What does it mean to author a piece of music? What transforms the performance scripts written down by musicians into authored books? In this fascinating cultural history of Western music’s adaptation to print, Kate van Orden looks at how musical authorship first developed through the medium of printing. When music printing began in the sixteenth century, publication did not always involve the composer: printers used the names of famous composers to market books that might include little or none of their music. Publishing sacred music could be career-building for a composer, while some types of popular song proved too light to support a reputation in print, no matter how quickly they sold. Van Orden addresses the complexities that arose for music and musicians in the burgeoning cultures of print, concluding that authoring books of polyphony gained only uneven cultural traction across a century in which composers were still first and foremost performers.

Authoritative guide presents 231 of the most frequently performed pieces by 55 composers. A must for music lovers and musicians alike. "No lover of chamber music should be without this Guide." — John Barkham Reviews.

An Index to Music in Selected Historical Anthologies of Western Art Music is the essential reference for music history and music theory instructors for finding specific listings and details for all the pieces included in more than 140 anthologies published between 1931 and 2016. Containing over 5,000 individual listings, this concise book is an indispensable tool for teaching music history and theory. Since many anthologies exist in multiple editions, this Index provides instructors, students, and researches with the means to locate specific compositions in both print and online anthologies. This book includes listings by composer and title, as well as indexes of authors, titles, and first lines of text for music from antiquity through the early twenty-first century.

This bibliography of bibliographies lists and describes sources, from basic references to highly specialized materials. Valuable as a classroom text and as a research tool for scholars, librarians, performers, and teachers.

The contributors are leading scholars from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Italy. The essays examine the history of music publishing from its inception to the early twentieth century. The Dissemination of Music provides new insight into the social history of music, illustrating how certain types of music were made popular because publishers made them more available, and how the reputations of composers were made or broken by the whims of publishers. This important reference work will interest scholars and students in all areas of music This collection brings the history of music publishing into the realm of social history, looking beyond the printing process to examine why and for whom music publishers produced their work. The book shows how technological limitations and printers' and publishers' preferences significantly influenced musical tastes in Europe from medieval times to the modern age.