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This volume is an introductory, contextual study of three centuries of musical activity at the four main eleemosynary foundations of the former Republic of Venice, the Ospedali Grandi. The author provides an account of their institutional, social, religious, and civic dimensions.

This book uncovers the connections between the invisible network of political and economic dependence among Italy's church and state elite and the formation of the Baroque musical style in Rome. The author rediscovers music for Battista Guarini's last stage work and the first Roman opera, and offers a new explanation for the rise of the Italian chamber cantata.

Jan Dismas Zelenka, the brilliant but elusive contemporary of Bach, musically served the Catholic chapel of the dazzling Dresden court during the first half of the eighteenth century. Research has uncovered biographical information, and reveals the remarkable music of a major figure of the Baroque era.

Music Criticism in Vienna is a close study of the work of some two dozen music critics in Vienna in the fifteen months from October 1896 to December 1897, a period which saw the deaths of Bruckner and Brahms and the rise of Mahler and Richard Strauss. It reconstructs in detail the climate of musical debate in a major centre around the turn of the century.

This title concerns Salamone Rossi (c.1570-c.1628), who has earned a special place in music history as the earliest outstanding Jewish composer to work in the European art music tradition.

The concept of raga forms the basis of melodic composition and improvization in Indian classical music. This book traces the early history and development of the concept in the pre-Islamic period, It draws on early Indian theoretical sources, and focuses especially on the examples of notated melodies that they contain.

The knowledge that finales are by tradition (and perhaps also necessarily) "different" from other movements has been around a long time, but this work examines, comprehensively and in detail, the special nature of finales in instrumental music.

The fundamental changes resulting in the development of the Baroque style around the turn of the 17th century had a profound effect on music theory. This work explores the metamorphosis in England where, because of a traditional emphasis on practicality, there was willingness to accept new ideas.

Although Henry Lawes wrote some church music, his significance as a composer lies in his settings of the lyrics by Cavalier poets such as Carew, Herrick, Suckling, and Waller, at the court of Charles I. This is a biography and a study of Lawes' development as a songwriter during this period.

Drawing on new archival sources and a recently discovered portrait, Wegman explores the social and cultural conditions that shaped the life and musicianship of Jacob Obrecht, one of the most prominent composers of the late 15th century.

The `Chromatic Fourth' is a musical pattern of six notes moving by step up or down the scale. In this essentially practical study Peter Williams draws on his extensive knowledge of the music of four centuries to investigate and analyse over 200 examples taken from composers ranging from Bach to Bartok, and from Schubert to Shostakovich.

This book represents the most thorough study to date of Handel's compositional procedures in his English oratorios and musical dramas. Exploring the composer's sketches and autograph scores, it offers fresh insights into the creative mind of one of the leading figures in Baroque music.

Arcangelo Corelli presents a much-needed reappraisal of the life and works of this phenomenally successful composer set against the lavish setting of seventeenth-century Rome, and exploring the paths by which his music became established as `models of perfection' for generations to come.

A study of the music and ritual at Saint-Denis from the 6th to the 16th century, based on an examination of the liturgical books and archival sources relating to the abbey, in particular the surviving service-books.

The pianoforte became increasingly popular during the later 18th century. This study explores the relationship between instruments, composers and performers in Austria, England and Germany at the time of Haydn, Mozart, Clementi and the young Beethoven.

Agazzari was a prominent theorist of the early Baroque, responsible for an important treatise on basso continuo in 1607. He was also a composer of some significance. This study of his life and times opens a window on the musical culture of Siena during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Mary O'Neill examines the legacy of the medieval poet composers of Northern France, the trouveres. For many years problems and difficulties concerning the surviving melodies have prevented us from accessing these songs. Many of these problems are addressed here, bringing us closer to a true understanding of the repertoire.

A look at the musical achievements of Bruges and how its people gave expression to their spiritual needs. It is based on musical sources, stylistic trends, composers' achievements and the function of musical genres, seen against a reconstruction of the socio-economic context of the art of music.

Salamone Rossi (c.1570-c.1627) is the earliest outstanding Jewish composer to work in the European art music tradition - no others of his caliber are to be found until the 19th century. In his life and works, Rossi moved between two worlds: the court and the Jewish community in late Renaissance Mantua.

'This is a remarkable and important book: impeccably scholarly yet very readable, brimming with ideas and thoroughly engaging. It will be much enjoyed by musicians with any interest in the early violin or in English music of the 16th and 17th centuries.' Paul Doe in Early Music

This is a survey of North German church music from the period of the most well-known of J.S. Bach's immediate German predecessors, Dietrich Buxtehude (c.1637-1707). Particular emphasis is placed on composers whose work has suffered neglect and on the influence of Italian church music.

This text relates the genesis and development of oratorio in Bologna to the city's religious, political, and cultural aspirations. The oratorio repertory is surveyed in three phases: under Cazzati (1657-74), Colonna (1675-95), and Perti (1696-1730). Eight oratorios are analyzed in detail.

This is a study of how sacred and secular music was actually sung during the Middle Ages. The source of the information is the actual notation in the early manuscripts as well as statements found in approximately 50 theoretical treatises written between the years 600-1500.

Haydn never discussed his compositional ideas in much detail, either in the interviews he gave or in his surviving correspondence. Using his symphonies as its subject, this book attempts to clarify what Haydn's fundamental principles of formal logic might have been.

In this study, Bernard Harrison confronts the important issues facing any performer of Haydn's keyboard music, and develops some of the recurring controversial questions in broader research on Haydn's oeuvre.

Apologists have often tried to play down Erik Satie's connection to the bohemian subculture of Montmartre. In this book Whiting argues that far from harming his reputation, this connection decisively shaped his aesthetic priorities and compositional strategies.

This study investigates the musical culture of cloistered nuns in the city of Milan. The music composed by four nuns - Claudia Scossa, Claudia Rusca, Chiara Margarita Cozzollani and Rosa Giacinta Badalla - reveals the musical expression of women's devotional life.

In this book, Steven LaRue examines the influence of the great operatic singers on Handel's creative process. In Handel's day the idea of a singer creating a role was perhaps never more true, and the author demonstrates not only the singer's important role in Handel's opera composition, but also the effect that opera singers had on the creation of opera throughout the eighteenth century.

This is the first comprehensive survey of 17th-century Spanish theatrical music to be written in any language. It explains the development of the various musical-theatrical genres of the period from a close analysis of the primary sources, and further examines the nature of the Spanish musical baroque and its relationship to European musical and theatrical developments.