The stylus phantasticus and free keyboard music of the North German baroque
By: Paul Collins.
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 229
Subjects: Style, Musical.; Music -- 17th century -- Philosophy and aesthetics.; Keyboard instrument music -- Germany -- 17th century -- History and criticism.
Description: "The concept of stylus phantasticus (or 'fantastic style') as it was expressed in free keyboard music of the north German Baroque forms the focus of this book. Exploring both the theoretical background to the style and its application by composers and performers, Paul Collins surveys the development of Athanasius Kircher's original concept and its influence on music theorists such as Brossard, Janovka, Mattheson and Walther. Turning specifically to fantasist composers of keyboard works, the book examines the keyboard toccatas of Merulo, Fresobaldi, Rossi and Froberger and their influence on north German organists Tunder, Weckmann, Reincken, Buxtehude, Bruhns, Lubeck, Bohm and Leyding. The free keyboard music of this distinguished group highlights the intriguing relationship at this time between composition and performance, the concept of fantasy, and the understanding of originality and individuality in seventeenth-century culture."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Classifications of musical style during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; title: Kircher's musurgia universalis (1650) and the stylus phantasticus; title: The stylus phantasticus in eighteenth-century writings : Janovka, Brossard, Mattheson, Walther, and Grassineau; title: The origins of the stylus phantasticus and the style's relationship to rhetoric; title: The free keyboard works of the North German organ school and the stylus phantasticus.