Music in the Galant Style

by Robert Gjerdingen

Overview

Music in the Galant Style is an authoritative and readily understandable study of the core compositional style of the eighteenth century. Gjerdingen adopts a unique approach, based on a massive but little-known corpus of pedagogical workbooks used by the most influential teachers of the century, the Italian partimenti. He has brought this vital repository of compositional methods into confrontation with a set of schemata distilled from an enormous body of eighteenth-century music, much of it known only to specialists, formative of the "galant style."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199886104
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/05/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	68 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Robert Gjerdingen is Professor of Music at Northwestern University's School of Music

Table of Contents

1. Introduction2. The Romanesca3. The Prinner4. The Fonte5. A Minuet by Giovanni Battista Somis6. The Do-Re-Mi7. The Monte8. A Theme and Variations by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf9. The Meyer10. A Theme and Variations by Joseph Haydn11. Clausulae12. An Andante by Christoph Willibald Gluck13. The Quiescenza14. The Ponte15. A Grave Sostenuto by Baldassare Galuppi16. The Fenaroli17. An Allegro by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf18. The Sol-Fa-Mi19. An Andante by Johann Christian Bach20. The Indugio21. A Cantabile by Simon Leduc22. A Larghetto by Leonardo Leo23. An Andantino by Baldassare Galuppi24. An Andantino Affettuoso by Niccolo Jommelli25. The Child Mozart26. An Allegro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart27. II Filo: A Poco Adagio by Joseph Haydn28. A Model Adagio by Johann Joachim Quantz29. A Model Allegro by Francesco Galeazzi30. Summary and CadenzaAppendix A: Schema PrototypesAppendix B: PartimentiNotesIndex of Music SourcesGeneral Index

Editorial Reviews

"A path-breaking work in musical analysis. Professor Gjerdingen opens the doors into the compositional studios of the 18th century, showing us how characteristic idioms within the galant style that formed a lingua franca among musicians across Europe can be modeled-and easily replicated—by a small number of recurring voice-leading 'schema.' Richly illustrated with diverse musical examples and eye-catching graphics, this remarkable and original study will prove invaluable to all analysts and historians of 18th century music."-Thomas Christensen, Professor of Music, University of Chicago

"Gjerdingen's study promises to reframe nearly all the work that scholars have lavished on compositional practice in the eighteenth century by answering a question that no one seems to have asked before now - how were eighteenth-century composers (Italian-born and Italian-trained composers above all) able to produce such massive quantities of music in such a broad spectrum of genres, and to do so with both facility and taste?"—Thomas Bauman, Professor of Musicology, Northwestern University

"After reading this text, I came away believing that I had learned much that was new, that I had significantly refined my hearing of galant style, and that I had developed a greater appreciation of music that is generally unfamiliar but deserving of greater performance. One can hardly ask more from any book!"— William E. Caplin, Professor of Music Theory, McGill University

"Music in the galant style must count, both in 18th-century music studies and in music theory, as one of the most significant publications of recent decades."—Early Music

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