Ornaments play an enormous role in the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and ambiguities in their notation (as well as their frequent omission in the score) have left doubt as to how composers intended them to be interpreted. Frederick Neumann, himself a violinist and conductor, questions the validity of the rigid principles applied to their performance. In this controversial work, available for the first time in paperback, he argues that strict constraints are inconsistent with the freedom enjoyed by musicians of the period. The author takes an entirely new look at ornamentation, and particularly that of J. S. Bach. He draws on extensive research in England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States to show that prevailing interpretations are based on inadequate evidence. These restrictive interpretations have been far-reaching in their effect on style. By questioning them, this work continues to stimulate a reorientation in our understandiing of Baroque and post-Baroque music.

Ornaments play an enormous role in the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and ambiguities in their notation (as well as their frequent omission in the score) have left doubt as to how composers intended them to be interpreted. Frederick Neumann, himself a violinist and conductor, questions the validity of the rigid principles applied to their performance. In this controversial work, available for the first time in paperback, he argues that strict constraints are inconsistent with the freedom enjoyed by musicians of the period. The author takes an entirely new look at ornamentation, and particularly that of J. S. Bach. He draws on extensive research in England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States to show that prevailing interpretations are based on inadequate evidence. These restrictive interpretations have been far-reaching in their effect on style. By questioning them, this work continues to stimulate a reorientation in our understandiing of Baroque and post-Baroque music.

Everything you want to know about embellishing Music of the Baroque Era is taught systematically and well-founded here: from the different "essential ornaments" such as trill, mordent, appoggiatura, slide, etc. up to the free melodic ornaments, cadenzas and improvised grounds. In addition, you will find valuable information, tips, constructive exercises, historical examples and much more. Exclusively you get a live recorded harpsichord-basso continuo accompaniment for all exercises, which supports you harmonically and rhythmically. For pupils, students, amateurs and professional musicians

Offers performers, teachers and students new insights into ornamentation. An important new reference work that has earned praise from America’s leading Bach scholar and an impressive list of distinguished cellists. The Cello Suites of Johann Sebastian Bach contain some one hundred trills, many open to diverse execution and more than half sparking controversy among musicians. Now accomplished cellist Jerome Carrington brings together and examines historically informed interpretations of the trills and compares them with contemporary performance practice. Carrington collects and annotates every trill in the Cello Suites, examining each ornament individually to find the most historically accurate solution for its execution. For determining the form of each trill, he offers a method that includes analysis of harmonic structure. Because no autograph copy of the Cello Suites has survived, he undertakes a detailed study of the manuscript of the Lute Suite in G minor, which Bach adapted from Cello Suite No. 5, as a reference for correcting errors and verifying harmonic and rhythmic details. Bursting with new ideas, Trills in the Bach Cello Suites offers insight for performers and music theorists alike. It will aid in the interpretation of these classic works as it renews our appreciation for Bach’s genius.

A scholarly edition of over 500 pages written to explore and evaluate Andres Segovia's achievements. Volume One contains a biography of the years of 1893 -1957 and focuses on Segovia's renditions of Renaissance, Baroque and Classical masterpieces by Narvaez, Frescobaldi, Bach, Scarlatti and Sor

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.

This book discusses what both early and modern sources say about French performance practice and offers solutions to performance problems in Francois Chauvon's Premierre Suitte (taken from Tibiades, 1717). Part one discusses relevant issues of historical performance practice and establishes a conte