This book traces the emergence of the orchestra from 16th-century string bands to the 'classical' orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries. Ensembles of bowed stringed instruments, several players per part plus continuo and wind instruments, were organized in France in the mid-17th century and then in Rome at the end of the century. The prestige of these ensembles and of the music and performing styles of their leaders, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Arcangelo Corelli, caused them to be imitated elsewhere, until by the late 18th century, the orchestra had become a pan-European phenomenon. Spitzer and Zaslaw review previous accounts of these developments, then proceed to a thoroughgoing documentation and discussion of orchestral organization, instrumentation, and social roles in France, Italy, Germany, England, and the American colonies. They also examine the emergence of orchestra musicians, idiomatic music for orchestras, orchestral performance practices, and the awareness of the orchestra as a central institution in European life.
But as this book reveals, audiences of that era enjoyed far more diverse musical experiences than this focus would suggest.
In Salomon's arrangement of the symphony for quintet (two violins, viola, cello, flute, and keyboard, ad libitum), the solo is included with the instruction, “N.B. Upon an Instrument with additional keys and when there is a Violin to ...
A fascinating collection of engravings, wood cuts, photographs and caricatures contributes to the richness of this work.
2 John SPITZER / Neal ZASLAW, The Birth of the Orchestra, Oxford University Press, New York 2004, p. 14. “By the end of the eighteenth century there were orchestras in most of the major cities and courts of Europe.
This volume shows how musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, Nick La Rocca, and Louis Armstrong negotiated New Orleans’s complex racial rules to pursue their craft and how, in order to widen their audiences, they became fluent in a variety ...
In the wake of World War II jazz musicians found themselves confronting transition as well as opportunity. Big band swing and "sweet" commercial music, once so popular, had peaked as...
This crisply written book sheds light on both the film's racism and the aesthetic brilliance of Griffith's filmmaking. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the cinema.
As Griffith's official biographer, Seymour Stern's main purpose of his book was to assemble, as extensively as possible, the rapidly vanishing record of what happened.
I wish to thank President Warren Baker; Provost Bill Durgin (and the previous provost, Bob Detweiler); Dr. Linda Halisky, the Dean of College of Liberal Arts (and our previous dean, Harry Hellenbrand); Music Department Head Terry ...
Richards, F. T. (Frederick Thompson), 1864-1921.... Arthur Burdett Frost (January 17, 1851 - June 22, 1928), usually cited as A. B. Frost, was an American illustrator, graphic artist and comics...