Eloquent Oboe

This is the first in-depth survey of the oboe during its Golden Age, tracing the history of the instrument from its invention through its many mutations as it adapted to the changing demands of composers. The author describes in detail the instruments, players, makers, and composers, as well as how and where it was played, and who listened to it.

In this history of the hautboy, the oboe of the Baroque period, Haynes examines in detail the hautboy's structure, its players, makers, and composers, issues of performing style and period techniques, how and where the instrument was played, and who listened to it.

The oboe, including its earlier forms the shawm and the hautboy, is an instrument with a long and rich history. In this book two distinguished oboist-musicologists trace that history from its beginnings to the present time, discussing how and why the oboe evolved, what music was written for it, and which players were prominent. Geoffrey Burgess and Bruce Haynes begin by describing the oboe’s prehistory and subsequent development out of the shawm in the mid-seventeenth century. They then examine later stages of the instrument, from the classical hautboy to the transition to a keyed oboe and eventually the Conservatoire-system oboe. The authors consider the instrument’s place in Romantic and Modernist music and analyze traditional and avant-garde developments after World War II. Noting the oboe’s appearance in paintings and other iconography, as well as in distinctive musical contexts, they examine what this reveals about the instrument’s social function in different eras. Throughout the book they discuss the great performers, from the pioneers of the seventeenth century to the traveling virtuosi of the eighteenth, the masters of the romantic period and the legends of the twentieth century such as Gillet, Goossens, Tabuteau, and Holliger. With its extensive illustrations, useful technical appendices, and discography, this is a comprehensive and authoritative volume that will be the essential companion for every woodwind student and performer.

What is rhetorical music? In The Pathetick Musician, Bruce Haynes and Geoffrey Burgess illustrate the vital place of rhetoric and eloquent expression in the creation and performance of Baroque music. Through engaging explorations of the cantatas of J.S. Bach, the authors explode the conventional notion of historical authenticity in music, proposing adventurous new directions to reinvigorate the performance of early music in the modern setting. Along the way, Haynes and Burgess investigate intersections between music and oratory, dance, gesture, poetry, painting and sculpture, and offer insights into figural elaboration, articulation, nuance and temporality. Aimed primarily at performers of Baroque music, the book situates the study of performance practice in a broader cultural context, and as much as an invaluable resource for advanced study, it contains a wealth of information that pertains directly to anyone working in the field of early music. Based on a draft sketched by celebrated Baroque oboist and early music scholar Bruce Haynes before his death in 2011, The Pathetick Musician is the fruit of the combined wisdom of two musicians renowned equally for their contributions as performers and scholars. Drawing on an impressive array of Classical treatises on oratory, musical autographs and performance accounts, it is an essential companion to Haynes' controversial The End of Early Music. Geoffrey Burgess has taken up the broader claims of Haynes' philosophy to create a practical, accessible text that will be stimulating for all musicians interested in the rediscovery of early music. With copious musical examples, contemporaneous works of art, and a companion website with supplementary audio recordings, The Pathetick Musician is an invaluable resource for all interested in exploring new expressive possibilities in the performance and study of Baroque music.

Performance practice is the study of how music was performed over the centuries, both by its originators (the composers and performers who introduced the works) and, later, by revivalists. This first of its kind Dictionary offers entries on composers, musiciansperformers, technical terms, performance centers, musical instruments, and genres, all aimed at elucidating issues in performance practice. This A-Z guide will help students, scholars, and listeners understand how musical works were originally performed and subsequently changed over the centuries. Compiled by a leading scholar in the field, this work will serve as both a point-of-entry for beginners as well as a roadmap for advanced scholarship in the field.

This book traces the emergence of the orchestra from 16th-century string bands to the 'classical' orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries. Ensembles of bowed stringed instruments, several players per part plus continuo and wind instruments, were organized in France in the mid-17th century and then in Rome at the end of the century. The prestige of these ensembles and of the music and performing styles of their leaders, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Arcangelo Corelli, caused them to be imitated elsewhere, until by the late 18th century, the orchestra had become a pan-European phenomenon. Spitzer and Zaslaw review previous accounts of these developments, then proceed to a thoroughgoing documentation and discussion of orchestral organization, instrumentation, and social roles in France, Italy, Germany, England, and the American colonies. They also examine the emergence of orchestra musicians, idiomatic music for orchestras, orchestral performance practices, and the awareness of the orchestra as a central institution in European life.

Historians of instruments and instrumental music have long recognised that there was a period of profound change in the seventeenth century, when the consorts or families of instruments developed during the Renaissance were replaced by the new models of the Baroque period. Yet the process is still poorly understood, in part because each instrument has traditionally been considered in isolation, and changes in design have rarely been related to changes in the way instruments were used, or what they played. The essays in this book are by distinguished international authors that include specialists in particular instruments together with those interested in such topics as the early history of the orchestra, iconography, pitch and continuo practice. The book will appeal to instrument makers and academics who have an interest in achieving a better understanding of the process of change in the seventeenth century, but the book also raises questions that any historically aware performer ought to be asking about the performance of Baroque music. What sorts of instruments should be used? At what pitch? In which temperament? In what numbers and/or combinations? For this reason, the book will be invaluable to performers, academics, instrument makers and anyone interested in the fascinating period of change from the 'Renaissance' to the 'Baroque'.

Winner of the 2007 Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society and the 2007 Deems Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Divas and Scholars is a dazzling and beguiling account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with Philip Gossett’s personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances and suffused with his towering and tonic passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, Gossett, the world's leading authority on the performance of Italian opera, brings colorfully to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our most favorite operas. Gossett begins by tracing the social history of nineteenth-century Italian theaters in order to explain the nature of the musical scores from which performers have long worked. He then illuminates the often hidden but crucial negotiations opera scholars and opera conductors and performers: What does it mean to talk about performing from a critical edition? How does one determine what music to perform when multiple versions of an opera exist? What are the implications of omitting passages from an opera in a performance? In addition to vexing questions such as these, Gossett also tackles issues of ornamentation and transposition in vocal style, the matters of translation and adaptation, and even aspects of stage direction and set design. Throughout this extensive and passionate work, Gossett enlivens his history with reports from his own experiences with major opera companies at venues ranging from the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas to the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro. The result is a book that will enthrall both aficionados of Italian opera and newcomers seeking a reliable introduction to it—in all its incomparable grandeur and timeless allure.

The earliest surviving hautboy solo is a Symphonia by Johann Christoph Pez from the 1690s or early 1700s. This piece survives in two versions, as a Sonata for violin and a Symphonia for hautboy, and the differences between the two enable a comparison of how Pez viewed the character and technical capabilities of each instrument. The purpose of this edition is to show how Pez’s Symphonia can be used as a template to find other works that might become hautboy solos (treble/bass) from the last third or so of the seventeenth century when the instrument came into use. Thus Pez points the way to a seventeenth-century practice that the author demonstrates in four contemporary pieces by writing out examples of what would have been performed at sight or from memory. Adaptations like this of J. S. Bach’s keyboard works are being performed by some of today’s leading lutenists. This book will make a significant addition to academic libraries and will be of interest to scholars of historical performance practice and to performers of the (baroque) hautboy, the oboe and other wind instruments. It breaks new ground in the same spirit as studies that have offered reconstructions of works with lacunae in scoring or with damaged pages.