A comprehensive study of the clarinet in use through the classical period, 1760 to 1830, a period of intensive musical experimentation. The book provides a detailed review and analysis of construction, design, materials, and makers of clarinets. Rice also explores how clarinet construction and performance practice developed in tandem with the musical styles of the period.

This volume of essays brings together the best of recent scholarship on Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of J.S. Bach and a friend and mentor of Mozart. J.C. Bach had a cosmopolitan career, beginning in Berlin as a pupil of his half-brother, C.P.E. Bach, then a sojourn to Italy where he studied with Padre Martini in Bologna; after making his successful debut with operas for Turin and Naples he moved to London, where he became a leading composer and impresario. The articles selected for this volume represent the principal themes of scholarly research and writing over the past fifty years. The introduction provides a survey of J.C. Bach?s career and an overview of recent literature. The collection includes English translations of two articles first published in German in the Bach-Jahrbuch, as well as one article published as recently as 2015. An appendix lists the complete contents of The Collected Works of Johann Christian Bach, using the Warburton catalogue numbers.

In recent years there has been a considerable revival of interest in music in eighteenth-century Britain. This interest has now expanded beyond the consideration of composers and their music to include the performing institutions of the period and their relationship to the wider social scene. The collection of essays presented here offers a portrayal of concert life in Britain that contributes greatly to the wider understanding of social and cultural life in the eighteenth century. Music was not merely a pastime but was irrevocably linked with its social, political and literary contexts. The perspectives of performers, organisers, patrons, audiences, publishers, copyists and consumers are considered here in relation to the concert experience. All of the essays taken together construct an understanding of musical communities and the origins of the modern concert system. This is achieved by focusing on the development of music societies; the promotion of musical events; the mobility and advancement of musicians; systems of patronage; the social status of musicians; the repertoire performed and published; the role of women pianists and the 'topography' of concerts. In this way, the book will not only appeal to music specialists, but also to social and cultural historians.