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.

"This book investigates the changing ways in which composers employed notation, and skilled musicians understood it, between the middle of the 18th century and the early years of the 20th century. While the trend was towards increasingly explicit notational practices, many aspects of performance, even in the late 19th century, were assumed rather than specified and it was still widely understood that much remained to be read between the lines. Furthermore, during the 20th century the intended implications of many notational practices were gradually forgotten and are now generally misunderstood, while others, such as continuous vibrato and the meticulous observance of vertical synchrony and notated rhythms, differ radically from anything the composer might have envisaged. The underlying message of the book is that composers' intentions for their notation ought not to be confused with their expectations for its execution. The employment of expressive practices that often involve substantial deviations from a conventional modern reading of the notation is not only a legitimate, but also an essential element in getting closer to the composer's conception. The following topics are investigated in sixteen chapters: metrical and rhetorical accentuation, dynamics, articulation, string-instrument bowing, phrasing, expression, tempo, tempo flexibility, ornamentation and improvisation, asynchrony, arpeggiation, rhythmic flexibility, sliding effects (portamento), and trembling effects (tremolo, vibrato)"--

The Classical era, from 1751 to the 1830s and beyond, is one of the most revolutionary and creative times in the history of music. However, critical details about the performance of music during this extraordinary time have too often been lost to generations of re-interpretation, opinionated colorings, and changes in fashion and taste. In this remarkable volume, noted scholar and choral conductor, Dennis Shrock brings together in one place writings from more than 100 Classical-era authors and composers about performance practices of music during their time. These primary sources represent the entire time span of the Classical era, writings from throughout Europe and the United States, and details on virtually every type of performing medium and genre of composition common in the era. Dr. Shrock quotes from diaries, instruction books, dictionaries, letters, biographies, and essays all written during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Dr. Shrock organizes all of these comments - complete with detailed music examples - in sections devoted to sound, tempo, articulation and phrasing, metric accentuation, rhythmic alteration, ornamentation, and expression. What emerges is an insightful and colorful portrait certain to assist anyone who seeks to better understand the music of Mozart, Haydn, and other noted composers. Performance Practices in the Classical Era is a vital resource for any conductor, performer, or aficionado of classical music.

This volume brings together twenty-two of the most diverse and stimulating journal articles on classical and romantic performing practice, representing a rich vein of enquiry into epochs of music still very much at the forefront of current concert repertoire. In so doing, it provides a wide range of subject-based scholarship. It also reveals a fascinating window upon the historical performance debate of the last few decades in music where such matters still stimulate controversy.

What are the key topics that define Romantic violin playing?

Research in the 20th and 21st centuries into historical performance practice has changed not just the way performers approach music of the 17th and 18th centuries but, eventually, the way audiences listen to it. This volume, beginning with a 1915 Saint-Sa? lecture on the performance of old music, sets out to capture musicological discussion that has actually changed the way Baroque music can sound. The articles deal with historical instruments, pitch, tuning, temperament, the nexus between technique and style, vibrato, the performance implications of musical scores, and some of the vexed questions relating to rhythmic alteration. It closes with a section on the musicological challenges to the ideology of the early music movement mounted (principally) in the 1990s. Leading writers on historical performance practice are represented. Recognizing that significant developments in historically-inspired performance have been led by instrument makers and performers, the volume also contains representative essays by key practitioners.

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.