Peter Bassano’s story goes back 500 years, when five Bassano brothers were hired by Henry VIII as court musicians. In the late 1960s, Peter joined David Munrow in London’s exploding early-music scene. He describes it as “an electric shock going through me.”
Jan Caeyers’ expertise with both the social history of the composer’s world and the music of the period makes this an important addition to the Beethoven literature. Told with almost operatic drama, the book tells us much that we did not know, adding to our understanding and appreciation of this pivotal figure in musical history.
With this new publication of François Couperin’s celebrated ‘Pièces de clavecin’ (Book III) together with his ‘Concerts royaux,’ we now have a chance to compare the keyboard composer with the chamber musician in a single volume. The introduction alone is invaluable scholarship on this period of the composer’s life and world.
Two damaged fragments of parchment, circa 1300, have an amazing story to tell. The Dorset rotulus, a scroll of music, helps flesh out a 400-year gap in our knowledge, adding new insights into the development of the medieval English motet. And for anyone looking for new early English material available for performance, the book will be an excellent resource.
This insightful and well-researched collection of 10 essays shed light on Jewish musical activity in the Italian peninsula from the 14th to the 17th centuries. Unique to this time and place was an efflorescence of musical activity—in the sense of European “high culture”—and the authors point to the many instances of cultural, economic and social connections. There’s a focus on two phenomena: the participation by Jews in European musical culture, and the creation of new Jewish musical artifacts that resulted from a fusion of the two cultures.
This fascinating book—rich in historical and analytical detail—offers many surprising reevaluations of long-held beliefs. With essays ranging from consumer culture in Bach’s Leipzig and Bach’s humor to an outright dismissal of ‘Affektenlehre’ and heated questions of antisemitism, the book is always provocative, often controversial, and smartly argued.
The collected essays take “voice”—with its multiple meanings—as the starting point for lively discussions on the construction of gender in medieval culture. The essays extend from 12th century Arthurian romance to Anne de Graville’s writings in the 16th century. The bulk of the book is dedicated to music of the 12th and 13th centuries, considering the troubadour and trouvère song and the polyphonic and polytextual ars antiqua motet. It draws a connection between literature and song and provides a wonderful example of how new perspectives can be found on medieval material via the application of contemporary critical tools.
‘The Baroque Violin & Viola’ provides an important introduction to Baroque violin playing for the modern violin and viola student, in 50 highly detailed lessons. The book is a rich collection of ideas, techniques, insights, and sources compiled and interpreted by the author during a teaching career of 30 years as professor of Baroque violin.
There is so much information here concerning specific meters and their historical development that anyone who can digest it all will approach the music of the German Baroque with new understanding, conviction, and a sense of freedom.
David Breitman’s ‘Piano-Playing Revisited’ is not an effort to convert modern pianists into period players; instead, the author seeks to enrich modern performances on the modern piano with the insights gained through this comparative process.