Analyzing Fugue

Analyzing Fugue
Author: William Renwick
Publisher: Pendragon Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 1995
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780945193524

The analytical techniques that Heinrich Schenker developed have become increasingly dominant in the analysis of tonal music, and have provided a rich and powerful means of understanding the complexities of great masterworks of the Western tradition. Schenker's method is based on two cardinal concepts-a hierarchy of tones grouped into structural levels, and a recognition of the importance of strict voice-leading at all structural levels. In Analyzing Fugue-A Schenkerian Approach, author William Renwick utilizes Schenkerian techniques to explore the relationship between imitative counterpoint and voice-leading in fugue. He shows that the art of fugal composition as practiced by masters such as Bach and Handel involves a remarkable degree of systematic structural patterning that is not evident on the surface of the music. Reviews-...Renwick's book offers a penetrating theory of fugue, with telling observations for theorists and composers alike. Heather Platt Notes Sept. 1996...clearly the fruit of deep study and sophisticated knowledge of fugues (particularly those of bach) and the literature about them. ...many will find it a fount of wisdom and knowledge. Lionel Pike, Music and Letters vol. 77 no. 1...consummate and meticulous scholarship. Robert Gauldin, Intégral vol. 9

Dieterich Buxtehude

Dieterich Buxtehude
Author: Kerala J. Snyder
Publisher: University Rochester Press
Total Pages: 586
Release: 1987
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781580462532

An enlightening, revised edition of the definitive biography on celebrated organist and composer, Dieterich Buxtehude. This book is a new edition of the most comprehensive life-and-works study of the great Baroque-era organist and composer Dieterich Buxtehude (ca. 1637-1707), released to celebrate the tercentenary of the composer's death. Originally published in 1987 and long out of print, Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck is considered by most musicologists to be the definitive biography. It also includes close description of Buxtehude's compositional output, from trio sonatas to the famed Abendmusiken: Buxtehude's yearly oratorio presentations. The young J. S. Bach traveled to Lübeck on foot in 1705 to learn as much as he could from the great master of the organ and of Lutheranchurch music. The revised edition contains new information on the organs that Buxtehude played in Scandinavia and Lübeck, excerpts from the newly available account books from St. Mary's in Lübeck, a discussion of newly discovered sources, including one written by J. S. Bach, an evaluation of recent scholarship on Buxtehude, and an extensive bibliography. Written for both the casual reader and the serious scholar. The accompanying music CD (this material is now provided on a companion website) provides examples of all genres discussed in the book -- vocal works, a trio sonata, harpsichord music, and organ music newly recorded on the North German meantone organ in Gothenburg, Sweden, by a noted specialist in this repertoire, Hans Davidsson, who is professor of organ at the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the founder of the Göteborg Organ Art Center (GOArt). Kerala J.Snyder is Professor Emerita of Musicology, Eastman School of Music (University of Rochester).

Music in the Galant Style

Music in the Galant Style
Author: Robert Gjerdingen
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 527
Release: 2007-10-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0195313712

Music in the Galant Style is an authoritative and readily understandable study of the core compositional style of the eighteenth century. Gjerdingen adopts a unique approach, based on a massive but little-known corpus of pedagogical workbooks used by the most influential teachers of the century, the Italian partimenti. He has brought this vital repository of compositional methods into confrontation with a set of schemata distilled from an enormous body of eighteenth-century music, much of it known only to specialists, formative of the "galant style."

New Bach Reader

New Bach Reader
Author: Hans T David
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 612
Release: 1999-10-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393319569

'The New Bach Reader' contains a collection of documents intended to bring the composer to life.

The Cantatas of J.S. Bach

The Cantatas of J.S. Bach
Author: Alfred Dürr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 984
Release: 2005
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0198167075

This is the only English translation of this important book by the world's most distinguished Bach scholar.

The Musical Guide

The Musical Guide
Author: Friederich Erhardt Niedt
Publisher: Oxford [England] : Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 1989
Genre: Music
ISBN:

This is the first complete English translation of F. E. Niedt's influential Musicalische Handletung. The first volume, a treatise on thorough-bass, attracted the attention of J. S. Bach, who apparently modelled his teaching after it. The second and third volumes, both revised and edited by Johann Mattheson, deal with, respectively, variation (including a chaconne and two complete suites as models and a musical term dictionary) and counterpoint. These volumes, bound together here in one volume, together with an introduction and explanatory notes by Professor Poulin, provide valuable insights into the theory and practice of eighteenth-century music.

Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint

Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint
Author: David Yearsley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2002-11-14
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780521803465

In Bach's Germany musical counterpoint was an art involving much more than the sophisticated use of advanced compositional techniques. A range of theological, cultural, social and political meanings attached themselves to the use of complex procedures such as canon and double counterpoint. This book explores the significance of Bach's counterpoint in a range of interrelated contexts: its use as a means of reflecting on death; its parallels to alchemy; its vexed status in the galant music culture of the first half of the eighteenth century; its value as a representation of political power; and its central importance in the creation of Bach's image in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Touching on a wide array of contemporary literary, philosophical, critical, and musical texts, the book includes new readings of many of Bach's late works in order to re-evaluate the status and meaning of counterpoint in Bach's work and legacy.

New Mattheson Studies

New Mattheson Studies
Author: George J. Buelow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 524
Release: 2007-02
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780521033312

This collection of essays brings together the current research on Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), an influential musician and chronicler of musical thought in eighteenth-century Germany. The essays explore the cultural climate of Hamburg during Mattheson's lifetime; Mattheson as a composer; Mattheson's relationship to his contemporaries; and Mattheson's influence on developing musical theories and aesthetics.