ISBN 9783761825204. 23.5 x 16 cm inches. Language: German.

The handbook traces the tendencies in dealing with “early music” today and in the past and provides concrete and detailed information about the various directions in historical performance practice. It looks at typical manifestations of the scene, analyzes the relationship between music research and the music business and takes the social conditions of musicians into account.

Initially a matter for a few specialists, making music on historical instruments and with historical playing styles became a movement with cultural-political implications in the 1970s and 1980s and is now a natural part of musical life. The scene is now also characterized by pragmatism, but above all by the search for artistic development opportunities in the predominantly independent ensembles.

Historical performance practice, for example, has B. led to a renaissance of baroque opera on stages, promoted a new culture of improvisation and arranging, now also focused on the music of the 19th century, developed techniques for reconstructing music that had not been handed down in writing and crossed borders with other musical genres. The factual chapters written by renowned international authors are supplemented by 14 interviews with leading figures in the early music scene:
Peter Phillips, Philippe Herreweghe, Reinhard Goebel, Jordi Savall, Valer Sabadus, Andrea Marcon, Benjamin Bagby, Chouchane Siranossian, Dorothee Oberlinger, Katharina Bäuml, Ren Jacobs, Dorothee Mields, Christophe Rousset, Gustav Leonhardt

The editor
Richard Lorber is an editor at WDR for early music and opera. In 2016 he was dramaturge at the Bayreuth Festival for the new production of “Parsifal”. He is also active in current reporting for various media. He published “Opera – but how!?” (BVK02061) with Bärenreiter.