The concise Oxford history of music / Gerald Abraham.
| Author/creator | Abraham, Gerald |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | London ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 1979. |
| Description | 968 pages : illustrations, maps, music ; 26 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | Part I. The rise of West Asian and East Mediterranean music. Mesopotamia and Egypt. Pre-history ; Sumer ; Post-Sumerian music ; Egypt: the old kingdom ; Egypt: the middle kingdom ; Egypt: the new kingdom ; Egypt in decline ; The Assyrian empire ; Nebuchadnezzar's alleged orchestra ; Mathematical theory -- The Greek contribution. Homeric music ; From phorminx to kithara ; The aulos ; The importance of Mousike in Greek life ; Pythagoras and early music theory ; Music in the age of tragedy ; Plato on music ; Aristotle ; The Harmonics of Aristoxenus ; Greek notation -- The Hellenistic-Roman world. The process of internationalization ; Music in the old testament ; Hebrew music under Hellenistic pressure ; Etruscan influence on Rome ; Roman festivals and Roman theatre ; Origin of the organ ; Music under the Empire ; Musicians' guilds ; Monster concerts and choral concentus ; The Alexandrian theorists ; The earliest Christian music ; The early Christian hymn -- Music in the Christian world. Music of the barbarians ; Music of the Eastern church ; The church-fathers and the psalms ; Development of the Christian hymn ; The offices and the mass ; The role of Gregory the Great ; Choral music under the Frankish monarchs ; 'Old Roman' and 'Gregorian' chant ; The evidence of notation ; Neumes ; The eight church modes ; The division of the church ; The isolation of conservative orthodoxy -- Part II. The ascendancy of Western Europe. The beginnings of polyphony. The writings of Hucbald ; Musica Enchiriadis and early organum ; Developments in notation ; The embryonic staff ; Guido d'Arezzo and the hexachord ; Notation of note-values ; St. Martial and Santiago polyphony ; Trope and sequence ; Liturgical drama ; Secular song ; Vernacular song ; The earliest troubadours -- Music of the proto-Renaissance. The spread of courtly song in France and Germany ; Cantigas, Laudi, and English song ; Courtly song: its types, forms, and performance ; Mensuration of note-values ; The Notre Dame organa ; Three and four-part harmony ; Conductus ; From clausula to motet ; The Montpellier Codex ; Developments in the motet ; The instrumental motet ; Interrelation of upper parts ; Secular tenors ; Franconian notation ; Adam de la Hale -- The 'new art' of the fourteenth century. Ars nova ; The Roman de Fauvel ; The Robertsbridge Codex ; Political and ceremonial motets ; Machaut's secular music ; Chace and Caccia ; Machaut and the polyphonic mass ; Early Italian polyphony ; The trecento madrigal ; Francesco Landini ; Fourteenth-century English music ; The French mannerists ; Italy at the turn of the century -- The European synthesis. French and Walloon musicians in Italy ; Italian influence on Ciconia ; Dunstable and the 'Old Hall' composers ; English conductus-style and fauxbourdon ; Dufay and the 'cyclic' mass ; Proportional notation ; Dufay's last compositions ; Dufay's successors ; English songs and carols ; The Burgundian chanson ; Binchois and the last Burgundians ; The beginnings of German polyphony ; Early fifteenth-century keyboard music ; Paumann and the Buxheim tablature -- The impact of the Renaissance. Dominance of the Netherlanders ; Ockeghem the master ; Interrelationship of the Netherlanders ; Technical ingenuities ; Pierre de la Rue ; Jacob Obrecht ; Words in polyphony ; Netherland composers in Italy ; Laudi and carnival songs ; The frottola ; Josquin des Prez ; Josquin's French contemporaries ; Spanish composers ; Music in Eastern Europe ; German polyphony ; Heinrich Isaac ; German and Italian instrumental tablatures ; English keyboard music ; English musical insularism -- Interlude. Music in the Islamic world. The origins of Islamic music ; Music under the earlier caliphates ; Classical practice and theory ; Byzantine influence ; Music under the divided caliphates ; Safi al-Din and the melodic modes ; Muslim music in Spain and North Africa ; Contemporary practice -- Part III. The Ascendancy of Italy. Music during the Reformation. Verbal intelligibility in church music ; Church music of Josquin's followers ; New paraphrase techniques in the masses ; The French chanson ; The chanson after Attaingnant ; Parisian church music ; Vernacular religious song: Calvinist psalters ; Lutheran hymns ; German secular song ; German and Polish keyboard tablatures ; New forms of secular polyphony ; The earlier sixteenth-century madrigal ; The church music of Willaert and his circle ; Cipriano de Rore and the madrigal ; Venetian instrumental music ; Spanish church music ; Instrumental music in Spain ; The lute in other countries ; English organ music ; Church music under Henry VIII and Mary -- Music during the Counter-Reformation. The Tridentine reform ; The oratorian movement and 'Gregorian' reform ; The perfection of the Roman style ; Venice and the stile concertato ; Spartitura and basso continuo ; Monteverdi's church music ; The end of the Netherland tradition ; The religious music of Lassus ; Vernacular psalm settings ; Lutheran Geistliche Lieder ; German passion music ; Venetian influence and the Lutheran hymn-motet ; Religious music in England -- Secular song and instrumental music (c. 1560-c. 1610). Netherland composers of madrigal and chanson ; The Italian madrigalists ; The revival of monody ; The Florentine intermedii ; The earliest operazs ; Cavalieri's Rappresentazione and Caccini's Nuove musiche ; Monteverdi's Orfeo and Arianna ; The madrigal in England ; Morley's canzonets and balletts ; Weelkes, Wilbye, and their contemporaries ; The English ayre ; Italian vocal forms in Germany ; The madrigal in the European periphery ; Madrigalian influence and musique mesuree in the chanson ; The international repertories for lute and keyboard ; Venetian instrumental music ; Dance music in Germany ; English music for consort and virginals ; The keyboard music of Sweelinck and Praetorius -- Secular song (c. 1610-60). The transformation of the madrigal ; Cantade and arie ; The cantata in Rome ; Italian influence on German song ; The North German and Saxon composers ; The French air de cour ; English song -- The early growth of opera (c. 1610-60). The entertainment of princes ; Opera in Rome ; The first public opera-houses ; Monteverdi's lost operas ; Francesco Cavalli ; Cesti in Venice and Vienna ; Italian opera in Paris ; French pastorales and comedies-ballets ; Opera in Germany and Spain ; The English masque ; The spread of public opera -- Instrumental music (c. 1610-60). A cappella style and concertato style ; Dramatic dialogue and oratorio ; Concertato church music in Venice ; Venetian influence in Germany ; Lutheran bible Historiae ; German passion music ; Conservatism in France and England ; Vernacular psalms -- The diffusion of opera (c. 1660-c. 1725). Popularization in Venetian opera ; Court opera at Naples and Vienna ; 'Aria opera' ; Italian opera in Germany ; The Hamburg opera ; Handel in Italy ; Opera in restoration England ; Purcell's music for the stage ; Italian opera in London ; The general triumph of Italy ; The beginnings of French opera ; Quinault, Lully, and tragedie en musique ; Lully's heirs and the opera-ballet -- Secular vocal music (c. 1660-c. 1725). The Italian chamber cantata ; Scarlatti's cantata model ; Handel's Italian cantatas and duets ; Marcello's reaction against bel canto ; The German secular Arie ; Italian influence on the German cantata ; The dramme per musica of Telemann and Bach ; The French air ; The cantate francaise ; Public concerts in London ; The English ode ; Purcell's chamber cantatas ; English theatre songs and cantatas ; The Russian kant -- Religious music (c. 1660-c. 1725). Operatic influence on oratorio ; Italian oratorio volgare ; Oratorio in Vienna ; The Roman oratorios of Scarlatti ; The German oratorio passion ; Passion-oratorio at Hamburg ; Bach's passions ; Sacred dialogues and Kirchenstucke ; The Lutheran church cantata ; Recitative, aria, and hymn in Bach's cantatas ; Telemann's cantata cycles ; Cantata elements in other church music ; Survival of the 'Palestrina style' ; Motets for solo voices ; Spanish conservatism ; Church music of the Western Slavs ; Royal taste in French church music ; Italianate elements in French oratorio and motet ; Composers of the English Chapel Royal ; The anthems of Blow and Purcell ; Handel's early Anglican music -- |
| Contents | Instrumental music (c. 1660-c. 1725). Tonal organization of instrumental forms ; The opera sinfonia ; The concerto grosso ; The trio sonata ; The influence of Corelli's style ; German experimentalism ; Torelli's ritornello form ; Vivaldi and his followers ; Bach at Cothen ; Telemann's eclecticism ; The German keyboard suite ; French music for clavecin ; French organ music ; Italian keyboard music ; Kuhnau and the harpsichord sonata ; Survival of older keyboard forms ; The Lutheran organ composers ; Bach's earlier keyboard works -- Changes in opera (c. 1725-90). The challenge to opera seria ; Metastasian opera ; Dialect comedy and comic intermezzi ; English ballad opera ; The precursors of opera comique ; Italian opera of the mid-century ; Rameau as the heir of Lully ; The Querelle des bouffons ; The return to nature ; Opera comique ; The rejuvenation of Italian opera ; Sentiment in opera comique ; Gluck in Vienna ; Gluck's regeneration of Italian opera ; Gluck's French operas ; Mozart's opere serie ; Opera in Paris before the revolution ; Serious elements in opera buffa ; The development of Singspiel ; Mozart's operatic masterpieces ; Opera in Spain ; The English pasticci ; Opera in Poland ; The birth of Russian opera -- Orchestral and chamber music (c. 1725-90). Varieties of concerto ; The concert sinfonia ; The new instrumental idiom ; Embryonic sonata-form ; The concerto in mid-century ; The symphony at Paris ; Stamitz and the younger symphonists ; Diversity of instrumental forms ; Haydn's early symphonies ; The piano concertos and symphonies of J. C. Bach ; Haydn and string-quartet style ; The symphonie concertante ; Mozart's development as instrumental composer ; The Bach brothers and Haydn ; Haydn, Mozart, and string quartet texture ; Mozart and the piano concerto ; Mozart's last instrumental works ; The symphony during the 1780s -- Music for or with keyboard (c. 1725-90). The later clavier music of Bach, Handel, and their German contemporaries ; Domenico Scarlatti and the harpsichord sonata ; 'The Scarlatti sect in London' ; Italian harpsichord composers ; The decline of organ music in Germany ; German keyboard music for amateurs ; Keyboard music with optional accompaniment ; The solo sonatas of J. C. Bach and the young Haydn ; Mozart and the pianoforte ; Clementi and some contemporaries ; C. P. E. Bach's influence on Haydn ; The accompanied keyboard sonatas of Haydn and Mozart ; Mozart's piano quartets and trios ; The 'keyboard song' ; German domestic song ; North German ode settings ; Lyrical song and narrative ballad ; Mozart's Deutsche Arien -- Religious music (c. 1725-90). The decline of church music ; Bach's last cantatas and Matthew Passion ; The 'B minor mass' ; The church cantata in decline ; Passion and oratorio in the age of sensibility ; Handel's English oratorios ; English composers of oratorio ; Liturgical music in France ; Oratorio in Italy ; Liturgical music in Italy ; Hasse at Dresden ; Religious music at Vienna ; Haydn at Eszterhaz ; Church music at Salzburg ; The reform of church music by Joseph II ; Mozart's last religious compositions -- Interlude. The music of India. The beginnings of Indian music ; The musical system ; Differences of North and South -- The music of Eastern Asia. Early Chinese music ; Foreign influences on Chinese music ; Music under the T'ang, Sung, and Yuan emperors ; The Ming period ; The Manchus and 'Peking opera' ; Chinese influence on Japan ; Japanese music under the Shoguns ; The impact of the West ; The music of Indonesia -- Part IV. The ascendancy of Germany. Opera (1790-1830). Operas of the French Revolution ; The Leonores of Gaveaux and Beethoven ; Spontini and 'Empire classicism' ; Parisian grand opera ; Romantic opera comique ; Simon Mayr and Ferdinando Paer ; Rossini's conquest of Europe ; The romantic melancholy of Bellini ; German opera after Mozart ; The dawn of German romantic opera ; Spohr and Weber ; Continuous texture and reminiscence themes ; Marschner and 'horror opera' ; National opera in peripheral European countries ; Opera in New York and London -- Orchestral music (1790-1830). Haydn's last symphonies ; Refugee composers in London ; Popularity of the concerto ; Beethoven's years of symphonic composition ; Piano concertos by Beethoven's contemporaries ; Innovations in overture and symphony ; Schubert's early orchestral music ; The symphony in the 1820s ; New trends ; The piano concerto in the 1820s -- Chamber music (1790-1830). Haydn's last chamber works ; Beethoven's early chamber music ; Dussek and Louis Ferdinand ; Beethoven's middle-period chamber music ; Varied concepts of chamber music ; Chamber compositions of Schubert's youth ; Chamber music during the 1920s ; Beethoven's last quartets -- Piano music (1790-1830). The piano sonata: 1794-1805 ; New piano textures ; The poetic miniature ; Dance music for piano ; The piano sonata: 1816-26 ; The new generation -- Solo song (1790-1830). Haydn's canzonets and folk-song accompaniments ; The romance in France ; The Lied in the 1790s ; The inspiration of Goethe ; Cycles and collections of Lieder ; The gradual revealing of Schubert ; The German narrative ballad ; The art-songs of Western Slavs ; Birth of Russian art-song -- Choral music (1790-1830). The open-air festivals of the French Revolution ; Haydn's symphonic masses ; The mass in provincial Austria ; Cherubini's first masses ; Haydn's oratorios ; Oratorio after Haydn ; Catholic music in the post-war period ; 'Missa solemnis' ; Secular music -- Orchestral music (1830-93). The symphonies of Berlioz ; Spohr and the programme-symphony ; Mendelssohn's orchestral forms ; Concert overtures of the 1830s ; Changes in the orchestral brass ; Schumann and the symphony ; The romantic concerto ; 'Tone-pictures', 'overtures', and 'tone-poems' ; Innovations in concerto and symphony ; The 'New German school' ; Defections from the Liszt camp ; Symphonic music in the 1860s ; Liszt's international proteges ; Renaissance in France after 1871 ; The advent of Brahms ; The symphonies of Bruckner ; Dvorak: heir of Schubert ; Russian orchestral music: 1876-93 ; Orchestral composition in the West ; The young Strauss and his contemporaries -- Opera (1830-93). The golden age of grand opera ; Italian romantic opera ; German romantic opera ; The novel elements in Wagner ; National opera in Eastern Europe ; Irish and English composers ; Opera during the 1850s ; Wagnerian music-drama ; The last phase of grand opera ; Russian opera ; Polish and Czech opera ; Diversity of non-Wagnerian opera ; Wagner's influence in French opera ; Late Verdi and verismo -- Choral music (1830-93). Oratorio in Germany ; The 'sacred concert' in France ; Influence of the plainsong revival ; Secular oratorios ; Religious music in England ; Liturgical music in Bavaria and Austria ; Liszt's masses and oratorios ; Oratorio in decline ; The 'oratorio of sentiment' ; Liturgical music in Germany and Russia ; The choral works of Brahms ; The narrative ballad -- The dominance of the piano (1830-93). The Parisian pianist-composers ; Schumann's piano music ; Romantic piano music: 1830-50 ; Piano-dominated chamber music ; The French melodie ; Solo song in the Slav lands ; The spate of romantic Lieder ; Organ music in mid-century ; Problems of large-scale instrumental form ; The piano miniature ; French chamber music ; Chamber music in Russia ; The chamber music of Dvorak ; Czech song ; Solo song in Russia ; The melodie: 1855-93 ; The late nineteenth-century lied ; Solo song in Scandinavia ; English song -- |
| Contents | The decline and fall of Romanticism (1893-1918). Central European music at the turn of the century ; The influence of Bach ; Schoenberg's change of course ; Belated Wagnerism ; The Wagnerian sunset in the Latin lands ; The landmark of Pelleas ; Cross-currents in French music ; Individual eclectics ; Hybridization of forms and media ; The crisis of 'expressionism' ; Artificial harmonic construction ; Influence of the Dyagilev ballet ; The retreat from romantic excess -- Interlude. The music of black Africa and America. General characteristics ; African instruments ; Contact with Western music ; Negro music in North America ; Cakewalk, ragtime, and blues ; Jazz -- Part V. The fragmentation of tradition. Music between the wars (1919-45). Musical prosperity in America ; Contemporary idioms in Britain ; The main stream in Paris ; Satie and Les Six ; Ondes Martenot and quarter-tone music ; The contemporary spirit in Italy ; The twelve-note row ; Hindemith and Gebrauchsmusik ; Czech opera ; East European masters ; Music in Russia after the revolution ; The concept of 'Socialist realism' ; Music during the Second World War -- Cross-currents after 1945. The eclectic language ; Messiaen's grand synthesis ; The Darmstadt Ferienkurse ; Total serialization ; Electronically-produced sound ; Indeterminacy ; The avant-garde in America ; International disciples of Stockhausen ; Modified serialism ; The post-war symphony ; Twelve-note music in the U.S.S.R. ; Post-war opera ; Stravinsky: the last years. |
| Abstract | This book is intended to provide an account of the history of music as scholarly, as up to date, and as complete as is possible within the confines of a single volume. It is not a summary of the New Oxford History of Music. It is an entirely new work, by one of the world's most highly reputable musicologists. The style is clear and attractive as in all the author's many previous writings on music. The judgements are penetrating, and the whole history is informed with a profound feeling for the character of music and its changes from one period to another. It is packed with information, and this richness of content demands--and rewards--continuous attention: this is not a history for dilettante readers. The forty-one chapters cover the whole history of music from its first recorded emergence in Sumer and Egypt to the death of Stravinsky. Folk and popular music are not covered, except incidentally, but there are chapters of Arab music, Indian music, the musics of East Asia, and the music of Black Africa and America. The book contains over three hundred music examples, many pictorial illustrations, extensive suggestions for further reading and recommended editions, maps which show the location of each place mentioned in the book, and a comprehensive index (which among other things gives the known dates of every composer mentioned). |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliography (pages 864-912) and index. |
| ISBN | 0193113198 |