A Performer's Guide to Transcribing, Editing, and Arranging Early Music provides instruction on three important tasks that early music performers often undertake in order to make their work more noticeable and appealing to their audiences. First, the book provides instruction on using early sources-manuscripts, prints, and treatises-in score, parts, or tablature. It then illuminates priorities behind basic editorial decisions-determining what constitutes a "version" of a musical piece, how to choose a version, and how to choose the source for that version. Lastly, the book offers advice about arranging both early and new music for early instruments, including how to consider instruments' ranges and various registers, how to exploit the unique characteristics of period instruments, and how to produce convincing textures of accompaniment. Drawing on methods based on early models (for example, how baroque composers arranged the music of their contemporaries), Alon Schab pays tribute to the ideas and ideals promoted by the pioneers of the early music revival and examines how these could be implemented in an early music field revolutionized by technology and unprecedented artistic independence.

About the Author
Alon Schab is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Haifa and a committee member of the Purcell Society. A musicologist, composer, and recorder player, he focuses on English music and has published extensively on the music of Henry Purcell.

Reviews
A comprehensive and insightful examination of the origins of the historical performance phenomenon, what it has become today, and where it might be going in the future. Highly recommended. * Mark Kroll, Harpsichordist and Fortepianist; Professor Emeritus, Boston University; Editor, The Cambridge Companion to the Harpsichord *
Alon Schab urges performers of early music to cultivate a 'historic curiosity.' His book should inspire many to do so. With well-chosen examples and lucid explanations, Schab gets readers into the inner workings of processes often taken for granted to the detriment of truly knowledgeable and committed music-making. No one who follows him on the paths he sets forth will fail to come out with greater enlightenment * whether playing Van Eyck's recorder solos, recapturing the spirit of Ortiz's glosadas, reading critical editions critically, or mediating between new and old with arrangements and even original compositions.Joshua Rifkin, Director, The Bach Ensemble *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197600658
Author Alon Schab
Format Hardback
Page Count 286
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 803g
Dimensions(mm) 219mm * 286mm * 20mm