ABSTRACT

Music in the Baroque World: History, Culture, Performance offers an interdisciplinary study of the music of Europe and the Americas in the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries. It answers calls for an approach that balances culture, history, and musical analysis, with an emphasis on performance considerations such as notation, instruments, and performance techniques. It situates musical events in their intellectual, social, religious, and political contexts and enables in-depth discussion and critical analysis. The companion web site provide links to scores and audio/visual performances, making this a complete course for the study of Baroque music.

Features

    • An interdisciplinary approach that balances detailed analysis of specific pieces of music and broader historical overview and relevance
    • A selection of historical documents at the end of each chapter that position musical works and events in their cultural context
    • Extensive musical examples that show the melodic, textural, harmonic, or structural features of baroque music and enhance the utility of the textbook for undergraduate and graduate music majors
    • A global perspective with a chapter on Music in the Americas
    • A companion score anthology and website with links to audio/video content of key performances and research and writing guides

Music in the Baroque World: History, Culture, Performance tells stories of local traditions, cultural exchange, performance trends, and artistic mixing. It illuminates representative works through the lens of politics, visual arts, theology, print culture, gender, domesticity, commerce, and cultural influence and exchange.

chapter 1|14 pages

What Is Baroque Music?

chapter 2|14 pages

Music and Meaning in the Baroque Era

part I|77 pages

Music in Years of Transition, Experimentation, and Crisis, 1580–1648

chapter 3|19 pages

Opera's Beginnings

chapter 5|29 pages

Instrumental Music

part II|101 pages

Baroque Ideals from the Mid-to-Late Seventeenth Century

chapter 6|29 pages

Opera in Italy, 1637–1680

chapter 8|27 pages

Restoration England

part III|121 pages

The First Half of the Eighteenth Century

chapter 9|35 pages

Music for the Stage in Europe's Big Cities

chapter 10|41 pages

The Concerto

chapter 11|44 pages

Johann Sebastian Bach in His Time and Ours

part IV|25 pages

The Baroque Goes Global

chapter 12|24 pages

The Americas