The first music textbook designed for use in English schools, Turner's Manual is more than a historical curiosity. This, the first music textbook specifically designed for use in English schools, was published in 1833 under the auspices of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge - an evangelical body much concerned with "good works" andthe furtherance of sound educational principles. The author was an experienced and influential London teacher, a practising musician and an advocate of the teaching methods of Pestalozzi, still then unfamiliar to most teachers inthis country. Although the pioneer English teaching manual for schools, Turner's Manualis not just a minor historical curiosity.

A fascinating history of singing styles from the ancient world to the present.

Bel canto, or 'beautiful singing, ' remains one of the most elusive performance styles vocalists strive to master. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, composers routinely left the final shaping of recitatives, arias, and songs to performers, and singers treated scores freely so that inexpressively notated music could be turned into passionate declamation. In other words, vocalists saw their role more as one of re-creation than of simple interpretation. Familiarity with the range of strategies prominent singers of the past employed to unlock the eloquent expression hidden in scores enables modern performers to take a similar re-creative approach to enhancing the texts before them. In this first ever guide to bel canto, author Robert Toft provides singers with the tools they need not only to complete the creative process the composer began but also to bring scores to life in an historically-informed manner. Replete with illustrations based on excerpts from Italianate recitatives and arias by composers ranging from Handel to Rossini, the book offers discussions of the fundamental principles of expressive singing, each section including a practical application of the techniques involved. Drawing on a wealth of documents from the era, including treatises, scores, newspaper reviews, and letters, this book captures the breadth of practices singers used in the bel canto period. Complete with six scores (recitatives and/or arias) for performers to personalize through the old methods, and a companion website offering demonstrations of the principles involved, Bel Canto is an essential resource for any singer or vocal instructor wishing to explore and master historical techniques of interpretation and re-creation from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Introductions to a variety of texts used for teaching music. Bernarr Rainbow is widely recognised as the leading authority on the history of music education, from the Greeks up to the present day, as attested by his comprehensive study Music in Educational Thought and Practice. His ambitious series, Classic Texts in Music Education, provides editions of manuals covering methods of teaching music from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. Professor Rainbow wrote detailed prefaces to the manuals, which are conveniently collected in this volume, offering insights into and analysis of those who taught music in different times and places and the methods they employed. They have been put into full context by GORDON COX.