The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650-1815 - Tapa dura

This is a most substantial book, with a long detailed text, massive bibliography and references, generous illustrations, copious tables, graphs and backup statistics, interesting music examples in the penultimate chapter, full index, and appendices centering on the second half of the 18th century. It will remain a major work on its subject. (The Musical Times)

If you are involved in assembling or conducting period orchestras and can afford this, buy it. It is well written, sensibly arranged and easy to consult ... should be in all music reference libraries. (Early Music Review)

...this book has been worth waiting for. Not only is it handsomely produced and well illustrated, it is also beautifully written. The authors organize their material logically and effectively, and have the knack of marshalling large amounts of data in a way that is easy to read and refer to, helped by an intelligent use of tables and graphs. One of the strengths of the book is that it is not just a history of a series of musical institutions, but is also concerned with the musical effect of orchestras, and with questions of orchestral performance practice. (Early Music)

This book traces the emergence of the orchestra from 16th-century string bands to the 'classical' orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries. Ensembles of bowed stringed instruments, several players per part plus continuo and wind instruments, were organized in France in the mid-17th century and then in Rome at the end of the century. The prestige of these ensembles and of the music and performing styles of their leaders, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Arcangelo Corelli, caused them to be imitated elsewhere, until by the late 18th century, the orchestra had become a pan-European phenomenon.

Spitzer and Zaslaw review previous accounts of these developments, then proceed to a thoroughgoing documentation and discussion of orchestral organization, instrumentation, and social roles in France, Italy, Germany, England, and the American colonies. They also examine the emergence of orchestra musicians, idiomatic music for orchestras, orchestral performance practices, and the awareness of the orchestra as a central institution in European life.