Music In Eighteenth Century Austria

An examination of the little-understood period of music history in which Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven worked.

This collection of essays by some of the leading scholars in the field looks at various aspects of musical life in eighteenth-century Britain. The significant roles played by institutions such as the Freemasons and foreign embassy chapels in promoting music making and introducing foreign styles to English music are examined, as well as the influence exerted by individuals, both foreign and British. The book covers the spectrum of British music, both sacred and secular, and both cosmopolitan and provincial. In doing so it helps to redress the picture of eighteenth-century British music which has previously portrayed Handel and London as its primary constituents.

This book demonstrates the cultivation of instrumental genres by Neapolitan musicians and its significant stature at the royal court. Drawing on archival documents and musical sources, it paints a compelling history of local instrumental music culture and contributes to a wider ethnographic portrait of Naples in the late eighteenth-century.

Eighteenth-century pianos shaped and influenced the music that was written for them. However, although organological studies probe the instrument in ever more detail, and musical criticism focuses increasingly on the musical repertoire, the relationship between the two has not been properly examined. This book concentrates on the keyboard writing of the last third of the eighteenth century, as inspired by the fundamentally different constructions of the German/Viennese and the English pianoforte. The highly articulated languages of Mozart and his Viennese contemporaries, and the more robust, pre-romantic style of Duzzek and his London colleagues reflect the very characteristics of these respective instruments. Beyond the scrutiny of the music, attention is given also to the players. The differentiation between professionals and amateurs is addressed, and contemporary sources help provide a description of late eighteenth-century performing styles; such a survey offers new insight into the living art of the pianoforte during a most important period in its history.

The eighteenth century arguably boasts a more remarkable group of significant musical figures, and a more engaging combination of genres, styles and aesthetic orientations than any century before or since, yet huge swathes of its musical activity remain under-appreciated. This History provides a comprehensive survey of eighteenth-century music, examining little-known repertories, works and musical trends alongside more familiar ones. Rather than relying on temporal, periodic and composer-related phenomena to structure the volume, it is organized by genre; chapters are grouped according to the traditional distinctions of music for the church, music for the theatre and music for the concert room that conditioned so much thinking, activity and output in the eighteenth century. A valuable summation of current research in this area, the volume also encourages the readers to think of eighteenth-century music less in terms of overtly teleological developments than of interacting and mutually stimulating musical cultures and practices.

Traditional musicology has tended to see the Spanish eighteenth century as a period of decline, but this 1998 volume shows it to be rich in interest and achievement. Covering stage genres, orchestral and instrumental music and vocal music (both sacred and secular), it brings together the results of research on such topics as opera, musical instruments, the secular cantata and the villancico and challenges received ideas about how Italian and Austrian music of the period influenced (or was opposed by) Spanish composers and theorists. Two final chapters outline the presence of Spanish musical sources in the New World.

The essays in this book are devoted to the social and intellectual background of eighteenth-century music.

Starting from an examination of the rich legacy of Russian music up to 1700, Marina Ritzarev explores the development of music over the course of the eighteenth century. The book focuses on what is characteristic and crucial to Russian music during this period, rather than seeking to provide a comprehensive survey. The musical culture of the time is discussed against the background of social, political and cultural life and the importance of previously marginalized sectors is highlighted. New light is also cast on the well-researched topic of Russian opera