Listeners, performers, students and teachers will find here the analytical tools they need to understand and interpret musical evidence from the baroque era. Scores for eleven works, many reproduced in facsimile to illustrate the conventions of 17th and 18th century notation, are included for close study. Readers will find new material on continuo playing, as well as extensive treatment of singing and French music. The book is also a concise guide to reference materials in the field of baroque performance practice with extensive annotated bibliographies of modern and baroque sources that guide the reader toward further study. First published by Ashgate (at that time known as Scolar Press) in 1992 and having been out of print for some years, this title is now available as a print on demand title.

This clear, accessible approach to the standard repertoire offers professional and amateur musicians practical advice for performing the music of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann, and other composers of the Baroque era.

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

Listeners, performers, students and teachers will find here the analytical tools they need to understand and interpret musical evidence from the baroque era. Scores for eleven works, many reproduced in facsimile to illustrate the conventions of 17th and 18th century notation, are included for close study. Readers will find new material on continuo playing, as well as extensive treatment of singing and French music. The book is also a concise guide to reference materials in the field of baroque performance practice with extensive annotated bibliographies of modern and baroque sources that guide the reader toward further study. First published by Ashgate (at that time known as Scolar Press) in 1992 and having been out of print for some years, this title is now available as a print on demand title.

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.