Originally entitled Musicology, in this work musicians are shown how to perform concertos by Vivaldi and his contemporaries in a way that would be recognized and encouraged by their composers. In addition, the key role of Sir Thomas Beecham as a pioneer in early music receives its proper credit and appreciation.

Yehudi Menuhin shares with the reader his unique store of understanding about the violin, about how to exercise and practise, about the techniques of performance. His reflections on the nature and scope of his instrument are profoundly illuminating and his theories on interpretation particularly valuable. A section on the violinist as teacher/student contains a fascinating transcript of a lesson with Yehudi Menuhin, who also writes separately about the violinist as orchestral player, leader, chamber music player, recitalist and soloist. William Primrose writes the distinguished monograph on the viola and describes the instrument as 'a violin with a college education'. He was an acknowledged technical master of the viola who, along with Lionel Tertis, was one of the finest exponents of this beautiful instrument of the 20th century. Denis Stevens, the British musicologist and specialist in early music, provides and interesting chapter on the history of the violin and looks in detail at the monumental challenge that is Bach's Six Solos for Violin without Bass Accompaniment better known as the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin.

This, the fullest edition of Monteverdi's letters yet to appear in any language, makes every known letter available in English translation. The 127 letters date from the last forty-two years of Monteverdi's career, giving an unrivalled picture of the life of a busy composer working Mantua, Venice, and Parma at one of the most exciting and crucial periods in the history of music. The span of the letters (1601-43) coincides with the early flowering of Italian opera and other dramatic entertainments, and Monteverdi has a great deal to say about his patrons, librettists, instrumentalist and singers. There are continual references to his music, the style of its performance, and to its ornamentation and orchestration. Besides correcting the numerous errors of transcription in previous editions, Professor Stevens has taken special care in his translations to be faithful to the rhythms and the arched symmetry of Moteverdi's prose. Additional biographical and historical material is incorporated into the extensive commentaries which introduce each letter. In this new, fully revised edition, certain changes and revisions affecting letters and commentaries have been made in the light of newly published information books, articles, and reviews, and through private communications. Additional letters and support material are included, and the bibliography has been updated. Professor Stevens also introduces new material covering in some detail the events of Monteverdi's early years in Cremona and Mantua, insofar as they were influenced by his family, his studies, travels, friends and patrons.

This is the first collection of Claudio Monteverdi's madrigal and song texts published in parallel Italian and English versions. Denis Steven's unique anthology ranges across four centuries of verse for music. More than thirty poets, old and new, famous and obscure, are represented here, many for the first time in English. Enthusiasts and scholars of the music and its period will be extremely interested in finding out what the poems Monteverdi set to music really mean. The keys Stevens uses in his translations come from a lifetime's work devoted to Monteverdi and his contemporaries.

This is the story of almost a thousand years of song, from the time of the troubadours to the present day. Dealing exhaustively with the history and development of secular art-song in the Western world, the book is an indispensable guide to the amateur music-lover, the student, and the singer.