Today our musical life has become more and more centered on the performer, who often overshadows the composer himself. What are the interpreter's rights? Where are his limits? Here is a book devoted to the performer's approach to music and to the different styles of interpretation.
From the great scores that have made history, from the statements of the composers about their work, from old treatises, scholarly textbooks, and contemporary literature, the author has gathered an engrossing array of evidence on the trends of interpretation. Here the art of the performer is studied in all its aspects, spiritual, technical, historical: the old Italian methods of singing, the royal virginalists, Frescobaldi's organ playing, dance types from galliard to waltz, phrasing and dynamics, acoustical conditions, the story of the metronome, Beethoven's piano playing and Chopin's rubato, the rise of virtuosity with Paganini and Liszt, the dream orchestra of Berlioz, and the theoretical commentaries of Wagner. Of special interest in these days of individualized expression by performers is the discussion of revisions and "corrections" of famous musical scores. The book closes with a consideration of musical performance on records and in radio, moving pictures, and television.