Baroque Music: (The Library of Essays on Music Performance Practice)

Research in the 20th and 21st centuries into historical performance practice has changed not just the way performers approach music of the 17th and 18th centuries but, eventually, the way audiences listen to it. This volume, beginning with a 1915 Saint-Sa lecture on the performance of old music, sets out to capture musicological discussion that has actually changed the way Baroque music can sound. The articles deal with historical instruments, pitch, tuning, temperament, the nexus between technique and style, vibrato, the performance implications of musical scores, and some of the vexed questions relating to rhythmic alteration. It closes with a section on the musicological challenges to the ideology of the early music movement mounted (principally) in the 1990s. Leading writers on historical performance practice are represented. Recognizing that significant developments in historically-inspired performance have been led by instrument makers and performers, the volume also contains representative essays by key practitioners.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction; Part I Prologue: On the execution of music, and principally of ancient music, Camille Saint-Saëns. Part II The Right Instrument: Reconstructing the harpsichord, Frank Hubbard; The harpsichord culture in Bach's environs, John Koster; Bach and the flute: the players, the instruments, the music, Ardal Powell with David Lasocki; New light on the old bow: part 1, Robert E. Seletsky; New light on the old bow: part 2, Robert E. Seletsky; Falsetto and the French: 'une toute autre marche', Andrew Parrott. Part III Pitch Tuning and Temperament: Bach's keyboard temperament: internal evidence from The Well-tempered Clavier, John Barnes; Beyond temperament: non-keyboard intonation in the 17th and 18th centuries, Bruce Haynes. Part IV Technique and Style: Handelian keyboard fingerings, Mark Lindley; Violin fingering in the 18th century, Peter Walls; Tu ru or not Tu ru: paired syllables and unequal tonguing patterns on woodwinds in the 17th and 18th centuries, Bruce Haynes; 'La voce è grata assai, ma...': Monteverdi on singing, Richard Wistreich. Part V Vibrato: The vibrato controversy, Frederick Neumann; The censored publications of The Art of Playing on the Violin, or Geminiani unshaken, Roger Hickman. Part VI What Works? (Text, Subtext, Surtext): Text, context and the early music editor, Philip Brett; Sous les doits de Chambonniere, David Fuller; Violinistic virtuosity in the 17th century: Italian supremacy or Austro-German hegemony?, Peter Allsop; Ornaments for Corelli's Violin Sonatas, op. 5, Neal Zaslaw. Part VII Tempo and Rhythmic Alteration: Déjà vu all over again? Rhythmic alteration vs. Neumann's musical protectionism, Stephen E. Hefling; Alteration in Handel: a fresh approach, John Byrt; Bach's French overtures and the politics of overdotting, Matthew Dirst. Part VIII Scoring: 'Col nobilissimo esercitio della vivuola': Monteverdi's string writing, Peter Holman; Professional women musicians in early 18th-century Württemberg, Samantha Owens; P

About the Author :
Peter Walls is Emeritus Professor of Music at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the author of Music in the English Courtly Masque (Oxford: the Clarendon Press, 1996), History, Imagination and the Performance of Music (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003) and numerous articles on historical performance practice. A baroque violinist and conductor, he is currently Chief Executive of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.