"The reader must have noted in the favorite magazines of the practicing pianist how often the same troubled queries reappear: How can memorizing be made easier and more secure? How can the fourth and fifth fingers be strengthened? What produces musicianship? These and many others are perennial questions of the greatest practical importance to student, teacher, and performer. Strange, then, that adequate answers are so hard to find. With all the time and effort devoted to the study of the piano, with all the advances in the psychology of training, with all the special studies that have been...

In this provocative new study, William Newman presents to the reader "whatever intentions on Beethoven's part can be documented or can be supported by reasoning and analysis in the primary sources for his music." His aim, in brief, is to get as close as possible to the performance practices Beethoven himself had in mind for his piano music, both solo and ensemble works.

Now available in paperback for the first time, William S. Newman's monumental "History of the Sonata Idea" is the indispensable standard work on the subject for the student, teacher, performer, and music lover. Each volume deals with the historical evolution of the form and the contributions of both major and minor figures of the period, and includes music examples, notes, and comprehensive bibliography.

This definitive volume, the second, largest, and most central in Newman's History of the Sonata Idea, covers the period from the first sample Italian sonatas using the new techniques of the Alberti bass about 1735 to the succession of masterpieces by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven which extended until about 1820. It is one of the few books to deal exclusively with the classical era in music.

Originally published in 1963.

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This volume completes Newman's monumental study of the sonata. It examines the evolution of the sonata idea from the prexcocious Romanticisms of Dussek before 1880 to the near exhaustion of Romantic music by the time of World War I. Thoroughly documented, illustrated by new extended lists of sonatas as well as the fullest bibliography of Romantic music literature yet published, the book is invaluable to musicians.

Originally published in 1969.

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This volume provides a full and careful history of what sonata meant and how the word was used from its first appearance as an instrumental title in the sixteenth century to the near end of the thorough-bass practice around 1750. The revised edition includes nearly three hundred new studies, editions, and other pertinent information.

Originally published in 1966.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are...