Music - Resources by Instrument

Notes for Violists: A Guide to the Repertoire offers historical and analytical information about thirty-five of the best-known pieces for the instrument, making it an essential resource for professional, amateur, and student violists alike. With engaging prose supported by fact-filled analytical charts, the book offers rich biographical information and insightful analyses that help violists gain a more complete understanding of pieces like Béla Bartók's Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, Rebecca Clarke's Sonata for Viola and Piano, Robert Schumann's Märchenbilder for Viola and Piano, op. 113, Carl Stamitz's Concerto for Viola and Orchestra in D Major, Igor Stravinsky's Élégie for Viola or Violin Unaccompanied, and thirty other masterpieces. This comprehensive guide to key pieces from the viola repertoire from the eighteenth through the twentieth century covers concertos, chamber pieces, and works for solo viola by a wide range of composers, including Bach, Telemann, Mozart, Hoffmeister, Walton, and Hindemith. Author David M. Bynog not only offers clear structural analyses of these compositions but also situates them in their historical contexts as he highlights crucial biographical information on composers and explores the circumstances of the development and performance of each work. By connecting performance studies with scholarship, this indispensable handbook for students and professionals allows readers to gain a more complete picture of each work and encourages them to approach other compositions in a similarly analytical manner.

The Pulitzer awards in music have been representative of America's best composers since 1917. Prize winners have written compositions for viola solo, viola with keyboard, and for viola with orchestra. This annotated bibliography catalogues each Pulitzer award winner's compositions for these instrumentations. Only compositions originally designed for viola solo, viola with keyboard, and for viola with orchestra are included.

This practical guide is intended for all violinists and viola players who wish to give - or to understand and appreciate - historically aware performances of early music for their instruments. It comprises discussion of the literature, history and repertory of the violin and viola, the myriad relevant primary sources and their interpretation, and the various aspects of style and technique that combine to make up well-grounded, period performances. It also considers various related family instruments, contains practical advice on the acquisition of appropriate instruments, and offers suggestions for further reading and investigation. Many of the principles outlined are put into practice in case studies of six works composed c.1700-c.1900, the core period which forms this series' principal (though not exclusive) focus. Music by Corelli, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms is examined with a view to recreating performances as faithful as possible to the composer's original intention.

In the early seventeenth century, enthusiasm for the violin swept across Europe - this was an instrument capable of bewitching virtuosity, with the power to express emotions in a way only before achieved with the human voice. With this new guide to the Baroque violin, and its close cousin, theBaroque viola, distinguished performer and pedagogue Walter Reiter puts this power into the hands of today's players. Through fifty lessons based on the Reiter's own highly-renowned course at The Royal Conservatory of the Hague, The Baroque Violin and Viola, Volume I provides a comprehensiveexploration of the period's rich and varied repertoire.Volume I covers the basics of choosing a violin, techniques to produce an ideal sound, and sonatas by Vivaldi and Corelli. Practical exercises are integrated into each lesson, and accompanied by rich video demonstrations on the book's companion website. Brought to life by Reiter's deep insight intokey repertoire based on a lifetime of playing and teaching, The Baroque Violin and Viola, Volume I: A Fifty-Lesson Course will enhance performances of professional and amateur musicians alike.

In A Notebook for Viola Players, Ivo-Jan van der Werff offers a guide to playing the viola with the greatest freedom, dexterity, and ease. It includes right and left hand exercises to build a sound technique, sections on how to practice them, how to hold the viola and bow, how to think aboutgood posture, how to create a good sound, how to play with the least amount of tension, how to deal with anxiety, and thoughts on wellness and practice techniques. Alongside these are photographs and a companion website of video demonstrations of the exercises played by the author, as if in alesson. Interspersed throughout the book are lively and illuminating anecdotes of van der Werff's own experiences as a student and as a professional musician, as well as a number of blank pages and staff paper for the student to literally 'make notes' and write down their own ideas, offering a spacefor creative expression using the skills they learn in reading and playing along with the text. Bringing together decades of teaching and performance experience from one of the most respected figures in viola pedagogy, A Notebook for Viola Players is a master class in viola ideal for any playerhoping to perfect the fundamental areas of their practice.

Before the death, in 1982, of the renowned violist William Primrose, David Dalton engaged the musician in a lively series of conversations which touched on almost all aspects of viola technique, performance, repertoire, recording, and history. This book is a transcription of this dialogue, containing illuminating advice on holding the viola, bowing, tone, fingering, and practicing, all supported by copious illustrations and musical examples, as well as insights on repertoire for the viola--"an instrument without tradition"--and on performances of the great concertos by Bartok and Walton. Punctuated with frankness and humor, this book is a tribute to one of the greatest artists of this century.

Ferdinando Giorgetti's Metodo per Esercitarsi a Ben Suonare L'Alto Viola (A Self-Training Method for Playing the Viola Well) was first published in Florence in 1854. In this translation, Sciannameo (multidisciplinary studies, music, Carnegie Mellon University) gives background on Giorgetti's life an

This book provides the first scholarly history of the viola d'amore, a popular bowed string instrument of the Baroque era, with a unique tone produced by a set of metal sympathetic strings. Composers like Bach made use of the viola d'amore for its particular sound, but the instrument subsequently fell out of fashion amid orchestral standardisation, only to see a revival as interest in early music and historical performance grew. Drawing on literary accounts, iconography, and surviving instruments, this study examines the origins and development of this eye-catching string instrument in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It explores the rich variation of designs displayed in extant viola d'amore specimens, both as originally constructed and as a result of conversion and repair. The viola d'amore is then set into the wider context of Elizabethan England's development of instruments with wire strings, and its legacy in the form of the baryton which emerged in the early seventeenth century, followed by a look at the viola d'amore's own nomenclatorial and organological influence. The book closes with a discussion of the viola d'amore's revival, and its use and manufacture today.  Offering insights for organological research and historical performance practice, this study enhances our knowledge of both the viola d'amore and its wider family of instruments.

Thomas D. Rossing String instruments are found in almost all musical cultures. Bowed string instruments form the backbone of symphony orchestras, and they are used widely as solo inst- ments and in chamber music as well. Guitars are used universally in pop music as well as in classical music. The piano is probably the most versatile of all musical inst- ments, used widely not only in ensemble with other musical instruments but also as a solo instrument and to accompany solo instruments and the human voice. In this book, various authors will discuss the science of plucked, bowed, and hammered string instruments as well as their electronic counterparts. We have tried to tell the fascinating story of scienti?c research with a minimum of mathematics to maximize the usefulness of the book to performers and instrument builders as well as to students and researchers in musical acoustics. Sometimes, however, it is dif?cult to "translate" ideas from the exact mathematical language of science into words alone, so we include some basic mathematical equations to express these ideas. It is impossible to discuss all families of string instruments. Some instruments have been researched much more than others. Hopefully, the discussions in this book will help to encourage further scienti?c research by both musicians and scientists alike. 1.1 A Brief History of the Science of String Instruments Quite a number of good histories of acoustics have been written.