A lavishly-illustrated and meticulously-documented catalogue of the Cobbe Collection, which includes over forty keyboard instruments around half of which were owned and played by composers such as Purcell, Mahler, Chopin and Elgar. The keyboard repertoire comprises one third of the whole of Western music. The very instruments chosen by composers themselves form the heart of the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands. The eighteen owned or played by Purcell, JohannChristian Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Mahler and Elgar, to name a few, are the largest group assembled anywhere of these tangible and audible relics connecting with the musical minds of the past. The collection otherwise comprises a further twenty or so instruments that were chosen to represent instrument-makers who were highly regarded or patronised by composers, all maintained in playing order. Each entry in this lavishly-illustrated catalogue includes a history of the piece, its provenance, technical data and colour photographs of the instrument and notable details. Here, for example, is the piano on which Chopin played his final public concert; we learn of the strips of lead that Mahler had fixed to the hammers in the bass register and that Elgar's Broadwood was delivered to Worcester by river. More than simply a catalogue of a collection, this volume will fascinate anyone with an interest in keyboard music, as well as music historians, instrument makers and restorers, and those concerned with issues of 'authentic' performance. ALEC COBBE has collected musical instruments owned bycomposers for many years. He is also a distinguished designer, and specialises in the decor and hanging of pictures in stately homes; in early 2014 an exhibition of his work was shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Tonality and Transformation is a groundbreaking study in the analysis of tonal music. Focusing on the listener's experience, author Steven Rings employs transformational music theory to illuminate diverse aspects of tonal hearing - from the infusion of sounding pitches with familiar tonal qualities to sensations of directedness and attraction. In the process, Rings introduces a host of new analytical techniques for the study of the tonal repertory, demonstrating their application in vivid interpretive set pieces on music from Bach to Mahler. The analyses place the book's novel techniques in dialogue with existing tonal methodologies, such as Schenkerian theory, avoiding partisan debate in favor of a methodologically careful, pluralistic approach. Rings also engages neo-Riemannian theory-a popular branch of transformational thought focused on chromatic harmony-reanimating its basic operations with tonal dynamism and bringing them into closer rapprochement with traditional tonal concepts. Written in a direct and engaging style, with lively prose and plain-English descriptions of all technical ideas, Tonality and Transformation balances theoretical substance with accessibility: it will appeal to both specialists and non-specialists. It is a particularly attractive volume for those new to transformational theory: in addition to its original theoretical content, the book offers an excellent introduction to transformational thought, including a chapter that outlines the theory's conceptual foundations and formal apparatus, as well as a glossary of common technical terms. A contribution to our understanding of tonal phenomenology and a landmark in the analytical application of transformational techniques, Tonality and Transformation is an indispensible work of music theory.

What does it mean to say that music is deeply moving? Or that music's aesthetic value derives from its deep structure? This study traces the widely employed trope of musical depth to its origins in German-language music criticism and analysis. From the Romantic aesthetics of E. T. A. Hoffmann to the modernist theories of Arnold Schoenberg, metaphors of depth attest to the cross-pollination of music with discourses ranging from theology, geology and poetics to psychology, philosophy and economics. The book demonstrates that the persistence of depth metaphors in musicology and music theory today is an outgrowth of their essential role in articulating and transmitting Germanic cultural values. While musical depth metaphors have historically served to communicate German nationalist sentiments, Watkins shows that an appreciation for the broad connotations of those metaphors opens up exciting new avenues for interpretation.

Topics are musical signs developed and employed primarily during the long eighteenth century. Their significance relies on associations that are clearly recognizable to the listener with different genres, styles and types of music making. Topic theory, which is used to explain conventional subjects of musical composition in this period, is grounded in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism, while drawing also from music cognition and semiotics. The concept of topics was introduced into by Leonard Ratner in the 1980s to account for cross-references between eighteenth-century styles and genres. As the invention of a twentieth-century academic, topic theory as a field is comparatively new, and The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory provides a much-needed reconstruction of the field's aesthetic underpinnings. The volume grounds the concept of topics in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism. Documenting the historical reality of individual topics on the basis of eighteenth-century sources, it traces the origins of topical mixtures to transformations of eighteenth-century musical life, and relates topical analysis to other methods of music analysis conducted from the perspectives of composers, performers, and listeners. Focusing its scope on eighteenth-century musical repertoire, The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory lays the foundation for further investigation of topics in music of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.

Essays by prominent scholars and organists examine the music of Franck and other nineteenth-century French organist-composers through stylistic analysis, study of compositional process, and exploration of how ideas about organ technique and performance-practice traditions developed and became codified. Nineteenth-century French organ music attracts an ever-increasing number of performers and devotees. The music of Cesar Franck and other distinguished composers-Boely, Guilmant, Widor-and the impact upon this repertoire of the organ-building achievements of Aristide Cavaille-Coll, are here explored through stylistic analysis, the study of the compositional process, and the exploration of how ideas about organ technique and performance practice traditions developed and became codified. New consideration is also given to the political and cultural contexts within which Franck and other French organist-composers worked. Contributors: Kimberley Marshall, William J. Peterson,Benjamin van Wye, Craig Cramer, Jesse E. Eschbach, Karen Hastings-Deans, Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlasi, Daniel Roth, Edward Zimmerman, Lawrence Archbold, Rollin Smith

Few genres of the last 250 years have proved so crucial to the course of music history, or so vital to public musical experience, as the symphony. This Companion offers an accessible guide to the historical, analytical and interpretative issues surrounding this major genre of Western music, discussing an extensive variety of works from the eighteenth century to the present day. The book complements a detailed review of the symphony's history with focused analytical essays from leading scholars on the symphonic music of both mainstream composers, including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and lesser-known figures, including Carter, Berio and Maxwell Davies. With chapters on a comprehensive range of topics, from the symphony's origins to the politics of its reception in the twentieth century, this is an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the history, analysis and performance of the symphonic repertoire.

Coronations are the grandest of all state occasions. This is the first comprehensive in-depth study of the music that was performed at British coronations from 1603 to the present, encompassing the sixteen coronations that have taken place in Westminster Abbey and the last two Scottish coronations. Range describes how music played a crucial role at the coronations and how the practical requirements of the ceremonial proceedings affected its structure and performance. The programme of music at each coronation is reconstructed, accompanied by a wealth of transcriptions of newly discovered primary source material, revealing findings that lead to fresh conclusions about performance practices. The coronation ceremonies are placed in their historical context, including the political background and the concept of invented traditions. The study is an invaluable resource not only for musicologists and historians, but also for performers, providing a fascinating insight into the greatest of all Royal events.

The third book in the Sylvia Woods multi-level harp book series. It contains popular hymns and church music, wedding processionals and recessionals, and a special section of Jewish music for joyous occasions. There are about 50 pieces, each with 2 arrangements: an easy version, and one that is more difficult. Also, each tune includes chord indications that can be used by harpers or other instrumentalists. Spiral-bound.

Reverence for J. S. Bach's music and its towering presence in our cultural memory have long affected how people hear his works. In his own time, however, Bach stood as just another figure among a number of composers, many of them more popular with the music-loving public. Eschewing the great composer style of music history, Andrew Talle takes us on a journey that looks at how ordinary people made music in Bach's Germany. Talle focuses in particular on the culture of keyboard playing as lived in public and private. As he ranges through a wealth of documents, instruments, diaries, account ledgers, and works of art, Talle brings a fascinating cast of characters to life. These individuals--amateur and professional performers, patrons, instrument builders, and listeners--inhabited a lost world, and Talle's deft expertise teases out the diverse roles music played in their lives and in their relationships with one another. At the same time, his nuanced recreation of keyboard playing's social milieu illuminates the era's reception of Bach's immortal works.

Performers include: * Early music ensembles, such as Chapelle Royale, Lionheart, Sequentia, and the Tallis Scholars * Singers Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Renee Fleming, and Joan Sutherland * Cellist Yo-Yo Ma * Pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Malcolm Bilson, and Artur Rubenstein * The Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra * Conductors Pierre Boulez, John Eliot Gardiner, James Levine, and Michael Tilson Thomas * String quartets, such as the Concord String Quartet and the Tokyo String Quartet * Jazz artists Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie

Drawing on a range of contemporary performance documentation, including concert programmes, newspaper reviews and periodical reports, this book addresses what it refers to as the Philharmonic 'myth': the notion that London experienced a period of orchestral inactivity between the departure of Haydn in 1795 and the founding of the Philharmonic Society some eighteen years later. The book illustrates that, far from constituting a radical new departure in patterns of London concert life, the Philharmonic Society built on the growing interest in orchestral music evident over the preceding years. At the same time, it suggests that the deliberate adoption of orchestral repertory marked the first institutional articulation of a professional opposition to the traditional dominance of fashionable Italian opera, and that the Philharmonic might therefore be seen to reflect the emergence of important new strands in musical, artistic and cultural leadership.

A celebration of music from the creator of Alan Partridge, The Thick of It, Veep and The Death of Stalin. All my days, I've felt pressurized by the anonymous Keepers of the Cool who tell us what we should be wearing this year, what digital boxsets we should bunker ourselves in to enjoy, what amazing app is the only one we should be shrieking emotions at our recently acquired friends with. Thankfully, I have the one consolation that if I don't quite fit into all of this, everyone else probably feels the same way. So, I say defiantly, I get more moved and excited by classical music than by any other musical genre. I believe that it is there for us all, inviting us to reach out and touch it. In Hear Me Out Armando Iannucci brilliantly conveys the joy of his musical exploration, each discovery suggesting a fresh direction of travel, another piece, another composer, another time.

Engaging, clear and informative, this is the story of western music - of its great composers and also of its performers and listeners, of changing ideas of what music is and what it is for. Paul Griffiths shows how music has evolved through the centuries, and suggests how its evolution has mirrored developments in the human notion of time, from the eternity of heaven to the computer's microsecond. The book provides an enticing introduction for students and beginners, using the minimum of technical terms, all straightforwardly defined in the glossary. Its perspective and its insights will also make it illuminating for teachers, musicians and music lovers. Suggestions for further reading and recommended recordings are given for each of the 24 short chapters.

Following the successful volumes of Song on Record, this 1991 book surveys all the recordings of major choral works from the Monteverdi Vespers to Britten's War Requiem. Discussion of the various interpretations on record is preceded, in each chapter, by informed criticism of the work concerned, including - where appropriate - a clarification of editions, revisions, etc. (all the many changes in Messiah are, for instance, described in detail). The coverage of recordings is exhaustive and its value is enhanced by detailed discographies, with numbers of each recording. Each contributor is an authority within his or her specialist area and, collectively, their insights and observations make the book invaluable to record collectors, music lovers and all with an interest in changing tastes and styles of musical performance.

The Mozart Collection of the former PreuAische Staatsbibliothek (Prussian state library) is the largest and most important collection of the composer's original manuscripts and transcripts in the world. Since the end of the Second World War, part of the collection has been located in the university library in Krakow. For the microfiche edition, both parts of the holdings have been filmed (the autographs in color) for the first time. In addition to listing the microfiche, the catalogue contains a list of the signatures filmed in Berlin and Krakow and an index of the reproduced works in compliance with the a ~KAchelverzeichnisa (TM). The introduction provides insights into the history of the holdings.

Conducting Opera discusses operas in the standard repertory from the perspective of a conductor with a lifetime of experience performing them. It focuses on Joseph Rescigno's approach to preparing and performing these masterworks in order to realize what opera can uniquely achieve: a fusion of music and drama resulting in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.Opening with a chapter discussing his performance philosophy, Rescigno then covers Mozart's most-performed operas, standards of the bel canto school including Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, five of Verdi's works including La traviata, a selection of Wagner's compositions followed by French Romantic operas such as Bizet's Carmen, Puccini's major works, and finally four operas by Richard Strauss. A useful appendix contains a convenient guide to the scores available online. Conducting Opera includes practical advice about propelling a story forward and bringing out the drama that the music is meant to supply, as well as how to support singers in their most difficult moments. Rescigno identifies particularly problematic passages and supplies suggestions about how to navigate them. In addition, he provides advice on staying true to the several styles under discussion.

The music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven forms a cornerstone of the modern repertoire, but very little is known about the context in which these composers worked. This volume of twelve essays by leading international scholars considers some of the musical traditions and practices of this little-understood period of music history. Beginning with the early decades of the eighteenth century, the volume documents selected aspects of musical life and style from the late Baroque period through to the early years of the nineteenth century. The four main areas covered in this exploration of music history are orchestral music, sacred music, opera and keyboard music. Georg Reutter (Haydn's teacher), Antonio Salieri (Mozart's colleague) and Woelffl (a rival of Beethoven) are just three of the period's prominent musicians who are discussed at length.