Revised and expanded, A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone—as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance.
List of Illustrations
Octave Designation Chart
Preface to the Second Edition \ Jeffery Kite-Powell
Preface to the First Edition \ Stewart Carter
Part 1. Vocal/Choral Issues
1. National Singing Styles \ Sally Sanford
2. The Bel Canto Singing Style \ Julianne Baird
3. Choral Music in France and England \ Anne Harrington Heider
4. Choral Music in Italy and the Germanic Lands \ Gary Towne
Part 2. Wind, String, and Percussion Instruments
5. Woodwinds \ Herbert Myers
6. Cornett and Sackbut \ Bruce Dickey
7. Trombone \ Stewart Carter
8. Trumpet and Horn \ Steven E. Plank
9. Percussion and Timpani \ John Michael Cooper
10. The Violin: Technique and Style \ David Douglass
11. Historical Approaches to Playing the Violin \ Julie Andrijeski
12. The Viola da Gamba Family \ Stuart Cheney with Barbara Coeyman
13. Violoncello and Violone \ Marc Vanscheeuwijck
14. Keyboard Instruments \ Mark Kroll
15. Plucked String Instruments \ Paul O'Dette
Part 3. Performance Practice and Practical Considerations
16. Ornamentation in Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Music \ Bruce Dickey
17. Basso Continuo \ Jack Ashworth and Paul O'Dette
18. Meter and Tempo \ George Houle
19. Tuning and Temperament \ Herbert Myers
20. Pitch and Transposition \ Herbert Myers
Part 4. The Seventeenth-Century Stage
21. Dance \ Dorothy Olsson
22. Theatrical Productions \ James Middleton
Appendix A. List of Names and Dates
Appendix B. A Performer's Guide to Medieval Music: Contents
Appendix C. A Performer's Guide to Renaissance Music: Contents
List of Contributors
This new edition…is an invaluable resource for both amateur and professional performers as well as scholars and anyone else interested in the fascinating world of seventeenth-century music. Stewart Carter’s original volume…has been significantly enhanced by Jeffery Kite-Powell.—Jeffrey Kurtzman, Professor of Music, Washington University in St. Louis
Professor of Music, Washington University in St. Louis
This volume fills a very real need, and fills it beautifully….A range of eminent scholars and practitioners introduce us to the music [of the seventeenth century], its instruments, and its performance, and bring us up to date on the latest in research and scholarship. It is a book for all serious musicians.
Thomas Forrest Kelly
Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music, Harvard University
This welcome new edition is bigger, better, and more up to date in both discussion and resources cited. It helps the seventeenth century to emerge—deservedly—as almost a separate era within the Baroque, and the chapters by so many outstanding scholar-performers make it altogether indispensible!
Ross W. Duffin
Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Music, Case Western Reserve University
There's a vast amount of information here, and considerable wisdom. Those exploring 17th-century music should buy a copy.
Early Music Review
A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music is an invaluable resource for both students and professional musicians: it brings musicians up to date on musical research for the period; it helps performers to see the seventeenth-century as (almost) a separate era within the Baroque.
Mu Phi Epsilon
[A] welcome update to a highly valuable resource for the study of performance practice, and should be a staple for any collection supporting a curriculum of music history and/or historically informed approaches to performing music of the seventeenth century.
Music Reference Services Quarterly
Full of interest, this performer's guide sometimes seems aimed at the listener and musical historian as much as the performer.