') and creativity (improvisation), all of which are discussed generally and with respect to the music itself. Derek Carew surveys the most important pianistic genres of the period (variations, rondos, and so on), showing how these changed from their received forms into vehicles of Romantic expressiveness. The piano is also looked at in its role as an accompanying instrument. The Mechanical Muse will be of interest to anyone who loves the piano or the period, from the non-specialist to the music postgraduate.