Description: This volume in the Norton History of Music covers that incredibly rich period - roughly, the 17th centruy and the first half of the 18th - that produced at its inception Monteverdi and Schutz, and that culminated in the gigantic works of Bach and Handel. It was a period that saw the creation of opera, concerto, chamber music and many other types of vocal and instrumental music that we treasure today despite the passage of time. Perhaps in no other period did people make so much music with such sheer enjoyment in its very sound.
This is the first English-language history of baroque music to encompass the entire field and enable the reader to gain that historical understanding without which baroque music cannot be fully appreciated and enjoyed. The treatment Dr. Bukofzer has given the period is detailed yet broadly comprehensive. The emphasis throughout is on the trends and characteristics that mark the baroque style. The author deals first with the disintegration of the renaissance and the advent of the spirit of the baroque. Then he explores the rise of the early baroque in Italy and the spread of this new style through the northern countries. Opera and ballet, cantata and oratorio, concerto, keyboard music, Protestant and Catholic church music, organ music - all are clearly and interestingly discussed. Special chapters are devoted to the different national styles and their eventual co-ordination and fusion; to form in baroque music; to musical thought in the baroque era; and to the social background of baroque music - the last being an enlightening account of musical and social conditions in court, church, and municipality.
Music in the Baroque Era is abundantly equipped with notes, bibliography, list of editions, and a wealth of musical illustrations. It is a truly encyclopedic presentation, which admirably interprets a significant era in music and its monumental and lasting art.
