Music Practice Commons^™

"The Performance Of 16th-Century Music: Learning From The Theorists" By Anne Smith, Kenneth Kreitner

Performance Practice Review

Kenneth Kreitner discusses and reviews Smith's 2011 work.

Smith, Anne. The Performance of 16th-Century Music: Learning from the Theo­rists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

ISBN 978-0-19974261-5.

Improvisation In Sixteenth-Century Italy: Lessons From Rhetoric And Jazz, John Bass

Performance Practice Review

Saying that embellishment was a big deal for sixteenth-­century musicians is hardly a bold move; evidence abounds in treatises, music collections, and written accounts from the time. It has also been the subject of a fair amount of keen musicological scholarship over the years. But making sense out of what musicians of the time actually did in performance and trying to reproduce it today has proven to be more difficult, mainly because improvisers, by nature, do not tend to record what they do. The modern prevailing view seems to be that ornamentation was important, mainly because evidence suggests it was …

The Mandolin: Its Structure And Performance (Sixteenth To Twentieth Centuries), James Tyler, Paul Sparks

Performance Practice Review

RILM: "A history of the instrument, with information about the construction and repertoire, and particular reference to performance techniques. The derivation of the term "mandolin" is discussed, as are the differences between the mandolino and the Neapolitan mandolin."

Performing On The Trombone: A Chronological Survey, David M. Guion

Performance Practice Review

RILM: "A history of the trombone from the late 14th c. to the present, with special emphasis on performance practice."

Giovanni Luca Conforti And Vocal Embellishment: From Formula To Artful Improvisation, Murray C. Bradshaw

Performance Practice Review

"Considers Conforti's treatise Breve et facile maniera d'essercitarsi... (1593) and his Salmi passaggiati (1601-03), revealing the vast gulf between the etude-like exercises in the treatise and the actual embellished music--a difference similar to that between the exercises of Hanon and the piano etudes of Chopin. The embellishments of this period were far more than mere displays of virtuosity; they sprang from a desire to express the deepest meanings of the text."