Drawing on hundreds of operas, singspiels, ballets, and plays with supernatural themes, Magic Flutes and Enchanted Forests argues that the tension between fantasy and Enlightenment-era rationality shaped some of the most important works of eighteenth-century musical theater and profoundly influenced how audiences and critics responded to them. David J. Buch reveals that despite—and perhaps even because of—their fundamental irrationality, fantastic and exotic themes acquired extraordinary force and popularity during the period, pervading theatrical works with music in the French, German, and Italian mainstream. Considering prominent compositions by Gluck, Rameau, and Haydn, as well as many seminal contributions by lesser-known artists, Buch locates the origins of these magical elements in such historical sources as ancient mythology, European fairy tales, the Arabian Nights, and the occult. He concludes with a brilliant excavation of the supernatural roots of Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni, building a new foundation for our understanding of the magical themes that proliferated in Mozart’s wake.

This is an English translation of Tutor for Playing the Flute (1791) by Johann George Tromlitz. The most explicit of the eighteenth-century tutors for flute-playing, it now serves as a record of instrumental practice as well as a useful guide to the performance of German classical music. The Tutor covers all aspects of flute playing, including intonation, articulation, flute maintenance, posture and breathing, dynamics, ornaments, musical style, cadenzas, and the construction of the flute. This edition will be an indispensable manual for players of baroque and modern flutes, and the information it contains will be invaluable for all musicians, students, and specialists interested in the historically informed performance of German classical music. The text is annotated with critical notes and all of the original music examples are newly printed in modern notation. The volume also contains a fingering chart and a historical introduction.

This classic reference work, the best one-volume music dictionary available, has been brought completely up to date in this new edition. Combining authoritative scholarship and lucid, lively prose, the Fourth Edition of The Harvard Dictionary of Music is the essential guide for musicians, students, and everyone who appreciates music. The Harvard Dictionary of Music has long been admired for its wide range as well as its reliability. This treasure trove includes entries on all the styles and forms in Western music; comprehensive articles on the music of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Near East; descriptions of instruments enriched by historical background; and articles that reflect today’s beat, including popular music, jazz, and rock. Throughout this Fourth Edition, existing articles have been fine-tuned and new entries added so that the dictionary fully reflects current music scholarship and recent developments in musical culture. Encyclopedia-length articles by notable experts alternate with short entries for quick reference, including definitions and identifications of works and instruments. More than 220 drawings and 250 musical examples enhance the text. This is an invaluable book that no music lover can afford to be without.

Federico Maria Sardelli writes from the perspective of a professional baroque flautist and recorder-player, as well as from that of an experienced and committed scholar, in order to shed light on the bewildering array of sizes and tunings of the recorder and transverse flute families as they relate to Antonio Vivaldi's compositions. Sardelli draws copiously on primary documents to analyse and place in context the capable and surprisingly progressive instrumental technique displayed in Vivaldi's music. The book includes a discussion of the much-disputed chronology of Vivaldi's works, drawing on both internal and external evidence. Each known piece by him in which the flute or the recorder appears is evaluated fully from historical, biographical, technical and aesthetic standpoints. This book is designed to appeal not only to Vivaldi scholars and lovers of the composer's music, but also to players of the two instruments, students of organology and those with an interest in late baroque music in general. Vivaldi is a composer who constantly springs surprises as, even today, new pieces are discovered or old ones reinterpreted. Much has happened since Sardelli's book was first published in Italian, and this new English version takes full account of all these new discoveries and developments. The reader will be left with a much fuller picture of the composer and his times, and the knowledge and insights gained from minutely examining his music for these two wind instruments will be found to have a wider relevance for his work as a whole. Generous music examples and illustrations bring the book's arguments to life.

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.

Notes for Flutists: A Guide to the Repertoire offers important historical and analytical information about three dozen of the best-known pieces written for the instrument. Its contextual and theoretical insights make it an essential resource for professional, amateur, and student flutists. With engaging prose supported by fact-filled analytical charts, the book offers rich biographical information and informative analyses to help flutists gain a more complete understanding of J. S. Bach's Sonata in B minor, Reinecke's Undine Sonata, Fauré's Fantaisie, Hindemith's Sonata for Flute and Piano, Copland's Duo for Flute and Piano, and 30 other masterpieces. Offering a faithful and comprehensive guide to understanding the contexts in which the repertoire was composed, Notes for Flutists details in clear, chronological order flute repertoire from Telemann, Mozart, and Enescu to Prokofiev, Poulenc, and Muczynski. Kyle Dzapo includes biographical information on each composer and highlights history's impact on the creation and performance of important works for flute. Intended as a starting point for connecting performance studies with scholarship, Dr. Dzapo's analysis will help flutists gain a more complete picture of a given work. Its valuable insights make it essential to musicians preparing and presenting programs, and its detailed historical information about the work and composer will encourage readers to explore other works in a similarly analytical way. Covering concertos, chamber pieces, and works for solo flute, Kyle Dzapo presents Notes for Flutists, an indispensable handbook for students and professionals alike.