In this fascinating study, Robert Philip argues that recordings of the early twentieth-century provide an important, and hitherto neglected, resource in the history of musical performance.

What is the relationship between performance and recording? What is the impact of recording on the lives of musicians? Comparison of the lives of musicians and audiences in the years before recordings with those of today. Survey of the changing attitudes toward freedom of expression, the globalization of performing styles and the rise of the period instrument movement.

A great deal of evidence survives about how Brahms and his contemporaries performed his music. But much of this evidence - found in letters, autograph scores, treatises, publications, recordings, and more - has been hard to access, both for musicians and for scholars. This book brings the most important evidence together into one volume. It also includes discussions by leading Brahms scholars of the many issues raised by the evidence. The period spanned by the life of Brahms and the following generation saw a crucial transition in performance style. As a result, modern performance practices differ significantly from those of Brahms's time. By exploring the musical styles and habits of Brahms's era, this book will help musicians and scholars understand Brahms's music better and bring fresh ideas to present-day performance. The value of the book is greatly enhanced by the accompanying CD of historic recordings - including a performance by Brahms himself.

An accessible history of how musicians learned to record music discusses the work of five centuries of religious scholars while demonstrating how people developed methods for measuring rhythm, melody and precise pitch, leading to the technological systems of notation in today's world.

In Off the Record, author and pianist Neal Peres Da Costa explores Romantic-era performance practices through a range of early sound recordings--acoustic, piano roll and electric--that capture a generation of highly-esteemed pianists trained as far back as the mid-nineteenth-century.

The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now celebrated as the greatest figure in blues history. Trying to separate myth from reality, biographer Elijah Wald studies the blues from the inside -- not only examining recordings but also the recollections of the musicians themselves, the African-American press, as well as examining original research. What emerges is a new appreciation for the blues and the movement of its artists from the shadows of the 1930s Mississippi Delta to the mainstream venues frequented by today's loyal blues fans.

Publisher description

Frontcover -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Preface -- 1 Dilettante and Amateur: Our Evolving Language -- 2 Bach's Lament about Leipzig's Professional Instrumentalists -- 3 Choral Singing Before the Era of Recordings -- 4 Why Most a cappella Music Could Not Have Been Sung Unaccompanied -- 5 Fasch and the Beginning of Modern Artistic Choral Singing -- 6 What Handel's Casting Reveals About Singers of the Time -- 7 Intonation Standards and Equal Temperament -- 8 Eighteenth-Century Stringed Keyboard Instruments from a Performance Perspective -- 9 The Tromba and Corno in Bach's Time -- 10 Maelzel's Role in Beethoven's Symphonic Metronome Marks -- 11 The French Time Devices Revisited -- 12 The Notable Significance of C and (in Bach's Era -- 13 Numbers and Tempo: 1630-1800 -- 14 Overdotting in Handel's Overtures Reconsidered -- 15 Notes inégales: A Definitive New Parameter -- 16 Distinguishing Between Artificial and Natural Vibrato in Premodern Music -- 17 A Solution for Simple (secco) Theater Recitative -- 18 How Composers Viewed Performers' Additions -- 19 The Varied Reprise in Eighteenth-Century Intrumental Music-A Reappraisal

An invaluable guide to the available historical source material on playing the violin and viola.

The first of three volumes on the history and musical contribution of jazz.