The intimately related phenomena of dance and instrumental variation were prominent features of Spanish culture during the 17th and early 18th centuries. These variations (diferencias) on a set piece of music or choreographed movement permeated the activities of professional and amateur musicians, secular and sacred festivities, and were cultivated by the aristocracy as well as the lower class. The incorporation of variation into the instrumental music which accompanied dance enabled the instrumentalists to produce pieces of sufficient length and diversity to accommodate the needs of the dancers on different occasions. As to the two volumes which will complete this set, Volume 2 supplies a complete inventory and transcription of th e extant instrumental dance pieces and variation sets (495 pieces plus 228 pasacalles), and Volume 3 will contain the original notes in Spanish.

Vol. 1: Treatises and music ; vol. 2: choreographic descriptions with concordances of variants.

The Notes in Spanish provides the original text and quotations, already presented in English in Volume I, in their original Spanish.