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“The indelible imprint of sacred music drama throughout history is undeniable . . . and its resurgence in the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries stirs the curiosity.” Carl Gerbrandt, in pursuing these issues, has brought to our fingertips a stimulating historical perspective on sacred music drama as well as an extensively annotated list of repertoire. Years of research have gone into providing information on centuries of sacred music dramas/operas which for the most part have been known to very few. Included in these pages of his Second Edition are over 330 sacred music dramas/operas, each with scholarly and practical information that will be of interest and great value to the opera...
Johann Peter Salomon, the celebrated violinist and impresario, made his debut in England in March 1781. History has credited Salomon with bringing Haydn to London, yet as Ian Woodfield reveals in this monograph, Salomon's introduction of the composer to the London musical scene owed as much to luck as to skilful planning. Haydn's engagement in London proved to be a much-needed uplift to Salomon's career which, as Woodfield illustrates, had been on the wane for a number of years. In addition to its reassessment of Salomon's uneven career in London during the 1780s, this book throws light on the general relationship between public and private spheres of professional music-making at the time, and on the relationship between the social and professional attributes required of musicians if they were to be successful. Nowhere are these tensions better illustrated than in the letters and journals of the Burney family, especially those of Susan Burney, which are drawn on in the book to provide a vivid picture of the fiercely competitive musical world of eighteenth-century London.
This book explores the relationship between the Bible and the world of music, an association that is recorded from ancient times in the Old Testament, and one that has continued to characterize the cultural self-expression of Western Civilization ever since. The study surveys the emergence of this close relationship in the era following the end of the Roman Empire and through the Middle Ages, taking particular note of the role of Gregorian chant, folk music and the popularity of mystery, morality and passion plays in reflection of the Sacred Scripture and its themes during those times. With the emergence of polyphony and the advent of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the interaction...
Combining the insights of present-day biblical studies with those of Handelian studies, this book examines the libretti of ten of Handel's Israelite oratorios and evaluates the relationship between each libretto and the biblical story on which it is based.
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It is the inner meaning of Handel’s music, and its power of searching the profoundest recesses of the soul, that in the following pages I have endeavoured, so far as I am able, to elucidate. Its merely technical qualities have already been discussed enough and to spare. Books on Handel written by musicians already abound, but musicians as a rule take more interest in the means by which an end is attained than the end itself. They tell us a great deal about the methods by which a composer expresses himself, but very little about what he actually has to express. I have tried, how feebly and with what little success no one knows better than myself, to find the man Handel in his music, to trace his character, his view of life, his thoughts, feelings, and aspirations, as they are set forth in his works.
A history of the English music festival is long overdue. Dr Pippa Drummond argues that these festivals represented the most significant cultural events in provincial England during the nineteenth century and emphasizes their particular importance in the promotion and commissioning of new music. Drawing on material from surviving accounts, committee records, programmes, contemporary pamphlets and reviews, Drummond shows how the festivals responded to and reflected the changing social and economic conditions of their day. Coverage includes a chronological overview documenting the history of individual festivals followed by a detailed exploration of such topics as performers and performance practice, logistics and finance, programmes and commissioning, together with information concerning the composition and provenance of festival choirs and orchestras. Also discussed are the effects of improved transport and new technologies on the festivals, sacred and secular conflicts, gender issues, the role of philanthropy, the nature of patronage and the changing social status of festival audiences. The book will also be of interest to social, economic and local historians.