Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900
- Author: Brown, Clive
This book will revolutionize the study of music...The book weaves strong patterns from the conflicting habits of different places, people and periods. It doesn't tell you exactly what to do,...
Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900
- Author: Brown, Clive
Purchase product
Other available formats
This book will revolutionize the study of music...The book weaves strong patterns from the conflicting habits of different places, people and periods. It doesn't tell you exactly what to do,...
About
The past ten years have seen a rapidly growing interest in performing and recording Classical and Romantic music with period instruments; yet the relationship of composers' notation to performing practices during that period has received only sporadic attention from scholars, and many aspects of composers' intentions have remained uncertain. Brown here identifies areas in which musical notation conveyed rather different messages to the musicians for whom it was written than it does to modern performers, and seeks to look beyond the notation to understand how composers might have expected to hear their music realized in performance. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that, in many respects, the sound worlds in which Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Brahms created their music were more radically different from ours than is generally assumed.
Contents
- Sir Roger Norrington: Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 Accentuation in Theory
- 2 Accentuation in Practice
- 3 The Notation of Accents and Dynamics
- 4 Articulation
- 5 Articulation and Expression
- 6 The Notation of Articulation and Phrasing
- 7 String Bowing
- 8 Tempo
- 9 Alla Breve
- 10 Tempo Terms
- 11 Tempo Modification
- 12 Embellishment, Ornamentation, and Improvisation
- 13 Appoggiaturas, Trills, Turns, and Related Ornaments
- 14 Vibrato
- 15 Portamento
- 16 The fermata
- Recitative
- Arpeggiation
- The Variable Dot and Other Aspects of Rhythmic Flexibility
- Heavy and Light Performance
- Index
Awards and reviews
This book will revolutionize the study of music...The book weaves strong patterns from the conflicting habits of different places, people and periods. It doesn't tell you exactly what to do, but inspires a confidence that your own decisions, thus informed, will work
Brown's grasp of primary sources is wide-ranging and scholarly, lavishly illustrated with musical examples, often of unfamiliar repertory. He uncovers many questions and and possible answers, which can hardly fail to stimulate the thinking performer
