1st Edition

Johann Mattheson’s Pièces de clavecin and Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre Mattheson’s Universal Style in Theory and Practice

By Margaret Seares Copyright 2014
136 Pages
by Routledge

136 Pages
by Routledge

136 Pages
by Routledge

A prolific music theorist and critic as well as an established composer, Johannes Mattheson remains surprisingly understudied. In this important study, Margaret Seares places Mattheson’s Pièces de clavecin (1714) in the context of his work as a public intellectual who encouraged German musicians and their musical public to eschew what he saw as the hidebound traditions of the past, and instead... Read more
Contents: Preface; The formative years leading up to Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre and the Pièces de clavecin; Mattheson’s Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre of 1713; Les Pièces de clavecin/Harmonisches Denckmahl; Mattheson’s German heritage; Music à la mode: Mattheson’s response to the music of his Italian and French contemporaries; Mattheson and ‘universalism’; Mattheson’s dance movements: an amalgam of styles; Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

Biography

Emeritus Professor Margaret Seares retired from her role as Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor at The University of Western Australia in 2008. Since her retirement from university administration she has resumed her research work, which focuses on early eighteenth-century music and on Australian cultural policy. She has articles in Early Music and Eighteenth-Century Music and was responsible for the preparation of the online article on Australia’s cultural policy for the Council of Europe. Seares is co-author, with Kay Stevenson, of Paradise Lost in Short: Smith, Stillingfleet and the Transformation of Epic (1998) with co-author Kay Stevenson.

’This book offers an important and fascinating insight into how the world of musical style was viewed in early 18th-century Germany. The translation of Part 3 of Mattheson’s treatise is invaluable.’ Douglas Hollick, The Consort