Bach 2 & 3 Part Inventions (Kalmus Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)This edition of the inventions & sinfonias is actually quite good value for money. The fingerings are of course a personal preference, but the main issue I findwith this edition is the poor paper and so-so print quality. Still, great price, just make sure you have some decent lighting and good support when reading from this edition as the stapled back gets a bit flimsy. Otherwise it's quite good VFM. The actual music, of course, speaks for itself. And it does so in spades.

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Product Description:
Students, teachers and professional pianists will find this leather-bound collector's edition invaluable. This historically accurate edition contains a wealth of background information on ornamentation, dotted rhythms in the Baroque style, and the recommended tempos and guidelines for performing the works on the piano. Bach's writing is carefully separated from the editorial suggestions in light gray print. A wealth of footnotes compare the various sources consulted. 116 pages.--This text refers to the Leather Bound edition.

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Treatise on Harmony Review

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(More customer reviews)The importance of this work in the history of music would be hard to overestimate.While later music theorists and analysts, such as Schenker, find this emphasis on chords to be destructive to the horizontal considerations that make a great work hold together, this work has influence so many people that even those that do not even know his name but talk about root position chords and their inversions are invoking his concepts without realizing the source.

No, this is not a textbook for students.It is a treatise that explains in depth aspects of music that Rameau felt important and that he felt were essential for him to impart to other musicians.Composers of all stripes have consulted this work as have performers.Rameau has great authority because he was also a significant (if not great) composer.

The translation is quite good and easy to read.The concepts are not hard, but it helps to understand aspects of Baroque music such as figured bass and the types of pieces that were important in that era.Some grounding in species counterpoint would also make things easier, but is not absolutely necessary.

This book is really something all serious musicians need to know.You can take from it what you want for your own musical practice, but it really is not possible to consider yourself musically informed without knowing this work directly.

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One of most important books in Western music. Detailed explanation of principles of diatonic harmonic theory. New 1971 translation by Philip Gossett of 1722 edition. Many musical examples.

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Christmas Oratorio in Full Score Review

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(More customer reviews)Dover Publications full scores are a boon for music student and others on a budget: Being reprints of old editions free of copyright, they represent the very best value-for-money on the market, even though the newest Urtext scholarship may not be present in them. Most of them are very readable, and indeed holds a high enough quality for anyone.

This publication, however, has a few problems. First of all, the print quality of Dover scores seems to be variable, and this is one of the worse ones. While the note heads themselves are very large and visible, the stems are often halfway removed (in general, the paper quality isn't as good as in most of my other Dover scores, a major point for those of us who like to make notes in our scores). In this music, you can probably predict a note value with reasonable accuracy, but it's still a bit annoying. This edition is a copy of a print from 1856 (just a couple of decades after Mendelssohns famed "rediscovery" of Bach), which not only is very old even for a Dover score, but it also means that quite a few old fashioned idioms are present. First of all, C clefs are used by soprano, alto and tenor, which may pose a problem for some. Another thing entirely is the fact that the edition was printed a century before the period style movement gained any hold, which means that the instrumentation as given in this edition is what would be used in a 19th century performance of the oratorio. Although they have been faithfull when it comes to using archaic oboes (oboe d'amore and oboe d'caccia). The trumpets are, however, assigned to then modern instruments.

The worst part about this score, however, is the fact that while instrumentation varies for each movement, the names of each instrument playing is only mentioned at the beginning of each movement; you'll have to remember for yourself after that. To make matters worse, no bar numbers are added. These kinds of things annoy me quite a bit, as it would have been a very small job for Dover to fix these points, and it would make these scores a lot more practical.

Still, it is a score of an amazing piece of music, it's cheap, and I've yet to find any errors in the music itself. So I would definitely recommend it, but there is at the same time room for improvement.

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First produced in Leipzig in 1734-35, Bach's Christmas Oratorio unfolds in a set of six cantatas unified by a Biblical narrative relating the story of the birth of Christ. This masterpiece of sacred music, for centuries a favorite of concert audiences and church congregations throughout the Christmas season, has been reproduced directly from the authoritative Bach-Gesellschaft edition published by Breitkopf & Härtel of Leipzig.

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The Craft of Musical Composition: Book 2 (Stap/067) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is the practical application of the principles Hindemith discusses in his theoretical volume of the "Craft of Musical Composition".There fifty-six exercises, two hundred and fifty-one musical examples and sixty-two rules for composition in this small volume.It is meant to be used by students with a skilled teacher who is also an able composer.The approach is intensely practical and is meant to build skill in actually writing music rather than empty exercises to demonstrate this or that rule.

Again, the methodology here is based on Hindemith's ideas of composition and theory.Do not expect to be writing exercises in the style of Palestrina, Bach, or Mozart.There are charts and explanations here that will be opaque without having a grounding in the theoretical volume of his "Craft of Musical Composition".You could do much worse than studying these two volumes, but you do have to make a judgment about whether the juice is worth the squeeze.

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Originally published in the 1940s, Paul Hindemith's remakable textbooks are still the outstanding works of their kind. In contrast to many musical textbooks written by academic musicians, these were produced by a man who could play every instrument of the orchestra, could compose a satisfying piece for almost every kind of ensemble, and who was one of the most stimulating teachers of his day. It is therefore not surprising that nearly forty years later these books should remain essential reading for the student and the professional musician. Preface * Construction of the Simplest One-Voice Melodic Patterns * Beginning of Two-Voice Setting * Elaborated Melody (Auxiliary or Teturning Tones, Passing Tones) * Elaborated Melody (Continuation) * Principles of Melodic Construction * Elaborated Melody (Conclusion) * Tonal Higher-Units * Tonality of the Melodies * Elaboration of the Melody Model * Free Two-Voice Setting I and II

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The Study of Fugue Review

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(More customer reviews)It's not very simple to find books about musical forms and composition. This is an excelent title. The text is very rich and complete and it's possible for the reader to do your own fugues. Of course is not for begginers, it's necessary that you have a good knowledge in music, including counterpoint. Counterpoint is aborded, of course, but if you'd never seen the subject, the read may be a little boring.
The good news are: If you like music, if you have studied for a long time and would like to begin with your own compositions, this is a mandatory book.

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Classic study comprises two parts. The first is a comprehensive historical survey of writings on the fugue from the beginning of fugal teaching (c. 1350) to the present. Part Two explores in depth four 18th-century studies which are its classical presentations: Steps to Parnassus, J. J. Fux (1725), A Treatise on Fugue, W. F. Marpurg (1753-54), Fundamental and Practical Essay on Fugal Counterpoint, Padre Martini (1775), A Manual of the Fundamental Principles of Composition, J. A. Albrechtsberger (1790). Translations of texts, introductions and critical commentary, and many musical examples. Index. Bibliography.

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The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance (Dover Books on Music) Review

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(More customer reviews)This was Jeppesen's doctoral dissertation, I believe, and explores a very narrow area as might be expected. You really have to be into music theory in a serious way to want to read it at all. After deciphering the detailed arguments, I realized that Jeppesen had a genuinely fresh insight to offer: that the late 16th century, as reflected in the Palestrina style represents a watershed in the psychological / stylistic attitude toward dissonance, separating all of medieval music from all modern music (post-1600).
For me, this is a great AHA! But as I say, you have to be REALLY into music theory to get it. As with Jeppesen's "Counterpoint", you must read multiple C-clefs in score, or be willing to transcribe the examples into modern clefs if that's what you can read, so it's not a casual read. I give it 5 stars for the AHA! but dock it one star for inaccessibility.

The English translation preserves intact many of the convoluted clauses of the Danish. Footnotes are confidently presented in original languages: German, Danish, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, and Medieval Latin, with the apparent expectation of linguistically sophisticated readers. lol... wish I could rise to the occasion.

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This classic study remains one of the foremost works on the music of the 16th-century composer known asPalestrina. A rigorous and valuable analysis of the composer's handling of rhythm, line, and harmony, it explores his treatment of dissonance as well as the evolving concept and treatment of dissonance by his predecessors.

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