xiv, 556 pages : 25 cm From the Back Cover: Here is a rich selection of source readings that are not only important historical documents, but also fascinating eyewitness accounts of musicians and music-making from ancient Greece to the present day. More than 200 letters, notes, reviews, biographical sketches, memoirs, manifestos, works of criticism and theory, and a wealth of first-hand descriptions bring alive every musical period-and nearly every major theme, topic, controversy, and development in music history. Assuming no formal music background. Music in the Western World feature: More than 200 selections, many in fresh translations by the editors, ranging in length from a paragraph to several pages; Writings by composers, critics, philosophers, poets, religious leaders, historians, theorists, performers, and others-many in their first modern translation; Illustrations chosen to demonstrate the close links between the visual arts and the music of the period; Chronological organization designed for easy use and maximum flexibility; Witty, detailed headnotes that set each and every selection in its historical context. From the emergence of polyphony to the "death" of tonality-from composers' impassioned artistic statements to their revealing (and often delightfully malicious) letters-from the court music of Renaissance Ferrara to the heady cosmopolitanism of "Les Six"--Boethius to Babbitt-performance to politics-Music in the Western World is an essential guide to understanding the full scope of music history Includes bibliographical references and index Preface -- Part 1: Heritage Of Antiquity: -- Orpheus and the magical powers of music (Ovid) -- Pythagoras and the numerical properties of music (Nicomachus) -- Plato's musical idealism -- Aristotle on the purposes of music -- Kinship of music and rhetoric (Quintilian) -- Music in temple and synagogue: Judaic heritage (bible, Philo of Alexandria) -- Music in the Christian churches of Jerusalem, c A D 400 (Egeria) -- Part 2: Middle Ages: -- Church fathers of psalmody and on the dangers of unholy music (St Basil, St John Chrysostom, Origen of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Honorius of Autun) -- Testimony of St Augustine -- Transmission of the classical legacy (Boethius, Shakespeare) -- Music as a liberal art (Scholia enchiriadis) -- Before notation (Isidore of Seville, St Augustine, John the Deacon, Notker Balbulus, Costumal of St Benigne) -- Embellishing the liturgy (Notker Balbulus, Ethelwold) -- Musical notation and its consequences (Odo of Cluny, Guido of Arezzo, Chaucer) -- Music in courtly life (Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Roman de la rose) -- Emergence of polyphony (Aldhelm, Scotus Erigena, Hucbald, Regino of Prum, Giraldus Cambrensis, Anon, IV, John of Salisbury) -- Forms and practices of music, c 1300 (Johannes de Grocheo, Aegidius of Murino) -- First musical Avant-Garde (Jean de Muris, Jacobus of Liege, John XXII, motet and madrigal texts) -- Life of Francesco Landini (Filippo Villani) -- Letter from Guillaume de Machaut -- Part 3: Renaissance: -- Fount and origin (Martin Le Franc, Tinctoris) -- Music at church and state festivities in the early renaissance (Manetti, d'Escouchy) -- Triumph of Emperor Maximilian -- Music as a business (Petrucci, Francis I, Tallis and Byrd) -- Music in Castiglione's Courtier -- Josquin des Prez in the eyes of his contemporaries (Glareanus, Gian, Coclico, Luther) -- Luther and music (Luther, Walther, parody texts) -- Swiss reformers (Calvin) -- Reformation in England (cathedral injunctions, John Bull) -- High renaissance style (Aron, Zarlino) -- Willaert the reformer (Zarlino, Stocker) -- Music at a Medici wedding (Giunti) -- Lasso and Palestrina as revealed in their letters -- Life of the church musician (Constitutiones Capellae Pontificiae, Zarlino, etc) -- Genres of music in the high renaissance (Morley, Cerone, Vicentino) -- Counter reformation (Bishop Franco, Council of Trent, Palestrina, Animuccia, Ruffo, Gregory XIII, Coryat) -- Palestrina: fact and legend (Agazzari, Cresollio, Guidiccioni, Baini, Palestrina) -- Madrigals and Madrigalism (Mazzone, Zarlino-Morley) -- Gesualdo, Nobleman musician (Fontanelli) -- Most musical court in Europe (Bottrigari, Giustiniani) -- Music and dancing as social graces (anonymous conversation book, Arbeau, Byrd, Morley, Shakespeare) -- Renaissance instrumentalists (Tinctoris, Ventemille, cathedral and municipal documents) -- Radical humanism: end of the Renaissance (Vicentino, Mersenne, Le Jeune, Galilei) -- Part 4: Baroque: -- Birth of a new music (Caccini) -- Second practice (Artusi, Monteverdi) -- Earliest operas (Gagliano, Striggio) -- Basso Continuo and figured bass (Agazzari, Banchieri) -- From the letters of Monteverdi -- Schutz recounts his career -- Doctrine of figures (Bernhard) -- Music and scientific empiricism (Milton, Bacon) -- Music in the churches of Rome, 1639 (Maugars) -- Music under the sun king (Pierre Rameau) -- Rationalistic distaste for opera (Corneille, Saint-Evremond, La Bruyere) -- New sound ideal (Mersenne, Le Blanc) -- Baroque sonata (North, Purcell, Couperin) -- Modern concert life is born (North) -- Mature Baroque: Doctrine of the affections (Descartes, Mattheson) -- Art of music reduced to rational principles (J P Rameau) -- Earliest musical conservatories (Burney) -- Castrato singers (Burney) -- Conventions of the opera seria (Goldoni) -- Opera audiences in eighteenth-century Italy (Sharp) -- Domenico Scarlatti at the harpsichord (Burney) -- Traveler's impressions of Vivaldi (Uffenbach) -- Couperin on his Pieces de Clavecin -- Piano is invented (Maffei) -- Addison and Steele poke fun at Handel's first London opera -- Some contemporary documents relating to Handel's oratorios -- Bach's duties and obligations at Leipzig -- Bach remembered by his son -- Bach's obituary (C P E Bach, Agricola) -- Part 5: Pre-Classical Period: -- Cult of the natural (Heinichen, Scheibe) -- Advice and opinions of an Italian singing master (Tosi) -- From Geminiani's violin tutor -- From Quantz's treatise on flute playing -- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach on playing keyboard instruments -- Rise of the Italian comic opera style (La serva padrona, d'Holbach, Hiller) -- From Rousseau's Dictionary of Music -- Part 6: Classical Period: -- Side trip into aesthetics (Rousseau, Avison, Beattie, Twining, Smith, Kant) -- Haydn's duties in the service of Prince Esterhazy -- Gluck's operatic manifesto -- Some general thoughts on music by Dr Burney -- Frederick the Great gives a concert (Burney) -- Young Mozart as a scientific curiosity (Barrington) -- From Mozart's letters -- Haydn's reception in London (Burney, London dailies) -- Sonata form and the symphony described by a contemporary of Haydn (Kollmann) -- Musical episode of the French Revolution -- Vienna, 1800 -- Beethoven's Heiligenstadt testament -- First reactions to Beethoven's 'Eroica' symphony -- Contemporary portrait of Beethoven -- First performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony -- Part 7: Later Nineteenth Century: Romanticism And Other Preoccupations: -- Music as a proper occupation for the British female (Burgh) -- Leigh Hunt on Rossini -- Schubert remembered by a friend (Spaun) -- Paganini, the spectacular virtuoso (Hunt) -- Virtuoso conductor (Spohr) -- State of music in Italy in 1830 -- From the writings of Berlioz -- Program of the Symphonie Fantastique -- From the writings of Schumann -- Liszt, the all-conquering pianist -- From the writings of Liszt -- Glimpses of Chopin composing, playing the piano -- Mendelssohn and Queen Victoria -- From the writings of Wagner -- Wagner's Beethoven -- Music of the future controversy (Schumann, Liszt, Brendel, Brahms) -- P T Barnum brings the Swedish nightingale to America -- Smetana and the Czech National Style (Novotny) -- New Russian school (Stasov) -- Musorgsky, a musical realist -- Chaikovsky on inspiration and self-expression -- Brahms on composing (Henschel) -- Brahim point of view (Hanslick) -- Verdi at the time of Otello -- Grieg on the Norwegian element in his music -- Post-Wagnerians: Mahler -- Post-Wagnerians: Richard Strauss -- Part 8: Twentieth Century: -- Debussy and musical impressionism -- Questioning basic assumptions (Busoni) -- From the writings of Charles Ives -- Musical expressionism (Schoenberg, Wellesz, et al) -- Retreat to the ivory tower (Berg) -- Death of tonality? (Webern) -- Arnold Schoenberg on composition with twelve tones -- Rite of Spring (Stravinsky, Van Vechten, Cui, Du Mas) -- Futurist manifesto (Russolo) -- New folklorism (Bartok, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams) -- Cataclysm (Bartok) -- Between the wars (sessions) -- New objectivity (Stravinsky) -- Anti-Romantic Polemics from Stravinsky's autobiography -- Schoenberg on Stravinsky, Stravinsky on Schoenberg -- Cult of Blague: Satie and The Six (Satie, Collet, Milhaud) -- Polytonality (Milhaud) -- Only twentieth-century aesthetic? (Thomson) -- Making of Wozzeck (Berg) -- Approaching the limits of compression (Schoenberg, Webern) -- Assimilation of jazz (Gershwin, Ravel) -- New musical resources (Cowell) -- Retrenchment (Hindemith) -- Music and the social conscience (Weill, Hindemith, Copland) -- Music and ideology (Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians) -- Composer on trial (Prokofiev) -- Outlook after World War II (Thomson) -- New developments in serialism (Boulez, Babbitt) -- Stravinsky the serialist -- Postwar compositional "issues" (sessions) -- Master of organized sound (Varese) -- Music of chance (cage) -- New approaches to the organization of time (Carter) -- Contemporary composer and society (Babbitt, Rochberg) -- Glossary -- Index