Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900 - Tapa dura

this useful and important new book. (Peter Williams, Musical Times Dec.2000.)

The topics seem endless, and the author deserves our gratitude for gathering them together, and for devoting all the energy required for such a book. (Peter Williams, Musical Times Dec. 2000.)

the fact that the book focuses on notation will make it permanently useful, something to consult. (Peter Williams, Musical Times Dec. 2000.)

a work of the greatest scholarship and utility ... the sheer erudition is noteworthy. J. Murray, Choice, Vol.38, No.1.

it may be consulted profitably by any musician or aspirant who performs the Classic or Romantic repertoire. J. Murray, Choice, Vol.38, No.1.

This book will revolutionise the study of music. (David Owen Norris, BBC Music Magazine, Oct 2000.)

His wicked eye for a quotation reveals at every turn that he himself is a performer. (David Owen Norris, BBC Music Magazine, Oct 2000.)

Sparks of knowledge fly up in all directions. (David Owen Norris, BBC Music Magazine, Oct 2000.)

Audiences are in for some good times. (David Owen Norris, BBC Music Magazine, Oct 2000.)

Despite its wealth of music examples (many in facsimile), Brown's book presents solid reading matter ... There is a wealth of information here ... Brown ... sensibly balances the views of theorists and teachers ... with what can be deduced from actual scores ... his book offers a wealth of advice and ideas, ideas which should be thought of as creative and enabling, not restrictive. Period style is not, as it is still so often parodied, a kill-joy matter of not doing something, but of finding different ways of bringing music to life. (Early Music Review, 58, March 2000)

The past ten years have seen a rapidly growing interest in performing and recording Classical and Romantic music with period instruments; yet the relationship of composers' notation to performing practices during that period has received only sporadic attention from scholars, and many aspects of composers' intentions have remained uncertain. Clive Brown here identifies areas in which musical notation conveyed rather different messages to the musicians for whom it was written than it does to modern performers, and seeks to look beyond the notation to understand how composers might have expected to hear their music realized in performance. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that, in many respects, the sound worlds in which Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Brahms created their music was more radically different from ours than is generally assumed.

This is an essential book for all performers and students of Classical and Romantic music.