Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900

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 aspectsof 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 haveexpected 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.

Clive Brown is Professor of Applied Musicology, University of Leeds; and Consultant, London Classical Players