Monteverdi and his Contemporaries: 690 (Variorum Collected Studies) - Tapa dura

'This is essential reading for Monteverdi enthusiasts, and not all the items are in readily accessible journals.' Early Music Review 'The other impression that emerges is of Carter's great intellectual energy. These essays are densely packed with ideas, knowledge and wide-ranging references to other writings. He expresses in his introduction the hope that this collection might 'add up to more than the sum of its parts': for me it certainly does...anyone with an interest in this period in musical history and this repertoire cannot but find Carter's writings hugely informative and stimulating.' International Record Review '...rich collection of essays.' Journal of seventeenth-Century Music '... collects together a wealth of material and should be consulted by anyone involved in the performance of Italian music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque.' American Recorder 'Tim Carter's second volume for the Variorum Collected Studies Series is a valuable reference work for historians or musicologists interested in the changes in musical style and aesthetics that took place in the early seventeenth century in Italy.' Sixteenth Century Journal

This collection of reprinted essays takes the trends of the author's Music, Patronage and Printing in Late Renaissance Florence (also in the 'Variorum' series) in a somewhat different direction. If the focus there was primarily on archival documents, here it is on the actual music. The starting-point is similar - the rise of the 'new music' for solo voice and basso continuo in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Florence, in particular the songs of Giulio Caccini. But it moves on to broader aesthetic issues crystallized in contemporary theoretical debate and musical practice - not least the rise of aria-based styles - and concludes with a series of studies of Claudio Monteverdi's works for the theatre, including the operas Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1640) and the ever-problematic L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643).