Harpsichord And Lute Music In 17th Century France

The works of the 17th-century French harpsichord composers, the clavecinistes, are among the principal treasures of the harpsichord repertoire. It is a commmonplace of music histories that their style was strongly influenced by contemporary lutenists, yet the assessment of this influence has until now been limited to pointing out a few superficial resemblances. This book is the first comprehensive account of the relationship between the two styles. The nature and extent of the influence can now be seen as much more far-reaching than has been supposed. The clavecinistes adopted many details of lute style, and an understanding of these is essential for the proper performance of their works. More importantly, the lute style opened up the possibility of an entirely new expressive dimension in the playing of the harpsichord; in exploring this the clavecinistes evolved a style which dominated European keyboard music in the 17th-century, and provided a basis for the subsequent development of idiomatic keyboard style.

Covers every aspect of the harpsichord and its music, including composers, genres, national styles, tuning, and the art of harpsichord building.

This accessible Companion provides a wide-ranging and comprehensive introduction to French music from the early middle ages to the present.

English keyboard music reached an unsurpassed level of sophistication in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as organists such as William Byrd and his students took a genre associated with domestic, amateur performance and treated it as seriously as vocal music. This book draws together important research on the music, its sources and the instruments on which it was played. There are two chapters on instruments: John Koster on the use of harpsichord during the period, and Dominic Gwynn on the construction of Tudor-style organs based on the surviving evidence we have for them. This leads to a section devoted to organ performance practice in a liturgical context, in which John Harper discusses what the use of organs pitched in F may imply about their use in alternation with vocal polyphony, and Magnus Williamson explores improvisational practice in the Tudor period. The next section is on sources and repertoire, beginning with Frauke Jürgensen and Rachelle Taylor’s chapter on Clarifica me Pater settings, which grows naturally out of the consideration of improvisation in the previous chapter. The next two contributions focus on two of the most important individual manuscript sources: Tihomir Popović challenges assumptions about My Ladye Nevells Booke by reflecting on what the manuscript can tell us about aristocratic culture, and David J. Smith provides a detailed study of the famous Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. The discussion then broadens out into Pieter Dirksen’s consideration of a wider selection of sources relating to John Bull, which in turn connects closely to David Leadbetter’s work on Gibbons, lute sources and questions of style.

First published in 2005, this title provides extensive knowledge on seventeenth-century music.

Keyboard Music Before 1700 begins with an overview of the development of keyboard music in Europe. Then, individual chapters by noted authorities in the field cover the key composers and repertory before 1700 in England, France, Germany and the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain and Portugal. The book concludes with a chapter on performance practice, which addresses current issues in the interpretation and revival of this music.

This historical survey focuses on music for piano solo but also includes important compositions for piano duet and two pianos. Scholarly yet readable, it covers the entire repertoire from the Renaissance to the late 20th century and incorporates a bibliography of 1 100 sources for further study.

This book and its accompanying website present the selected proceedings of the inaugural, ?The Performer's Voice: An International Forum for Music Performance and Scholarship?, directed by Dr Anne Marshman (editor) and hosted by the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore. The chapters, which were selected through a process of international peer review, reflect the symposium's wide-ranging interdisciplinary scope, coupled with an uncompromising emphasis on the act of performance, the role of the performer and the professional performer's perspective.

One of Europe's foremost experts on early guitar music explores this little known but richly rewarding repertoire.