In this first full-scale study of performance practice in Haydn's keyboard music, Bernard Harrison confronts the important issues facing any performer of this repertoire, and considers some of the recurring controversial questions in broader research on Haydn's oeuvre.

Looking in detail at Haydn's symphonies, this book attempts to clarify what Haydn's fundamental principles of formal logic might have been. It shows how Haydn employed those basic compositional principles to structure his forms, providing explanations that account for specific details of individual movements as well as the relationships between the movements. Beyond what they show about Haydn's formal thought and the individual works discussed, the discussions in this book also stress the idea that compositions cannot be analyzed in a meaningful manner if the analysis is divorced from the...

This book represents the most thorough study to date of Handel's compositional procedures in his English oratorios and musical dramas. Exploring the composer's sketches and autograph scores, it offers fresh insights into the creative mind of one of the leading figures in Baroque music.

The most famous musicians of early modern Milan were its cloistered nuns, despite the efforts of church officials to limit their musical lives. This book details the cultural context, religious traditions, musical styles, and personal meaning of the music written by and for them from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth century, and outlines the ways in which their status as female virgins was--and was not--central to the musical expression of their piety.

Eighteenth-century pianos shaped and influenced the music that was written for them. However, although organological studies probe the instrument in ever more detail, and musical criticism focuses increasingly on the musical repertoire, the relationship between the two has not been properly examined. This book concentrates on the keyboard writing of the last third of the eighteenth century, as inspired by the fundamentally different constructions of the German/Viennese and the English pianoforte. The highly articulated languages of Mozart and his Viennese contemporaries, and the more robust,...

The composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) came of age in the bohemian sub-culture of Montmartre, with its artists' cabarets and cafes-concerts. These colorful milieux decisively shaped his aesthetic priorities and compositional strategies, from the esoteric Gymnopedies of the 1880s to the avant-garde ballets of the 1920s. Whiting makes this radical transvaluation of received artistic values more understandable by placing it in the full context of bohemian Montmartre.
"

Mary O'Neill examines the legacy of the medieval poet composers of Northern France, the trouveres. For many years problems and difficulties concerning the surviving melodies have prevented us from accessing these songs. Many of these problems are addressed here, bringing us closer to a true understanding of the repertoire.
"

Henry Lawes (1596-1662) has long been acknowledged as the leading English songwriter of the period of Charles I. He collaborated with Milton in Comus (1634) and among his hundreds of songs are settings of many famous lyrics by Cavalier poets such as Carew, Herrick, and Suckling. New recordings and musical editions of his work reflect his continued and increasing importance. This study, the first published since 1940, combines an account of his life with an analysis of his development as a songwriter.

The "Chromatic Fourth" is a musical pattern of six notes moving by step up or down the scale. In this essentially practical study Peter Williams draws on his extensive knowledge of the music of four centuries to investigate and analyze over 200 examples taken from composers ranging from Bach to Bartok, and from Schubert to Shostakovich.
"

The royal string band at the English court had its origins in a six-man viol consort from Italy brought to England by Henry VIII in the spring of 1540. This book, written by the director of the acclaimed early music group, The Parley of Instruments, charts the history of the royal string band from its beginnings to the time of Purcell. Drawing on a wealth of documentary evidence, much of it new, Holman considers the previous history of instrumentalists at court and recounts the band's establishment at court in the context of the violin's place in sixteenth-century Europe. The first thorough...