Hiller's Treatise on Vocal Performance and Ornamentation was published in Germany in 1780 and is an important manual on vocal technique and performance in the eighteenth century. Hiller was a masterful educator and was active not only as a teacher but as a critic, composer, conductor and music director. Thus, his observations served not only to raise the standards of singing in Germany, based on the Italian model, but to present complicated material, particularly ornamentation, in a manner that his peers, the middle class, could emulate. This present edition, translated with an introduction and extensive commentary by musicologist Suzanne J. Beicken, makes Hiller's treatise available for the first time in English. With its emphasis on practical aspects of ornamentation, declamation and style it will be valuable to instrumentalists as well as singers and is a significant contribution to the understanding of performance practice in the eighteenth-century.

This present edition of Johann Adam Hiller's Treatise on Vocal Performance and Ornamentation, originally published in Germany in 1780, is translated with an introduction and extensive commentary by musicologist Suzanne J. Beicken and makes this important manual on vocal technique and performance available for the first time in English.

Since the eighteenth century, the one-to-one singing lesson has been the most common method of delivery. The scenario allows the teacher to familiarise and individualise the lesson to suit the needs of their student; however, it can also lead to speculation about what is taught. More troubling is the heightened risk of gossip and rumour with the private space generating speculation about the student–teacher relationship. Venanzio Rauzzini (1746–1810), an Italian castrato living in England who became a highly sought-after singing master, was particularly susceptible since his students tended to be women, whose moral character was under more scrutiny than their male counterparts. Even so in 1792, The Bath Chronicle proclaimed the Italian castrato: 'the father of a new style in English singing'. Branding Rauzzini as a founder of an English style was not an error, but indicative of deep-seated anxieties about the Italian invasion on England’s musical culture. This book places teaching at the centre of the socio-historical narrative and provides unique insight into musical culture. Using a microhistory approach, this study is the first to focus in on the impact of teaching and casts new light on issues of celebrity culture, gender and nationalism in Georgian England.

This is a book both by and about Berlioz, providing not only a translation but also an extensive commentary on his text, dealing with the instruments of Berlioz's time and comparing his instruction with his practice.

This volume brings together twenty-two of the most diverse and stimulating journal articles on classical and romantic performing practice, representing a rich vein of enquiry into epochs of music still very much at the forefront of current concert repertoire. In so doing, it provides a wide range of subject-based scholarship. It also reveals a fascinating window upon the historical performance debate of the last few decades in music where such matters still stimulate controversy.

Embodying Voice: Singing Verdi, Singing Wagner articulates the process of developing an operatic voice, explaining how and why the training of such a voice is as complex and sophisticated as it is mysterious. This book illustrates how putting together a voice, embodying a sound, and creating a character are vital to an audience’s emotional involvement and enjoyment. Moreover, it addresses an imbalance of power between the opera director and the orchestra conductor – ultimately, it is the communicative power of the singer’s voice that brings life to an opera, a fact well known by Verdi and Wagner. Embodying Voice highlights the singer’s creative agency to be co-creator of the composer’s music. It explores the ways in which vocal performance is constructed and controlled, connecting layers of mind and bodily engagement that allow operatic singers to achieve expression beyond the text itself. Further reading, listening, and performance lists are provided at the end of each chapter, complemented by musical examples throughout.