Marpurg's thoroughbass and composition handbook

About this book

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg is widely recognized today as a highly important, prolific, and influential writer of the 18th-century musical scene. His Handbuch, however, has not received the study and recognition it deserves as one of the most significant and complete composition methods from any period in history. Within its 341 pages and almost 1000 musical examples, Marpurg leads his reader through an extensive course in musical composition beginning with the handling of every conceivable interval, then proceeding to writing for two or more voices, and ending with instruction in canon, fugue, and various types of interval counterpoint. The section devoted to fugue constitutes both a distillation and a refinement of Marpurg's Abhandlung von der Fuge (1753-54), the first monograph devoted to the subject. David Sheldon is a recognized authority on music theory in the critical mid-18th century decades when the Baroque as a musical concept passes into the great Classic Era. This volume carefully examines the material of the Handbuch with regard to origin and influence, while organizing it in such a way as to clarify Marpurg's main concepts and contributions. In this new, translated form the Handbuch will offer much to the present-day scholar and student.