Fantasies of Improvisation
Free Playing in Nineteenth-Century Music
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:26th Jul '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The first history of keyboard improvisation in European music in the postclassical and romantic periods, Free Play: Fantasies of Improvisation in Nineteenth-Century Music documents practices of improvisation on the piano and the organ, with a particular emphasis on free fantasies and other forms of free playing. Case studies of performers such as Abbé Vogler, J. N. Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, Robert Schumann, Carl Loewe, and Franz Liszt describe in detail the motives, intentions, and musical styles of the nineteenth century's leading improvisers. Grounded in primary sources, the book further discusses the reception and valuation of improvisational performances by colleagues, audiences, and critics, which prompted many keyboardists to stop improvising. Author Dana Gooley argues that amidst the decline of improvisational practices in the first half of the nineteenth century there emerged a strong and influential "idea" of improvisation as an ideal or perfect performance. This idea, spawned and nourished by romanticism, preserved the aesthetic, social, and ethical values associated with improvisation, calling into question the supposed triumph of the "work."
This is an extremely interesting book on a topic that has not received as much attention as it deserves ... Highly recommended. * W. E. Grim, CHOICE *
Classical improvisation is making a comeback, and in timely fashion we can now read its remarkable history. Prof. Gooley has discovered lively contemporary accounts of pianists performing free fantasies on stage for the masses, in salons for elites, and in private for personal inspiration. The big names are all there - Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn - as are dozens of names less well known but hailed as great improvisors in their own day. Through diaries, reviews, letters, and biographies we can gauge the thoughts of both sides of what were by all accounts emotionally powerful interactions between musicians and their audiences. * Robert O. Gjerdingen, Northwestern University *
Gooley's fascinating book sheds new light on the musical nineteenth century, illuminating unwritten histories of improvisation at the keyboard. By focusing on the contemporaneous renown of currently neglected figures such as Vogler, Hummel, Moscheles, and Loewe, Fantasies of Improvisation provides a richly textured account of how extemporization flourished and withered. Beyond that, Gooley elucidates the complex conversion of improvisation into discursive, rhetorical, pedagogical, and ethical terms. As a result, the book not only restores an element of the unexpected to over-determined historical narratives, but also suggests how the scores of Schumann and Liszt might be played and heard afresh. * Roger Moseley, author of Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo to Nintendo *
ISBN: 9780190633585
Dimensions: 239mm x 157mm x 31mm
Weight: 540g
314 pages