Kirjahaku

Notation in Johannes Brahms's sonata scores tells violinists and pianists far more than merely what pitches to play and how long to play them-if read carefully, these scores reveal an immense amount of expression, both of musical and human essences. Joel Lester's Brahms's Violin Sonatas magnifies key passages from these scores, revealing in clear and accessible language how the composer built his themes and musical narratives and how, ultimately, Brahms'smusic came to sound Brahmsian. Through close readings and annotated musical examples, Brahms's Violin Sonatas guides practitioners to read scores with care and to develop their own informed interpretation of the pieces, eschewing the notion of a single "correct" interpretation of the historical score. Byexploring not only the sonatas' musical elements, but also their relationship to important events in the composer's life, Lester shows how subtle components can communicate the gestures, moods, personalities, and emotions that make Brahms's music so compelling. A companion volume to the author's award-winning 1999 study Bach's Works for Solo Violin: Style, Structure, and Performance (OUP), Brahms's Violin Sonatas is a clear and practical guide to understanding and performingBrahms's music in the present.

Refreshingly free of jargon and the abstruse mathematical equations that characterize so many works of a speculative nature, this insightful study utilizes masterworks of twentieth-century music as the bases for discussion and analysis. Analytic Approaches is organized into four units. The first focuses on aspects of musical structure other than pitch, such as rhythm, texture, timbre, form, and relationship of tonal music to the musics of our time. Units 2 and 3 deal with pitch structure: Unit 2 with pitch-class sets and Unit 3 with serial music. Unit 4 surveys music during the second half of the 20th century. The author admits freely that the perception of a work of art is a personal matter. In this book, he does not pretend to teach "the" way to listen to or to analyze contemporary music. Rather, he seeks to lead the reader to more informed listening through an understanding of how musical materials are used achieve both sonic and expressive effects.

This resource provides instructors with overview materials for each chapter.

This ambitious study offers a panoramic survey of musical thought in the eighteenth century and, at the same time, a close analysis of the important theoretical topics of the period. The result is the most comprehensive account ever given of the theory behind the music of late Baroque and early Classical composers from Bach to Beethoven.While giving preeminent theorists their due, Joel Lester also examines the works of over 100 seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writers to show how prominent theories were received and applied in actual teaching situations. Beginning with the influence of Zarlino and seventeenth-century theorists, Lester goes on to focus on central traditions emerging from definitive works in the early eighteenth century: species counterpoint in the writings of Fux; thoroughbass as presented by Niedt and Heinichen Rameau’s harmonic theories; and Mattheson’s views on melodic structure. The author traces the development and interactions of these traditions over the remainder of the century, through the writings of Albrechtsberger, C. P. E. Bach, Kirnberger, Koch, Marpurg, Martini, Nichelmann, Riepel, and many others. This historical overview is leavened throughout with accounts of individual composers grappling with theoretical issues—Haydn’s careful study of Fux’s treatise, Mozart’s instructions on harmony to his composition students, Beethoven’s own student exercises.The links between various theoretical traditions, the pervasive influence of Rameau’s harmonic thinking, and the harmonic theories of Koch are just some of the numerous topics given their first full treatment here. Many of the theorists Lester cites are either unknown or often misunderstood today. By bringing their contributions to light and placing them within the context of theoretical tradition, Lester offers a fresh perspective, one that will inform and enhance any future study of this magnificent era in Western music.