This book is a sequel to Frederick Neumann's Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music, With Special Emphasis on J.S. Bach (Princeton, 1978). In the present volume, the first work on this subject for Mozart's music, the author continues his important contributions to the search for historically correct performance practices, and to the liberation of the performer from improperly conceived and overly restrictive interpretation of musical scores. The first part of this book attempts to free ornamentation in Mozart from rigorism that has resulted from confusing the pure abstraction of ornament tables with concrete musical situations. The second part deals with pitches that were not written in the score yet often intended to be added when Mozart left "white spots" in his notation. These additions range from single notes to lengthy cadenzas. The problem addressed is the question of where such additions are possible or necessary and how they might best be designed. Professor Neumann draws on an immense knowledge of the literature written during Mozart's time and on his own comprehension of the subtleties of Mozart's music and musical styles. Refusing to interpret the sources dogmatically, he frees performers of Mozart from the rigid princples too often imposed by modern scholars. Frederick Neumann is Professor of Music Emeritus at the University of Richmond. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book is a sequel to Frederick Neumann's Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music, With Special Emphasis on J.S. Bach (Princeton, 1978). In the present volume, the first work on this subject for Mozart's music, the author continues his important contributions to the search for historically correct performance practices, and to the liberation of the performer from improperly conceived and overly restrictive interpretation of musical scores. The first part of this book attempts to free ornamentation in Mozart from rigorism that has resulted from confusing the pure abstraction of ornament tables with concrete musical situations. The second part deals with pitches that were not written in the score yet often intended to be added when Mozart left "white spots" in his notation. These additions range from single notes to lengthy cadenzas. The problem addressed is the question of where such additions are possible or necessary and how they might best be designed. Professor Neumann draws on an immense knowledge of the literature written during Mozart's time and on his own comprehension of the subtleties of Mozart's music and musical styles. Refusing to interpret the sources dogmatically, he frees performers of Mozart from the rigid princples too often imposed by modern scholars. Frederick Neumann is Professor of Music Emeritus at the University of Richmond. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Ornaments play an enormous role in the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and ambiguities in their notation (as well as their frequent omission in the score) have left doubt as to how composers intended them to be interpreted. Frederick Neumann, himself a violinist and conductor, questions the validity of the rigid principles applied to their performance. In this controversial work, available for the first time in paperback, he argues that strict constraints are inconsistent with the freedom enjoyed by musicians of the period. The author takes an entirely new look at ornamentation, and particularly that of J. S. Bach. He draws on extensive research in England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States to show that prevailing interpretations are based on inadequate evidence. These restrictive interpretations have been far-reaching in their effect on style. By questioning them, this work continues to stimulate a reorientation in our understandiing of Baroque and post-Baroque music.

This study analyzes chamber music from Mozart's time within its highly social salon-performance context.

Table of contents

Leopold Mozart's Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing was the major work of its period on the violin and comparable in importance to Quantz's treatise on the flute and P.E. Bach's on the piano. This translation by Editha Knocker was the first to appear in English and remains scholarly and eminently readable.

In recent years, scholars and musicians have become increasingly interested in the revival of musical improvisation as it was known in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. This historically informed practice is now supplanting the late Romantic view of improvised music as a rhapsodic endeavour—a musical blossoming out of the capricious genius of the player—that dominated throughout the twentieth century. In the Renaissance and Baroque eras, composing in the mind (alla mente) had an important didactic function. For several categories of musicians, the teaching of counterpoint happened almost entirely through practice on their own instruments. This volume offers the first systematic exploration of the close relationship among improvisation, music theory, and practical musicianship from late Renaissance into the Baroque era. It is not a historical survey per se, but rather aims to re-establish the importance of such a combination as a pedagogical tool for a better understanding of the musical idioms of these periods. The authors are concerned with the transferral of historical practices to the modern classroom, discussing new ways of revitalising the study and appreciation of early music. The relevance and utility of such an improvisation-based approach also changes our understanding of the balance between theoretical and practical sources in the primary literature, as well as the concept of music theory itself. Alongside a word-centred theoretical tradition, in which rules are described in verbiage and enriched by musical examples, we are rediscovering the importance of a music-centred tradition, especially in Spain and Italy, where the music stands alone and the learner must distil the rules by learning and playing the music. Throughout its various sections, the volume explores the path of improvisation from theory to practice and back again.

The attempt to play music with the styles and instruments of its era--commonly referred to as the early music movement--has become immensely popular in recent years. For instance, Billboard's "Top Classical Albums" of 1993 and 1994 featured Anonymous 4, who sing medieval music, and the best-selling Beethoven recording of 1995 was a period-instruments symphony cycle led by John Eliot Gardiner, who is Deutsche Grammophon's top-selling living conductor. But the movement has generated as much controversy as it has best-selling records, not only about the merits of its results, but also about the validity of its approach. To what degree can we recreate long-lost performing styles? How important are historical period instruments for the performance of a piece? Why should musicians bother with historical information? Are they sacrificing art to scholarship? Now, in Inside Early Music, Bernard D. Sherman has invited many of the leading practitioners to speak out about their passion for early music--why they are attracted to this movement and how it shapes their work. Readers listen in on conversations with conductors Gardiner, William Christie, and Roger Norrington, Peter Phillips of the Tallis Scholars, vocalists Susan Hellauer of Anonymous 4, forte pianist Robert Levin, cellist Anner Bylsma, and many other leading artists. The book is divided into musical eras--Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classic and Romantic--with each interview focusing on particular composers or styles, touching on heated topics such as the debate over what is "authentic," the value of playing on period instruments, and how to interpret the composer's intentions. Whether debating how to perform Monteverdi's madrigals or comparing Andrew Lawrence-King's Renaissance harp playing to jazz, the performers convey not only a devotion to the spirit of period performance, but the joy of discovery as they struggle to bring the music most truthfully to life. Spurred on by Sherman's probing questions and immense knowledge of the subject, these conversations movingly document the aspirations, growing pains, and emerging maturity of the most exciting movement in contemporary classical performance, allowing each artist's personality and love for his or her craft to shine through. From medieval plainchant to Brahms' orchestral works, Inside Early Music takes readers-whether enthusiasts or detractors-behind the scenes to provide a masterful portrait of early music's controversies, challenges, and rewards.

This volume of essays on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart reflects scholarly advances made over the last thirty years. The studies are broad and focused, demonstrating a large number of viewpoints, methodologies and orientations and the material spans a wide range of subject areas, including biography, vocal music, instrumental music and performance. Written by leading researchers from Europe and North America, these previously published articles and book chapters are representative of both the most frequently discussed and debated issues in Mozart studies and the challenging, exciting nature of Mozart scholarship in general. The volume is essential reading for researchers, students and scholars of Mozart's music.

A musical practice used for centuries the world over, improvisation too often has been neglected by scholars who dismiss it as either technically undissectible or inexplicably mysterious. At different times and in different cultures, performing music that is not "precomposed" has constituted an artful expression of the performer's individuality (the Baroque); a wild, unthinking form of expression (jazz antagonists); and the best method to train inexperienced musicians to use their instruments (the Middle East). This wide-ranging collection of essays considers musical improvisation from a variety of approaches, including ethnomusicology, education, performance, historical musicology, and music theory. Laying the groundwork for even further research into improvisation, the contributors of this volume delve into topics as diverse as the creative minds of Mozart and Beethoven, the place of improvised musics in Western and non-Western societies, and the development of jazz as a musical and cultural phenomenon.