A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries: Second Edition / Edition 2

by Rita Steblin

Overview

A fully updated edition of the leading reference work on musical key characteristics during the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods.

This is a revised second edition of Dr. Steblin's important work on key characteristics, first published in 1983 by UMI Research Press and re-issued by the University of Rochester Press in 1996. The revision has been limited to athorough correction and update of the material in the first edition, so as to not disrupt the content and organization, for which the book has been praised as a significant and noteworthy reference for both scholars and research students alike.
The book discusses the extra-musical meanings associated with various musical keys by ancient Greek and medieval-renaissance theorists and in particular composers and writers on music in the Baroque, Classical,and early Romantic periods. Chapters focus on Mattheson's extensive key descriptions from 1713, the Rameau-Rousseau and Marpurg-Kirnberger controversies regarding unequal versus equal temperaments, and C.F.D. Schubart's influential list based on the sharp-flat [bright-dark] principle of key-distinctions.

Rita Katherine Steblin is a world-renowned music scholar, living and working in Vienna.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580460415
Publisher:	Boydell & Brewer, Limited
Publication date:	01/15/2002
Edition description:	2ND
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

The Ancient Greeks and the Doctrine of Ethos
The Medieval-Renaissance Modes and Their Affects
The Transition from Modality to Tonality: Early French Key Characteristics
Johann Mattheson and the Early Eighteenth-Century German Approach to Key Characteristics
Rameau and Rousseau: Equal Temperament versus Unequal Temperament
Marpurg versus Kimberger: The Tuning Controversy in Germany
Psychological Factors: The Sharp-Flat Principle
Physical Factors: The Properties of Instruments
Tradition and Key Characteristics in the Early Nineteenth Century

Editorial Reviews

New edition of a historical examination of key characteristics (i.e. the association between key, mood, and meaning) in music of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Stevlin corrects some misprints that appeared in her original study (written as a doctoral dissertation at the U. of Illinois) and adds information concerning the correct identification of Georg Christoph Kellner, Ignaz Franz Mosel's description of Antonio Salieri's compositional process, and newly discovered lists of key characteristics by Franz Xaver Gl<:o>ggl, Anton Gr<:a>ffer and Karl Herlobsohn, all of whom support Richard Wagner's idea that the belief in key characteristics had earlier become as dogmatic as the belief in God. Of interest to music scholars and serious musicians. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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