Early Keyboard Instruments
A Practical Guide

Discusses performance issues on keyboard instruments relevant to music from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.

David Rowland (Author)

9780521643665, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 April 2001

168 pages, 52 music examples
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.42 kg

'… the breadth and clarity of presentation and indexing will no doubt ensure that players of any keyboard instrument will want to have [this book] to hand for quick consultation and revision for many years to come.' The British Clavichord Society Newsletter

Early Keyboard Instruments covers a wide range of performance issues on keyboard instruments relevant to the music from c.1700–c.1900. It includes descriptions of the harpsichords, clavichords, pianos and other stringed-keyboard instruments used by performers of the period as well as aspects of technique such as harpsichord registration, piano pedalling and keyboard fingering. Aspects of the notation of keyboard music are discussed, as is articulation, embellishment, tempo flexibility and rubato. A substantial chapter is devoted to case studies, illustrating how the aspects of performance discussed in the rest of the book are worked out in practice, whether playing on period instruments or on the modern piano.

1. Stylistic awareness and keyboard music
2. Repertory, performance and notation
3. The instruments
4. Use of instruments and technique
5. Non-notated and notated issues
6. Case studies
7. Continuo realisation.

Subject Areas: Keyboard instruments [AVRG], Western "classical" music [AVGC]