The Cambridge History of Musical Performance


Book Description

The intricacies and challenges of musical performance have recently attracted the attention of writers and scholars to a greater extent than ever before. Research into the performer's experience has begun to explore such areas as practice techniques, performance anxiety and memorisation, as well as many other professional issues. Historical performance practice has been the subject of lively debate way beyond academic circles, mirroring its high profile in the recording studio and the concert hall. Reflecting the strong ongoing interest in the role of performers and performance, this History brings together research from leading scholars and historians and, importantly, features contributions from accomplished performers, whose practical experiences give the volume a unique vitality. Moving the focus away from the composers and onto the musicians responsible for bringing the music to life, this History presents a fresh, integrated and innovative perspective on performance history and practice, from the earliest times to today.




Performance and Popular Music


Book Description

Since the emergence of rock'n'roll in the early 1950s, there have been a number of live musical performances that were not only memorable in themselves, but became hugely influential in the way they shaped the subsequent trajectory and development of popular music. Each, in its own way, introduced new styles, confronted existing practices, shifted accepted definitions, and provided templates for others to follow. Performance and Popular Music explores these processes by focusing on some of the specific occasions when such transformations occurred. An international array of scholars reveal that it is through the (often disruptive) dynamics of performance – and the interaction between performer and audience – that patterns of musical change and innovation can best be recognised. Through multi-disciplinary analyses which consider the history, place and time of each event, the performances are located within their social and professional contexts, and their immediate and long-term musical consequences considered. From the Beatles and Bob Dylan to Michael Jackson and Madonna, from Woodstock and Monterey to Altamont and Live Aid, this book provides an indispensable assessment of the importance of live performance in the practice of popular music, and an essential guide to some of the key moments in its history.




Performing Music History


Book Description

Performing Music History offers a unique perspective on music history and performance through a series of conversations with women and men intimately associated with music performance, history, and practice: the musicians themselves. Fifty-five celebrated artists—singers, pianists, violinists, cellists, flutists, horn players, oboists, composers, conductors, and jazz greats—provide interviews that encompass most of Western music history, from the Middle Ages to contemporary classical music, avant-garde innovations, and Broadway musicals. The book covers music history through lenses that include “authentic” performance, original instrumentation, and social context. Moreover, the musicians interviewed all bring to bear upon their respective subjects three outstanding qualities: 1) their high esteem in the music world as immediately recognizable names among musicians and public alike; 2) their energy and devotion to scholarship and the recovery of endangered musical heritages; and 3) their considerable skills, media savvy, and showmanship as communicators. Introductory essays to each chapter provide brief synopses of historical eras and topics. Combining careful scholarship and lively conversation, Performing Music History explores historical contexts for a host of fascinating issues.




The Historical Performance of Music


Book Description

A 1999 overview of historical performance, surveying issues and suggesting future developments.




Music Performance Issues


Book Description

Frontcover -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Preface -- 1 Dilettante and Amateur: Our Evolving Language -- 2 Bach's Lament about Leipzig's Professional Instrumentalists -- 3 Choral Singing Before the Era of Recordings -- 4 Why Most a cappella Music Could Not Have Been Sung Unaccompanied -- 5 Fasch and the Beginning of Modern Artistic Choral Singing -- 6 What Handel's Casting Reveals About Singers of the Time -- 7 Intonation Standards and Equal Temperament -- 8 Eighteenth-Century Stringed Keyboard Instruments from a Performance Perspective -- 9 The Tromba and Corno in Bach's Time -- 10 Maelzel's Role in Beethoven's Symphonic Metronome Marks -- 11 The French Time Devices Revisited -- 12 The Notable Significance of C and (in Bach's Era -- 13 Numbers and Tempo: 1630-1800 -- 14 Overdotting in Handel's Overtures Reconsidered -- 15 Notes inégales: A Definitive New Parameter -- 16 Distinguishing Between Artificial and Natural Vibrato in Premodern Music -- 17 A Solution for Simple (secco) Theater Recitative -- 18 How Composers Viewed Performers' Additions -- 19 The Varied Reprise in Eighteenth-Century Intrumental Music-A Reappraisal




The Performance of 16th-Century Music


Book Description

Most modern performers, trained on the performance practices of the Classical and Romantic periods, come to the music of the Renaissance with well-honed but anachronistic ideas. Fundamental differences between 16th-century repertoire and that of later epochs thus tend to be overlooked-yet it is just these differences which can make a performance truly stunning. The Performance of 16th-Century Music will enable the performer to better understand this music and advance their technical and expressive abilities. Early music specialist Anne Smith outlines several major areas of technical knowledge and skill needed to perform the music of this period. She takes readers through the significance of part-book notation; solmization; rhythmic flexibility; and elements of structure in relation to rhetoric of the time; while familiarizing them with contemporary criteria and standards of excellence for performance. Through The Performance of 16th-Century Music, today's musicians will gain fundamental insight into how 16th-century polyphony functions, and the tools necessary to perform this repertoire to its fullest, most glorious potential.




Music in the Baroque World


Book Description

Music in the Baroque World: History, Culture, Performance offers an interdisciplinary study of the music of Europe and the Americas in the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries. It answers calls for an approach that balances culture, history, and musical analysis, with an emphasis on performance considerations such as notation, instruments, and performance techniques. It situates musical events in their intellectual, social, religious, and political contexts and enables in-depth discussion and critical analysis. The companion web site provide links to scores and audio/visual performances, making this a complete course for the study of Baroque music. Features An interdisciplinary approach that balances detailed analysis of specific pieces of music and broader historical overview and relevance A selection of historical documents at the end of each chapter that position musical works and events in their cultural context Extensive musical examples that show the melodic, textural, harmonic, or structural features of baroque music and enhance the utility of the textbook for undergraduate and graduate music majors A global perspective with a chapter on Music in the Americas A companion score anthology and website with links to audio/video content of key performances and research and writing guides Music in the Baroque World: History, Culture, Performance tells stories of local traditions, cultural exchange, performance trends, and artistic mixing. It illuminates representative works through the lens of politics, visual arts, theology, print culture, gender, domesticity, commerce, and cultural influence and exchange.




Musical Instruments


Book Description

A reference guide to musical instruments.




Playing with History


Book Description

This challenging 2002 study examines and ultimately defends the case for historically informed musical performance.




Aesthetics and Experience in Music Performance


Book Description

Drawing upon a wide range of scholarly enquiry into early music, queer musicology, ethnomusicology, performance practice, music education and technology, Aesthetics and Experience in Music Performance provides a lively forum for the articulation of varied perspectives on the role of music, its interpretation and function in contexts supported by those who practice or experience it. The formal and shorter discussion papers included in this scholarly collection were presented at the National Workshop of the Musicological Society of Australia, held at the University of Queensland, Brisbane in October 2003. The themes of aesthetics and experience are central to this publication and each paper engages in a scholarly dialogue on the technical, expressive and embodied aspects of performance. The papers included in this publication bring together the research of a wide community of scholars (e.g., musicologists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists and linguists) working in the field of performance studies and collectively reflect the musicological issues being debated in Australia today.